Frommer's Review
When Anne Kearney gave up her seminal restaurant, local foodies went into mourning. Peristyle was regarded by many as the best in New Orleans, so this was a blow. Still, locals took heart, because new chef-owner Thomas Wolfe was behind the well-regarded Wolfe's in Metairie. Different Peristyle it would be, but still worthy.
Unfortunately, those optimistic expectations haven't yet been borne out. Visits keep producing largely mediocre food. Perhaps it was our fault for not realizing that champagne-vanilla bean poached oysters wouldn't work (shellfish and sweet dessert sauce simply don't go together), but it was on the menu, so why not give it a whirl? Lump crabmeat and roasted beets was a better combination, but the pickled red onions were an erroneous tart touch. Shrimp mille-feuille tasted fine, but with the shrimp cut lengthwise in half, the pretty layers revealed stingy portions. As for entrees, roast chicken topped with apricots was juicy (not always the case in restaurants) but dumped on tasteless, dry, and pointless oven-baked crispy spaetzle (dumplings). Pan-seared tuna suffered from similar careless presentation; it just looked dumped on the plate, while the "toasted almond beurre noisette" on the Gulf fish of the evening translated to a bunch of dry almond slivers heaped on the (admittedly, in this case, generous portion of) fish. By the time the desserts came around, a small meringue coffee Alaska and dull chocolate (prompting one diner to wish for a simple hot fudge sundae), the mood was glum. A repeat trip for the prix-fixe lunch produced a split decision; one set of appetizers and entrees tasted strangely fishy (the fish in question may have been frozen), while the other combination was fine. Wolfe's in Metairie was a casualty of Katrina, and we are sorry, but perhaps that means Chef will begin to shine here at last.
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