The exterior of Antoine’s, an institution in the French Quarter. It is still run by the descendants of the original owner.
New Orleans is celebrating some weighty milestones this year, including the bicentennial of the Battle of New Orleans and next week, the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The 175th anniversary of Antoine's Restaurant is secondary in comparison, but not unrelated. Hurricane Katrina has become important to the restaurant's lore.
Antoine's is a French Quarter institution, still run by descendants of Antoine Alciatore, a French immigrant who at 18 opened a boarding house and restaurant there in 1840. Its proprietors call it the oldest continually operating restaurant in America.
Antoine's is the birthplace of oysters Rockefeller, named for John D. Rockefeller due to its rich sauce. A visit there is a walk back in New Orleans history, from its architecture in a house that included slave quarters to hundreds of photographs of famous diners such as Franklin Roosevelt, Pope John Paul II, Morgan Freeman and the Rolling Stones. Besides the two main dining areas still lit by chandeliers from the 1800s, there are 12 smaller dining rooms. Some bear the names of the Mardi Gras krewes, and one was known as the Mystery Room, which Prohibition-era patrons entered through a secret door in a ladies' room to drink liquor served in coffee cups.
Antoine's is one of the few restaurants in the French Quarter that suffered serious damage from Katrina; the walls, ceilings and floors of the main building collapsed, and Rick Blount, Antoine's CEO and a fifth-generation Alciatore, thought Antoine's might have to be torn down completely.
"The question was, how do I save the staff and keep them whole so we can be Antoine's, and how do I save the building so we can be Antoine's?" Blount said. Antoine's reopened on New Year's Eve 2006 — four months after the storm — after $16 million in repairs.
"To reopen with the same staff was so important," Blount said, noting its head chef has been there for 43 years. "The continuity is so important. Oysters Rockefeller has to be the same."
Blount's eyes still turn down when he talks about the one employee Antoine's lost during the storm, a maitre d'. But he also feels fortunate.
"I was afraid I'd lost 30," he said.
It has not been an easy road back. Blount says that in 2005, Antoine's was on track to take in $10 million. In 2006, it pulled in just $4.4 million. Only this year will it reach $10 million again.
"The storm is now part of Antoine's history," he said, pointing to the frames on the wall. Each photo reveals a permanent line of water damage at its edge.
This article has been updated to reflect that Antoine's reopened four months after the storm, not more than a year later as an earlier version stated.