Grilled ribeye cap with Bayona kimchi fried rice.
What is required for a New Orleans restaurant to ascend to the status of an institution? The restaurant that chef Susan Spicer opened with business partner Regina Keever in 1990 has certainly passed the test of time. Few local restaurants can claim to have had a more lasting impact on the city’s fine dining culture. What’s unique about Bayona is the nature of Spicer’s influence. As a young chef, she bet that diners would embrace a New Orleans restaurant that didn’t serve New Orleans-identified food – an untimely idea in Bayona’s early years, when Spicer’s contemporary Emeril Lagasse was about to make New Orleans-identified food even more bankable than it already was. Spicer stayed true to her vision of a Southern restaurant strongly influenced by the cooking of the Mediterranean and beyond, where tables are set with small dishes of Indian-spiced pickles, and where house signatures include peppered lamb loin served with herbed goat cheese and salmon fillets riding beds of choucroute in Gewurztraminer sauce. A raft of prominent New Orleans chefs, including Aaron Burgau, Megan Forman, John Harris and Donald Link, cut their teeth in Bayona’s cramped kitchen. Current chef de cuisine Eason Barksdale is among a new generation following Spicer’s example, churning out dishes that keep Bayona fresh and prove a maxim that his mentor has been market-testing for nearly three decades: the best recipe is a curious mind mixed with excellent taste.
430 Dauphine St., New Orleans, 504.525.4455
Open: Dinner M-Sa, lunch W-Sa. Parking: Street, pay lots.
Dinner entrée prices: $26-$42. Reservations: Yes.
Standout dishes: P & J oyster gratin, goat cheese crouton, veal sweetbreads, sautéed redfish, peppered lamb, apple hazelnut tart.
Affiliated restaurants: Mondo and Rosedale.