Stanley Restaurant
547 Saint Ann Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
If location, location, location, is the gold standard for both real estate and eateries, The Stanley Restaurant is the Fort Knox of food emporiums in New Orleans. Located at the corner of St. Ann and Chartres in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral, it is at the edge of Jackson Square, a must see attraction in New Orleans for about one hundred reasons, all of them good.
I am starved. Serving breakfast all day long is all I had to know about Stanley's. Ten seconds after being handed the menu, my eyes fix on the “Omelette Sandwich”– eggs, smoked ham, smoked bacon, American cheese, grilled sweet onions and spicy mayonnaise on toasted whole-grain bread–$9.50. Sold.
If I were being served a sandwich like this in Boston, chances are it would be served with a bottle of ketchup. With one hand, my waiter lays the plated sandwich on the granite tabletop. With the other hand he grips bottles of Tabasco Pepper Sauce and Crystal, Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce.
A couple of shakes of each bottle, two pools of red sauce, and I begin wolfing down the large crisply toasted sandwich, pausing every few bites to swig ice water to cool my mouth and pat myself on the back for beginning to eat like a New Orleanian. Nevermind that my nose is running.
As I leave, my waiter suggests I come back the next morning for the specialty of the house–Breaux Bridge Benedict: housemade boudin, smoked ham, American cheese, poached eggs, and Creole hollandaise on French bread – $14.
“It's a tower of food, the best breakfast in New Orleans,” he says, “You'll have to photograph it to believe it.”
In the Crescent city, I’ve begun believing anything about food.
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Apparently, the food at Stanley's inspires customers to take notes; the venerable St. Louis Cathedral, as good a place as any to give thanks for a good meal.
At the corner of Chartres and St. Ann, the Stanley Restaurant is prime location; menu - the tip of the iceberg.
A familiar duo on tabletops in Louisiana
Comments