Old Metairie Bistro

[hungryone]

I can't say that I'll be motivated to try a place offering "progressive comfort food".....translates to me as "high profit margin starch requiring little technical expertise to prepare". Am I a curmudgeon? (Yes.) But seriously, these days, I'm not visiting restaurants offering the sort of food I can cook at home. Anyone out there feeling my sentiment?

[Isabella Maja]

I am surprised Isabella, knowing me, that you would make such an incorrect assumption. This is all my own posting.
I'

Sorry, Bob, I just realized it was you.
I didn't assume however.... I said "looks like" and I didn't
mean it in a derogatory at all. Read the part where your post
mentions the chef - and see that it reads like someone else
wrote it or that you own the restaurant.

BTW, my post was written in your defense!

[buzd]

I can't say that I'll be motivated to try a place offering "progressive comfort food".....translates to me as "high profit margin starch requiring little technical expertise to prepare". Am I a curmudgeon? (Yes.) But seriously, these days, I'm not visiting restaurants offering the sort of food I can cook at home. Anyone out there feeling my sentiment?

yes

[paz5559]

I have NO affiliation with this or any other restaurant! I am simply a cheerleader for many of our city's treasures:food, music, art etc.

I too, am an advocate for the things that make New Orleans great. However, I find it best to wait until the place is actually open and worthy of such praise before trumpeting it, because otherwise such posts do have a shill-like quality, whether intended or not.

I personally would not hope to see anyone anywhere I had not dined first (referring to your "hope to see you there").

And Bob, let's not kid here - just cause you don't have any affiliation with the place doesn't mean they haven't agreed to come on your show or host a dinner for the New Deal Meetup Group. Now I don''t know if they have, but clearly they are targeting thought leaders in the local food media (critics, food board moderators, etc), so it is not outside the realm of possibilities.

[LauraMc]

Please tell me "family style" doesn't mean buffett.
I liked the New City Grille atmosphere. My hubby and I saw all the old regulars from the early bird dinners at Barecca's. We're not cheap, we just don't care to dine with children.

[NoNoNanette]

Thank you for posting that, Paz. You were able to perfectly articulate what I was getting at.

[Jeeves]

Anyway, all that bullcrap aside, welcome to Metairie. I love all the new places we can get. I won't be waiting 6 months to try y'all out, a la the Dean. BTW, it's po-boy, if you got them on your menu, not POOR boy.

[wmauk]

Good day folks! This really is fun. Two months ago the name Old Metairie
Bistro didn’t exist, and now we have people speculating on how good or bad the food will be or if we will succeed or not. I think there was even a suggestion of affiliation or underhanded marketing schemes! To be honest, reading all this stuff on message boards gives me entertainment in my very long and stressful days opening this restaurant. So just to give you guys more to talk about I’ll let the “cat out the bag” so to speak. I’ll warn you first that I’m a horrible speller and my grammar leaves a little to be desired, hence why I took up cooking. We will be opening up Monday, June 14 starting with dinner service at 5. After that, normal hours apply (we’re open lunch as well starting the next day). There is no affiliation with an outside source what so ever. It’s just two young chefs and a jolly business man from the west bank (don’t hold that against him!) I being one of the chefs have taken the roll of GM while my friend Eric is the executive chef in charge of daily kitchen operations. I’ve never met “Bob”, but Eric told me he stopped by and got some info about the place (Bob, we’ll talk later about marketing). I know it may sound like a good idea for a new restaurant to contact media outlets but it’s not. There’s going to be kinks that have to be worked out, and it’s best to have critics come in after you’ve got your ducks in row. Now when I say we are two young chefs I’m referring to our age, not our experience. Eric and I started this business 10 years ago in the same restaurant. Since then we’ve always talked about this restaurant, we were just unsure of when and where. I went on to peruse my career with Jonathan Wright at the Windsor Court, Rene Bajeux, Clary’s (anyone from Missouri?), Muriel’s, and Scallo in Albuquerque. Eric left to Chicago and had the opportunity to work at the best the city had to offer including Pop’s for Champagne, Charlie Trotter’s and Grant Achetz Alinea. Afterward he moved to Nachez to become the chef at the AAA four diamond Monmouth Plantation. So on to the “high profit margin starch requiring little technical expertise to prepare” that you guys can cook at home. Good luck with that! but seriously, a lot of you guys probably could cook this food at home (or at least your grandma could) but I’m not sure a lot of you have the 3 days its takes to make our red wine jus, the 2 days it takes for our duck confit. You’ll need hours to roll out your own fresh pasta or stuff your own sausage. We came up with Progressive American Comfort Food because it was catchier then “like grandma did it”. People always want to label cuisine, and a lot of times when the label falls out of favor so does the restaurant i.e. Asian fusion. We were just tired of pretentious food that makes you wonder if you’re supposed to eat it or hang it on your wall. Sometimes it’s wonderful; sometimes it’s confusing, and sometimes it simply doesn’t taste good, but one thing it always does is drain your wallet. We have been responsibly creative with our menu, and our intent was to keep it affordable. The person that mentioned that old Metairie people are not cheap was right. However they don’t like to be cheated. They want nice pours on their wine, stiff drinks, good food and fair prices. We don’t save money at the guest expense. Anyway, thanks for everyone’s interest, and I hope this gets some of the questions you had out of the way. I’ve got a lot to do so I’m going to get back to work!
William

[BTG]

Thanks so much for posting all of that information on here. I drive past the place every day so I can't wait for you all to open.

If you do come to hang out at some of these boards, just be sure to have thick skin because there are alot of whiney folks who like to complain about anything and it is best just to keep everything on the up and up and not get defensive. A certain restaurant on Metairie Rd of French influence really didn't help their cause much when the one of the owners decided they were going to belittle someone on one of these boards because of a bad review and then made things worse by aguing the point some more.

[flyinbayou]

So did this place open?