Cuisine:

• Coffee Houses
• Continental
• Cajun
• Creole
• Catering
• Contemporary

Dante's Kitchen Description:
Cool, contemporary and consistent best describe this restaurant. A veteran of Uptown's landmark Commander's Palace restaurant, owner and chef Emmanuel Loubier takes a California approach to Creole cooking, meaning that a meal here is invariably an adventure. Grains, aromatic vegetables and herbs inform much of the repertoire while even ordinary side dishes get the local touch, such as sweet potatoes with a nip of Barq's, a New Orleans original root beer. You might find pumpkin soup on a menu anywhere in the country, but here it has the Louisiana garnish of house-made tasso ham while the Dante's Kitchen version of low country shrimp and grits gets a local fillip from andouille red-eye gravy. Brunch is a mainstay for locals, largely because of such dishes as bread pudding french toast, roasted duck hash cakes and jumbo lump crab meat, and Brie omelets. Occupying an old house near the Mississippi River levee, this 70-seat restaurant has an informal ambience, with a covered terrace, a small private dining room and an airy bar.