New Orleans Mag Names Top New Restaurants, Root Takes 'Best of the Best' Honors

In the July issue of New Orleans Magazine, the monthly magazine of note compiles their list of the best new restaurants of the year. The "Best of the Best" honor goes to the Warehouse District's forward-looking restaurant Root, by chef Phillip Lopez and GM Max Ortiz. (Lopez, who must be getting used to the modeling gig, is the cover boy for the issue as well.) Jay Forman writes, "Root’s menu is ebullient, its compositions shot through with a technical curiosity that approaches classic flavor combinations with a modernist perspective achieved through the requisite toolbox." But here's Lopez on describing his cuisine: "I hate when people label it molecular cuisine, because all food is molecular at some stage, right? It is more about modernization. We take Old World dishes, Old World ideas, and approach them with modern techniques."

Other honors go to the Vietnamese restaurant Magasin and chef Dominique Macquet's upscale French-Vietnamese hybrid Tamarind. The newest of the Best New Restaurants is Toups' Meatery, getting praise for being "rustic and vibrant." Also getting props is the entire stretch of Freret Street from Napoleon to Jefferson.

The full list of New Orleans' best new restaurants, as determined by New Orleans Magazine:

· Root, the Best of the Best
· Toups' Meatery
· Apolline
· Merchant
· Irish House
· Maurepas Foods
· Patrick's Bar Vin
· Magasin
· Tamarind by Dominique

And the entire stretch of Freret Street, including:

· High Hat Café
· Ancora
· Company Burger
· Midway Pizza
· Dat Dog
· Pure Cake

· Best New Restaurants [New Orleans Magazine]