The Room
La Petite Grocery sits on the corner of Magazine and Berlin, Uptown, in a Creole cottage built by John B. Willig in the late 1800s. The yellow facade, the green doors and the canted-corner entrance read as the New Orleans residential cottage the building literally is. Justin Devillier — California-born, James Beard finalist for Best Chef: South — has run the kitchen since 2007 and bought the restaurant with his wife Mia in 2010.
The interior is small, polished, deliberate. Banquette seating along one wall, two-tops along the other, a counter in front of the open kitchen that is the seat for a single diner who wants the chef's view. The room has the controlled hum of a serious neighbourhood restaurant — quieter than the deal-dinner rooms downtown, more disciplined than the Quarter's tourist trade.
La Petite Grocery is on the short list every long-time New Orleans diner has of the city's most reliably good kitchens, and the booking window has not loosened in two decades. The blue crab beignets — Devillier's most-photographed dish — are the order that converts every first-time diner to a regular.
The Food
Devillier's cooking is French-American with a deep New Orleans bench, executed at the level his James Beard finals would suggest. The blue crab beignets are the signature: lump Gulf crab, lightly battered, fried to a colour that holds the crab's sweetness, served with a malt-vinegar aïoli that is the dish's quiet anchor. The Gulf fish of the day, simply prepared and finished with a beurre blanc, is the order for the diner who wants the kitchen's restraint.
Beyond those, the rabbit gnocchi, the chicken liver pâté and the seasonal pasta course set the case for the kitchen's range. The cheese plate is small but intelligently chosen. Desserts hew to French-classical with a usable affogato that uses local roasted coffee. Wine programme is French and American with a substantial natural-wine bench; the by-the-glass list rotates with discipline.
Service is the reason regulars become lifers. The captains know the menu by heart, the pace holds the room without chasing it, and the small courtesies at the end of the meal — a signed menu, a dessert from the kitchen — read as the courtesy a serious neighbourhood restaurant has earned the right to extend.
Best Occasion Fit
First Date: La Petite Grocery's small dining room is the first-date answer for the diner who wants the meal to do the lifting rather than the room. The menu is short enough to navigate together, the bill is plausible at $90 a head, and the conversation has the food to lean on when it needs to. The counter in front of the open kitchen is the upgrade for a third date.
Close a Deal: Magazine Street is the address for the Uptown deal dinner. La Petite Grocery is the room. The blue crab beignets are the icebreaker; the Gulf fish of the day is the closer; the wine programme is the bonus the host can quietly take credit for. Book the corner banquette.
Birthday: Birthdays at La Petite Grocery are the kind a New Orleans regular books once a year and looks forward to all year. A small dessert with a candle, the signed menu, the captain's acknowledgement at the table — never a song, never a spectacle.