On Friday I had the best meal I've had in a long, long time. Maybe ever. Here: https://saintgermainnola.com/

There were twelve seats in the dining room, and the folks who put the meal together are pretty impressively-credentialed. I was a little concerned the food was going to be up its own ass: fancy for the sake of fancy rather than good. But happily, that fear was misplaced. The food was certainly fancy (who shells peas and serves the skins separately from the peas?!) but it was presented with such an element of humanity and casualness that really helped. And it doesn't hurt that everything was outstanding.

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It being only twelve seats, and it being vegetarian week, the menu is not exhaustive. Your choice is a tasting menu, or a smaller version of the same testing menu. I went with the big 'un with wine pairings because of course.

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First were cornmeal johnny cakes (my term not theirs) served with 90 day cultured butter, in-house, and tarragon salt. The long culturing really did make a difference with some funky / cheesy notes in the butter.

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Second was a delicata squash, cut into quarters, with some (also house-made, like everything else) mustard, and a smoked squash blossom on top. Delicate, and the mustard was mayyyyybe just a tiny bit too strong, but excellent.

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Then the real stuff began. A corn pudding, set with carrageen (i'm nearly sure) and succotash, with the peas / pea skins, in a corn broth.

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Then a perfect french oemelette with a little salad and some squash . . . i'm gonna call it a yellow summer squash hollandaise, which is probably wrong but gets the idea right.

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After that the wine started to take hold and though the experience was wonderful the notes got a little worse. It was a mushroom dish - lion's mane, lobster, and chanterelles, on top of a creamy . . . something. A very rich dish that worked well. There were house-pickled mustard greens in there, which is a bit of an undertaking, and good on them for doing it.

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And then malfatti with a lovage sauce and both dried / brined green peppercorns. Very good balance of richness and brightness.

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Finally, a shaved ice with about 1,000 floral notes on top of toasted marshmallow. Again, excellent.

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I don't quite know how to tie the meal together other than by describing it. It's a surprise little find - outstanding food tucked into a tiny little place in the bywater. Not "outstanding food" like "you can't believe how good this po boy is." That'd be expected. Outstanding like "this rivals or exceeds the food at any of the fancy restaurants were I've eaten in the city, or any other city in the world."