Emeril’s NOLA Restaurant

Today was mostly a travel day, as we boarded a crazy early flight from San Francisco to New Orleans. Our flight was at 8:00 AM, but we were a good 30 minutes or so away from the airport.

We asked the folks at the rental car place how much buffer time we should allow, and were advised to show up about 2.5 hours prior to our flight time. We were leaving on a Monday morning, and we were told that there’s typically a rush with business folks dropping off rentals at around that time.

So we pulled ourselves out of bed around 4:00 AM, packed up and quietly snuck out of the house… and made our way through some serious fog, to the airport. Given some of the steep curves we took, it was a little unnerving having to drive the route (particularly in a state of sleep dep).

The time estimate we were given was pretty good, as the whole security checkpoint process was really quite slow. Our flight got us in to New Orleans around 3:45 PM, and it was closer to 5PM by the time we got to our hotel room and were fully settled/unpacked.

On talking to our hotel concierge, we got a few recommendations for places to eat in the French Quarter. We weren’t sure on the overall wait time, but the concierge was able to call over to Emeril’s NOLA restaurant, and got us a reservation. It was a somewhat early dinner time for us, but since we mostly had airline crackers all day… it would be the first real meal of the day. Looking back, it was good that we got in when we did, as the place definitely filled up (with lots of folks waiting around by the time we left).

I should take this opportunity to mention the fantastic Huffencooper Guide to New Orleans (courtesy of Cinnamon Cooper and Andrew Huff). We referenced this doc of theirs extensively on our trip, and it never steered us wrong.

My dessert, the Crème Brûlée Trio: vanilla bean with fresh berries, coconut with a coconut truffle, mocha with chocolate-almond biscotti.

Liz’s dessert, the Popcorn Sundae: fudge brownie, popcorn ice cream, topped with caramel sauce and caramel corn.

A brief shot of the interior, as we were waiting for the elevator. The layout of the space seemed interesting, as there was a large elevator shaft near the entrance (and the restaurant seemed to span 3 floors).