THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Christian's

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Christian's Restaurant Review:

HURRICANE KATRINA: this establishment is currently closed. For a New Orleans Travel Update as well as resources, information and help click here. Christian's has been a local favorite for almost 30 years, never diverting from the classic Creole style that made its reputation from the beginning. In what began in 1914 as a Lutheran Evangelical Church, the latter-day faithful come for the security of familiar treatments of fish and meat. Succulent smoked soft-shell crab is a perennial, as are a Louisiana-style bouillabaisse created by the restaurant's original chef, French-born Roland Huet; a pairing of filet mignon and oysters that brings new meaning to surf-and-turf; and sautéed fish in butter sauces that adhere to New Orleans tradition. The restaurant's founder and former owner is a member of the family operating Galatoire's, and several of the old French Quarter bistro's favorites still are served here---among them fried oysters and bacon en brochette and a trout meunière style, with lemon and brown butter. A feather-light crab-meat turnover, with ripe olives, feta and eggplant, in a buttery sauce with sun-dried tomato, is good enough to excuse the detour toward Greece. A banana-nut bread pudding edges out the house-made ice creams for the dessert prize. Spaces are tight enough to remind you that pews once filled this lofty, Neo-Gothic nave, and service, especially with wines, can be frustratingly slow or awkward. The restaurant's many local loyalists, however, seem to be in a continually forgiving mood.