We haven't been to Commander's in years. The last ...

We haven't been to Commander's in years. The last time may have been to celebrate my wife's graduation from Tulane Law School...and that was, well, some time ago.

But being back in New Orleans for a few days, my wife and I decided to do Commander's again, and our son, who was born in New Orleans, flew down from Boston to join us. We asked a concierge at the Roosevelt Hotel to arrange reservations at the time we needed on a Saturday night, which she kindly did.

Commander's Palace is rightly known for its great service, and that was the case on this visit. Several different servers and runners are constantly looking out for you, to see if you need anything, but it's not so much that it's a bother. We of course started with cocktails. Two of us had Sazaracs, which were excellent and only $9 (drinks in general are moderately priced at Commander's, and at lunch sometimes they do the 25 cent martini thing.) I had a vodka martini, which was not quite dry enough and not cold enough, so I switched to a gin martini, which was perfectly dry and very cold, though Commander's didn't have my first two choices of gin -- Plymouth and Old Tom. I settled for Tangueray.

We then had salads and soup as starters. My Commander's Romaine Salad was fantastic, with homemade bacon and a special dressing. The famed Turtle Soup was excellent, though to my taste a bit salty, and the one-one-one "flight" of soup (gumbo, turtle and soup of the day) was a hit.



The hit of the meal may have been the unique Commander's Bread Pudding, which is much lighter than most bread puddings in New Orleans, with a kind of merengue topping and whisky sauce. Absolutely fantastic. You need to order this early in your meal.

Commander's menu is, somewhat surprisingly, fairly limited. The entire menu fits on one side of a large menu card. They only do perhaps a dozen main dishes, but what they do they do very well.

Is Commander's my favorite restaurant in New Orleans? No, but the lovely Garden District setting, the history, the great service and the dependable dishes are worth the cost, which can be considerable. With three entrees, two salads, three soups, two cocktails each, plus a glass of wine each (we Ubered to and from the restaurant), plus one dessert, the tab came to about $130 per person including tax and tip. Not something you would do every weekend, but worth it for a splurge night out. We were in the restaurant for nearly three hours, so a visit to Commander's is pretty much a full evening.