Restaurant August is located in New Orleans. It is owned by Next Iron Chef Finalist, John Besh. We highly recommend it and would go again on our next trip to New Orleans.
http://www.restaurantaugust.com/
We booked a 6pm table at Restaurant August for Mark's birthday. We decided to go with the Degustation menu – a nine course meal with wine pairings. Carlos was our server for the evening.
Amuse bouche - Served in an egg shell with caviar and egg foam, garnished with green onions. Served chilled, tasted of green onions.
1st course - Salad with a vinaigrette – served with Chenin Blanc. The wine was a little fruit forward. Salad was served with a vinaigrette. Wine was a little too fruity and overpowered the food a little, but still good.
2nd course – Foie gras with sauternes. The foie gras was served with strawberry-rhubarb sauce. This was our first time having foie gras and it was alittle salty, but paired well with the sauce and the sauternes.
3rd course – Restaurant August's take on a Crawfish boil served with a Mersault with Viognier blend. The crawfish were served whole and in a cream sauce. This course was a lot of work. We weren't sure exactly how to eat them, so we had to ask our waiter. Carlos was nice enough to show us how to eat them. Once we knew what to do, it wasn't so bad. I was really surprised I liked this course since I'm not a big fan of shellfish, but it was really good.
4th course – Pan seared scallops with a veal morel mushroom sauce with Pinot Noir from Carneros. The wine and food was paired well; Mark really liked it. It wasn't my favorite, but I don't like mushrooms and scallops aren't my favorite either, so I wouldn't listen to me.
5th course – Montrachet with mammal – at least that's what our waiter told us. He was convinced on keeping this course a secret, which made the tasting a lot of fun for us. This course was Rabbit, 2 ways with Ratatouille. Yummy. The meat was served in a creamy sauce and a good pasta. A good wine pairing too.
6th Course – 2004 Tablas Creek Grenache. Veal ravioli with truffle foam. Excellent and the wine pairing was also good. Mark thinks this is the best pairing of the night - thus far.
7th Course – Sous vide Kobe Beef with tomato foam and fresh asparagus with Philip Moran Pinot Noir. Beef melts in your mouth – flavor a little reminiscent of corned beef. The wine was nice, but a little too light for us.
8th Course – Tawny port with grilled goat cheese sandwiches with tomato sorbet and honey with pine nuts. Very good and creamy. matched up well with the tawny port.
9th and final Course – Champagne with panna cotta with stewed strawberries. Yummy. Unfortunately, I was very full by this time. But yummy!. I also guessed when I saw the champagne that strawberries would be following.
After dinner , the waiter, who knew it was Mark's birthday, invited us back to the kitchen. We got to meet the chef, Mike Gulotta. We were able to tell him how yummy everything was and how much we appreciated the hard work. It was very cool to see everything. The kitchen was well organized, but smaller than I expected. The whole dining experience took about 3 hours. We were both unbelievably full by the end of the meal, but it was so worth it.
Overall this was my favorite and best meal I've ever eaten.