During the New Orleans summer, we travel if we can, hunker down when we must and take any seasonal satisfactions we can wring from this time of year.
One of these is Coolinary, the annual program of citywide summer dining deals which marks its 20th year in 2024. It’s a boost for restaurants that can potentially transform the summer doldrums, and it’s become something locals and regional travelers have embraced and make plans around.
The annual Coolinary program returns in August, bringing summer dining deals at a wide range of restaurants.
This year, it returns with a greatly expanded format and a wider variety of restaurants around the New Orleans dining scene taking part.
What’s new this year?
Spaghetti with ground shrimp was part of the 2023 Coolinary dinner menu at the Bower in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Coolinary this year stretches from Aug. 1 to Sept. 15, two weeks longer than the usual run. The city’s separate but similar Restaurant Week has moved from September to June, which opened an opportunity to expand Coolinary. The move acknowledges that early September can be the bottom of summer’s barrel for restaurants before bigger conventions start back up.
Coolinary’s price parameters have risen again this year, a reflection that everything that goes into serving a restaurant meal has become more expensive, too.
Restaurants offer two-course lunches for $28 or less, and three-course dinners and brunches for $58 or less (up a bump from last year’s threshold of $25 and $50, respectively). Some add other offers with optional drink pairings, or even a drink included in the set price to sweeten the deal.
Two more changes are the number of Coolinary restaurants in 2024, which was up to 130 at this writing with more expected to join, and also the variety of restaurants taking part, as we’ll see below.
Who takes part?
Chef Sophina Uong and her husband William “Wildcat” Greenwell at their restaurant Mister Mao on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
New Orleans & Co., the city’s tourism and convention agency, came up with Coolinary in 2004 as a way to help local restaurants in summer. Kim Priez, senior vice president for the group, calls it a tool that restaurants can use and tailor to fit their style, clientele and needs.
“It is built for the restaurants, it’s there for them to use if they wish,” she said.
As always, the roster of Coolinary restaurants represents which restaurants have decided to participate. Restaurants must be members of New Orleans & Co. for inclusion, and this year, the group offered a special deal for restaurants interested in signing up, prorating the cost of basic annual membership to $165 (from $350) for the rest of year.
The result this year shows an increasingly diverse range of restaurants, reflecting different styles, and price ranges and more minority-owned restaurants than in the past.
Fish and grits with andouille and maque choux is part of the all-day breakfast and lunch menu at Chapter IV, the downtown restaurant from Edgar “Dook” Chase IV. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
That includes Chapter IV, the downtown lunch and brunch restaurant from Edgar “Dook” Chase IV (try the fish and grits at lunch), and also his family’s landmark restaurant Dooky Chase’s.
Suzie’s Soulhouse Soulfood Restaurant is back and another new addition is Queen Trini Lisa, a true hidden gem in Mid-City for the “Trinbagonian soul food” of chef Lisa Nelson’s native Trinidad and Tobago.
There’s more Latin American flavor on Coolinary menus this year too, from Venezuelan cuisine at the new Origen Bistro in Bywater to ceviche specialist Besame, downtown near the Saenger Theatre, and the Colombian small plates restaurant Baru Bistro & Tapas.
There are new Coolinary additions for Thai food (Good Catch Thai Urban Bistro), Chinese food (Zhang Bistro) and the globally playful food served at Mister Mao.
Wide price range, more variety
A mimosa is topped off with champagne during the reopening of Antoine’s in New Orleans, Friday, Sept. 25, 2020. The historic Antoine’s restaurant closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Across this year‘s menus, you’ll find most of the traditional French Creole restaurants all represented (Antoine’s, Tujague’s, Galatoire’s, Arnaud’s, Brennan’s).
But Coolinary parameters have expanded to include counter service restaurants. That’s why this year you see many more very casual spots, serving menus priced much lower than the Coolinary ceiling.
Some counter service Coolinary examples this year are Blue Oak BBQ, Café NOMA (inside the New Orleans Museum of Art), Clesi’s Seafood and even Dat Dog on Frenchmen Street (where one of third course of its dinner menu is a frozen daiquiri).
Give back
Some Coolinary meals are steals, some are still pretty decadent. All of them have an easy way to give back built in this time around. To mark its 20th anniversary, Coolinary is asking diners to consider making a donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank to fight hunger in the region, and at the end of the program New Orleans & Co. will match the total to double its impact. See neworleans.com/coolinary to give.
You can find the special menus at coolinaryneworleans.com, and check the details and restrictions (some menus are offered on select days).
This article was originally published by a www.nola.com . Read the Original article here. .