Charlie’s Steak House, New Orleans, LA Report #496

It’s COOLinary time! My favorite time of year. For the entire month of August restaurants all over New Orleans are putting together prix-fixe lunch and dinner menus for a special price. Here’s the official link for more information and a list of the participating restaurants: https://www.neworleans.com/coolinary/

I haven’t been to this steakhouse since before Hurricane Katrina (2005), and remember it being very good. There was some talk about them not reopening after that storm. I was hoping they would, because I hate seeing old New Orleans restaurants shutting down.

Speaking of old, I didn’t realize this was the oldest steakhouse in the city. Their doors opened in 1932. It’s located on a backstreet in Uptown New Orleans, a block away from another famous, old place. Pascal’s Manale. If you’re interested in their history, you can find out more here: https://charliessteakhousenola.com/new-orleans-charlie-s-steak-house-history

When you walk in the only thing downstairs is the bar. We headed upstairs at about 6:05PM for our 6:15 reservations, and the dining room was completely empty! Another same sized dining room right next to it was also empty. Had they gone down so much since my last visit 17 years ago that no one comes here anymore? Except for the people sucking down alcohol at the bar downstairs? But the other picture was how it looked in about a half hour. Plenty of other diners showed up. I was relieved.

I was glad to see they were participating in COOLinary 2022. They’re offering a dinner menu served from Tuesday-Friday, and here it is!

The above was the menu posted online. I’m not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, so I interpreted it like this. You can get the first, second and third course for $45, AND add a steak to that for an additional fee. So, I figured my dining partner and I could get onion rings, a wedge salad, crabmeat au gratin and the ice cream, and for $25 more throw in an 18oz ribeye. That’d be plenty of food for $70!

I was wrong. When we got to our table this menu explained it better:

So, there’s no ordering one COOLinary meal and splitting it. Each person at the table has to order one. We ordered one with the crabmeat au gratin and another with the 18oz ribeye. Our sides were potatoes au gratin and creamed spinach.

&&&&&&&&&& THE FOOD &&&&&&&&&&

Onion Rings

Blue Cheese Wedge Salad

Crabmeat au Gratin

Ribeye

Creamed Spinach and Potatoes au Gratin

Italian Spumoni Ice Cream

Don’t let the picture of the onion rings fool you. When I saw them, I thought they looked a little pale. Like they might not be crisp. But they were very crisp! And some of the sweetest onions I had ever tasted. Very good.

The blue cheese wedge was loaded with blue cheese dressing. I love blue cheese, so I thought it was delicious. If you’re not a blue cheese person, you can get it with Thousand Island or Italian dressing.

The cut away picture of the crabmeat au gratin doesn’t do it justice. I was trying to show how it was loaded with crabmeat. But it seems like every time I made a new cut to show that, I just hid it more and made it worse. This was a fantastic entrée.

Our steak was cooked perfectly. Nice and tender, and served on a rocket hot, sizzling metal platter swimming in melted, spitting and popping butter. Excellent.

Both of the sides we ordered were great.

Finally, they serve Italian Spumoni Ice Cream from Angelo Brocato. Normally, you think desserts are better if they’re made in-house. Not in this case. If you’re going to serve Spumoni and Biscotti, get it from Angelo Brocato. In my opinion you can’t get any better!

Fantastic first COOLinary dinner of the season. One you shouldn’t miss.

4510 Dryades St., New Orleans, LA 70115 Ph: (504) 895-9323

Blaine 8-5-2022

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