Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? Like the smell of magnolias blooming in winter or the haunting echo of streetcars clanking around the turn at Riverbend, the food of New Orleans is a sensations that must be experienced on location to be truly understood.

Since moving to Philadelphia, I’ve occasionally lingered over snippets of food memories from my tenure as restaurant critic at the Times-Picayune. The onset of the spring party season and Carnival, with Mardi Gras on Tuesday, makes them even more vivid. Could they still exist?

In a city that prides itself on hospitality, few restaurants can surpass the warmth of Upperline, where owner JoAnn Clevenger is the city’s most ebullient hostess. Like the eccentric auntie, she swirls from table to table in the yellow dining rooms of her intimate Uptown restaurant, laughing until she can barely breathe, glittering with so many pins that she blends right into the cheery menageries of local art that crowds the walls.

Clevenger also has an eye for kitchen talent – a steady string of excellent chefs that has cemented Upperline’s local reputation for consistently excellent regional fine dining. The stoves, have been left in care of long-time sous chef, now executive chef, Kenneth Smith. His faithful renditions of menu staples were as good as I ever remember tasting here. Duck gumbo is enriched with rendered duck fat and andouille. Beef tenderloin melts under stilton cheese and a balsamic-tinged thyme-scented jus. The pecan pie is still on e of the best around. But judging from the delicious evening special, it will interesting to see what other new flavors Smith can bring. His duet of roast quails stuffed with spicy cornbread rice dressing was on e of the week’s more memorable flavors.

Isn’t this what it really means to miss New Orleans? To think of that piece of pie heating up on the griddle, to taste the flavors before they even materialize, and know they are waiting for you to return.

Craig LaBan, Philadelphia Inquirer – March 5, 2000