Dooky Chase opened as a restaurant in 1941 and before that, it was a sandwich and lottery ticket store. Founded by Emily and Dooky Chase Sr, whose pictures are in the entry room, it remains family-owned and run. Their son Edgar became a musician and activist for the civil rights movement and helped organize and host strategic sessions along with dialogue that included giants like Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. In 1946 Edgar married Leah Lange who grew the sandwich shop to a sit-down restaurant. Leah Chase became known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine and was shepherded in as one of the first African American fine dining restaurants in America. Continuously running since, except for a 2-year hiatus due to Hurricane Katrina, these 2 are now gone but their son, a retired lawyer, was there to greet and welcome guests. The large number of dining rooms have fed many dignitaries such as Beyoncé, Barack Obama and George W Bush, to name just a few. The large corner location has rooms on two floors with art on the walls and no music in the background. There were a couple of large parties meeting there during the lunch we visited and that may have been the cause of very slow service. We arrived a bit before our reservation but would not be seated until just after our appointed time even though there were many empty tables. Then it took 15-20 minutes before we got a menu, yet drink orders were still not ready to be taken. Don’t know if it was our server or general overload. Parts of the meal were excellent and others average but it’s such a historic place it feels like a place you should visit.
Set-Up
Food
We started with a cocktail called “The Grand D” made with Sazerac rye, orange simple and bitters. It came with one large ice cube and was garnished with a Luxardo cherry. Reasonably strong and well-balanced, one was enough, even though it wasn’t overly sweet. The wait for service was quite long and they nicely brought some strips of buttered toast to go with the drink. I’m guessing it was garlic bread but the garlic flavor was very mild.
Creole Gumbo was available by cup or bowl. This was the cup size and a generous one at that. It had chicken meat, a couple of kinds of sausage and many herbs around a mound of rice. The broth was well-flavored and fairly spicy. It was good.
With the gumbo we had some onion rings, which are made in-house. They came with a horseradish creole sauce. The two tall stacks were lightly breaded and not at all greasy. The onion adhered to the coating well, so that when you took a bite the whole onion did not pull out (a pet peeve of mine). They were reasonably crisp but not as much so as they looked to be. Still, it was nice to have some freshly made, not greasy onion rings filled with sweet onion flavor. The dipping sauce was tasty too.
Red beans and rice was served with 2 pieces of fried chicken and we picked 2 thighs. The red beans were well flavored and dotted with a few herbs but otherwise, it was just well-cooked beans with a mound of rice to mix in. The beans were cooked perfectly and very good but the side chicken was the star of this dish. They did get the coating on the chicken crisp and it was divine. Cooked perfectly with a hint of spice, they were very good.
Shrimp creole was shrimp simmered in a creole sauce and also served with rice. The sauce had tons of herb bits and a fair amount of spiciness, so don’t order this if you don’t want your eyes to water a bit. The shrimp were tender and perfectly cooked and I really liked the balance of seasonings. However, if I ever go back I’m heading straight for the fried chicken.
