The 234 Apartment

The best restaurant cookbooks are like time capsules, preserving a moment, a feeling. That’s what this year’s stack of restaurant- focused books achieves — with variable levels of success. Don’t miss chef Wylie Dufresne ’s look back at wd~50 or the new two-volume set from NYC’s highly lauded experiential dining room Eleven Madison Park . Casual restaurants, from the Publican in Chicago to Juhu Beach Club in Oakland, also got the book treatment this year. Each collection stands alone as a testament to the hard work of a team pushing for one pristine goal. Cheers to the Publican: Recipes and Ramblings from an American Beer Hall Paul Kahan, Cosmo Goss, Rachel Holtzman Lorena Jones Books, September 19 Starting with the first time I ate at there, shortly after its opening in 2008, the Publican has been my favorite restaurant. It was an instantaneous love — the room, the food, a swirling feeling of commensality and broad-shouldered abundance. So for me, the promise of this book, Cheers t...

CLOSE Robert St. John has learned a lot in the restaurant business. Such as: Never store butane in an oven. Robert St. John/Special to The Clarion-Ledger Wagyu Beef with long grain rice , cashew, okra, benne seeds at Coquette. (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) The following is the third in a four-installment summer- column series covering my top 10 dining experiences for breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch in New Orleans. There are a few items to note: This list purely subjective . Everyone has varying tastes and preferences. This is not a ranking of overall quality from a critical/review standpoint. This is my personal list. These are my personal favorites. Everyone has personal connections to restaurants. These happen to be mine. According to the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, there are more than 1,400 restaurants operating in New Orleans today. That’s an impressive number for a city with a population of only 390,000. There are obviously hundreds of restaurants I...