Frankly, I was not always a fan of Galatoire's, for there was a long period in its 108-year old history when the food was merely mediocre. For years, 32 members of the Galatoire family had squabbled over their pieces of the pie, and in 2009, an investor group led by John Georges gained the majority interest in the restaurant, with the family's participation reduced to only four members in a minority role. This continuity of family participation was important to the new investor group, which included local businessmen Todd Trosclair and Bill Kearney. They recognized that the venerable Galatoire's could be a movable feast through expansion. First, though, they had to improve everything about the venerable restaurant without seeming to change a thing.

Galatoire's décor and kitchen have been restored and the cooking upgraded so that now it is among the best in the Big Easy, as rendered by Chef Michael Sichel, who shows both care and respect for all those cooks who preceded him for the past century, keeping the religion of Galatoire's alive. They no longer have chipped ice in the water glasses, but otherwise the restaurant is exactly the same as ever, just so much better.

If asked where you're going for lunch in the French Quarter, say it the way they do in New Orleans: "GAL-a twahz." Accent on the first syllable then slide into that big plummy finish. If you're speaking to a regular, he'll answer back, "Excellent choice! Say hello to Mike. He's been my waiter for twenty years."

Galatoire's is not as old as Antoine's (1840), nor does it have the culinary reputation of Commander's Palace, but it a mystical place in the hearts of New Orleanians whose families have been coming here since French immigrant Jean Galatoire opened up on Bourbon Street in 1905. Since then, Friday lunch has been as requisite for New Orleanians as Mass on Sunday, and every bit as restorative.

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Friday lunch at Galatoire's.

Until Galatoire's started taking reservations a few years ago for the handsome upstairs dining room, a well-behaved line of people would stretch down the block to the corner of Iberville Street to wait for a table downstairs, which is to Galatoire's what the Sistine Chapel is to St. Peter's Basilica. Even in the sauna-like heat of summer, the women dress to the nines in pastels and men wear seersucker suits, bowties, and the white Panama hats they bought at Meyer the Hatter on Saint Charles Avenue. Some people even hire stand-ins to get in line early in the morning just after Bourbon Street has been washed down.

They still don't take reservations for the downstairs dining room, but — once inside the polished mahogany doors — if your father and grandfather were regulars, you'll ask for your usual waiter, who arrives in a pressed tuxedo and pleated shirt. He will acknowledge you with cordial deference, not as a faux pal. He will take your cocktail order — everyone orders a cocktail on Friday — then launch into the day's specials, the ones he himself approves of: "Got some beautiful redfish in this morning, and the soft shells came in big and fat. Fry 'em up with some Bearnaise sauce for ya."

The busboy brings ice water and a glass pitcher and a table for two still gets eight pats of butter, refreshed after a while even if not used. Hot French bread comes next as you peruse the menu, which, by and large, has not changed in decades and has never strayed from its Creole traditions of classics like gumbo, shrimp remoulade, oysters Rockefeller, and chicken Bonne-Femme.

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The fish, as "delicious as the less criminal forms of sin."

You look around the room and, with the soft Louisiana sunlight seeping through the lace window curtains, you see the familiar décor of deep green walls imprinted with gold fleur-de-lys, with cream-colored wainscoting, panels of mirrors, brass sconces, and ceiling fans doubling as chandeliers, giving the room a timeless cast, in which the guests provide a booming joviality that is a mix of ten parts New Orleans swagger and one part Southern gentility.

By one o'clock, things are in full swing, and voices rise with laughter as everyone digs into lunch — ruddy red thick turtle soup, a gumbo rich with duck and andouille, trout mounted high with lump crabmeat and almonds, and pompano — the fish Mark Twain said was as "delicious as the less criminal forms of sin." The fish here begin their day in the Gulf but end up swimming in oceans of good butter. The lyonnaise potatoes come hidden under a thatch of sweet onions.

And then there's that Galatoire's curiosity: deep-fried sticks of zucchini, which you stick in a mix of Tabasco sauce and powdered sugar, as an appetizer.

A bottle of Chablis is turned in an ice bucket, ready to be uncorked after you finish your sazerac cocktail. Dishes arrive at a civilized pace. The late-arriving ladies at the next table are on their second round of Sazeracs. Life is always good within the walls of Galatoire's, a relic that refreshes itself every day.

Since 2005, there's been a branch of Galatoire's in Baton Rouge, and they're opening a steakhouse next door. I have a queasy feeling there will be more to come. But for now the New Orleans original is on a very short list of landmark restaurants that are an indelible part of the soul of a city.

209 Bourbon Street
New Orleans
504-525-2021
www.galatoires.com

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