Best Restaurants: Always Lavish Lutie’s
Words by Jessi Devenyns Photos by Baptiste Despois
Luscious is how one could sum up a dining experience at Lutie’s. From the atmosphere to the service to the food, this small space, filled with sumptuous banquettes, vibrant color, clinking glasses, and heady kitchen scents, is in a league of its own.
One may be forgiven for anticipating a menu as lavish as the interior. While the dishes are decadently layered with flavor, they are built on a principle of simplicity. “Bradley’s style of cooking has a lot of intense flavors, but it’s also very simply presented. It just has more behind-the-scenes stuff going on,” pastry chef Susana Querejazu shares about her husband, chef Bradley Nicholson.
Behind the closed doors of the kitchen is a story of love, life, and beauty. Humble ingredients like rice and chickpeas are coaxed into alliances with seasonal flavors to build intricate textural interplays and set the scene for a new sensation in each bite.
Although Bradley is sparing in the number of ingredients he uses, the ones he features are chosen with care. Server Alex Caccese carefully enumerates the provenance of the ingredients from the signature trout dish: a take on a weeknight ensemble of fish and rice but adorned with smoked trout roe for good measure. To add further interest, the rice, the fish, and the gin in the recommended cocktail pairing all come from Mississippi, chef Bradley’s home state. “I really do enjoy cooking fish, and that’s what I like to eat,” Bradley admits with a shrug.
While the bulk of the menu expresses hints of a childhood surrounded by the bounty of the sea (scallop carpaccio with an apple-habanero relish and bluefin tuna sashimi with hints of citrus, as well as shrimp battered and fried between airy layers of vegetables), the pastry menu has clear influence from Susana’s Texas upbringing. The kouign amann ice cream is a monument to the labor of love that goes into each dish at Lutie’s, and the seasonal lemon curd has a distinct sense of place, pairing Texas citrus with a light mousse and then contrasting this airiness with the creamy presence of coconut ice cream.
Regardless of what a diner chooses, expect place and time to influence each dish that is crafted into a theatrical representation of life’s seasons, all wrapped into an exceptional dining experience at Lutie’s.
Contact:
100 Red River St.
luties.com
