My friends were heading to wine country, to Napa. They kept sending me back photos of wineries, wine tastings, and Cabernet-smeared smiles. I was stuck in the dead of summer in New Orleans, desperately wishing I was there. So I headed to Pluck, a wine bar in downtown New Orleans that feels like a gateway to wine country.
The suffocating embrace of a hot New Orleans summer was waiting just outside again. But inside, I dined on tuna crudo with grilled peaches and sipped a crisp, clean German white wine, followed by a bistro-worthy burger with a well-chilled Nebbiolo, and for that moment at Pluck, I felt transported.
This is what I call a one-meal vacation. It’s a temporary escape from summer in New Orleans, if only for one meal, if only in our gustatory imagination. I seek out these places this time of year, and these days there are more that meet those standards.
Uptown, Spanish restaurant Costera embodies the exact flavors and style of dining I remember from my trips to Barcelona and Madrid and long for when I mentally want to return there.
For even more of a travel feeling inland, check out the Italian sandwiches at Francolini’s that transport me to the Northeast, and the delis of this region from Jersey to Boston, where I eat a filling, generously loaded cold sandwich.
On Avenue St. Claude in the Marigny district, Bar Pomona feels like the cafe you encountered in France or maybe Italy, the place that wasn’t on your travel list but you stumbled upon and it became a highlight of your trip anyway. It’s a small, low-ceilinged space where the short menu is the difference between an aperitif and a proper dinner, and the wine list is both extensive and affordable.
Don’t think wine is the common thread here. I mean, there’s beer too, and the Bywater has Bratz Y’all, a German restaurant that turns the backyard into a beer garden, with beer mugs the size of Volkswagens and the feel of a flower-strewn Bavarian summer. Here in the summer in New Orleans, we find ways to adjust to fall, one glass, one meal at a time.
