To assert that New Orleans is serious about its restaurants is like saying that mountains are high and water is wet: It’s a natural fact. Offer even a tentative opinion about a particular restaurant to a resident of this food-crazed city and chances are the response will include not only a detailed history of that establishment and its food, but a list of a half-dozen other places that are better, and subtle suggestions about why partisans of the restaurant in question are so misinformed.

The level of debate is so high that finding a restaurants about which New Orleans residents actually agree is a rare thing. Yet consensus is possible. I visited the city late in March, when warm southern breezes were easing the region into its pleasant pre-humidity interlude, and with friends found a handful of restaurants that enjoy deserved local popularity.

Though regional food today is no longer confined to its home, these restaurants could probably exist no place other than in New Orleans, and jot just because of the particular blend of Cajun and Creole cuisines that gives the area its culinary identity. They are defined as much by the casual, easy pride in a tradition that so values eating. Pretension is a rare thing, even in the more forma, historic New Orleans establishments that cling to old-fashioned rituals with tenacious crab claws.

As eager as I was to join in the local debate, I found myself following a paradoxical but sage bit of advice: "Just close your mouth and eat." Even in New Orleans, you sometimes can’t argue with what’s on the plate.

Upperline, this welcoming, intimate restaurant near the Garden District is as idiosyncratic as a secondhand bookstore, reflecting the tastes and interests of the owner, JoAnn Clevenger. Almost every inch of the three small dining rooms is covered with folk art, and the front room contains shelves of urns and pitchers, like some old collector’s attic. Not content with the display, Ms. Clevenger includes with her menu a list of her favorite things, including radio stations, antiques shops, clothing stores and smells. "Remember to be a little silly, a little jaunty," she advises.

There’s nothing silly about the food, though. While the menu is not nearly as quirky as the dining room, it is distinguished by the outstanding cooking and lively turn it gives familiar Cajun and Creole dishes. Fried green tomatoes, a signature dish, are terrific. They are served underneath an exceptional shrimp remoulade that achieves the perfect ration of sauce to shellfish. Greedy for a variety of flavors, I ordered as an appetizer the trio of soups, which included demitasse servings of creamy oyster stew, rich duck gumbo and thick turtle soup, all notable for their deep, complex flavors.

Duck is ubiquitous on New Orleans menus, but by far the best I had was at Upperline, where it is called Tom Cowman’s famous Roast Duck, named for a former chef who clearly had solved the problem of cooking duck without drying it out. The enormous portion, a half duck, is moist and delicious, accompanied by a super fouls sweet garlic port sauce, sensibly served on the side. Veal Grillades, or sautéed veal scallops, are also unusually flavorful, served in a sauce with green peppers and mushrooms and excellent Cheddar grits.

Service at Upperline is relaxed yet precise, one of many indications that Upperline, more than halfway through its second decade in business, is not about to coast.

Eric Asimov, New York Times – July 14, 1999