Lilette was opened in a late 1800’s corner drugstore building in 2001 by Chef/Owner John Harris. He has been a James Beard finalist for Best Chef South four times. While apprenticing in France he stayed with the Mauri family whose matriarch named Lilette gave him much admiration of French cooking. Chef Edward Charles served as Chef de Cuisine for 16 years before becoming a co-owner in 2019. It’s a rectangular-shaped space with windows on two sides, a high painted tin ceiling, music in the background and mirrors are the art on the walls. One long side is the bar counter with seats and opposite it are a few booths with bench seating along the back wall. They offer outdoor seating and serve the same menu at lunch and dinner with a couple specials on a chalkboard. Service was friendly and helpful but not super efficient. Their menu is plastic coated so doesn’t photograph easily but the online pricing is out of date.
Set-Up
Food
They have a full bar and so we started with a sazerac to go with the appetizers. It was good enough we decided to have another with the meal but it took quite a while to find the server to re-order, but finally did.
Sizzling Shrimp were in a lemon-oregano vinaigrette. There were 4 large shrimp complete with heads and tails in a sizzling bowl. They came beside a piece of toasted and buttered French bread. The vinaigrette tasted a lot like garlic butter and the shrimp were cooked a tad too much, so the shells stuck to the bodies. It made it messy to eat but with a suggestion, the server produced some warm wet cloths afterwards. It was a tasty dish, even so and the bread was great dipped in the sauce.
Louisiana Crab Claws were in a passion fruit butter and served room temperature. There was a good pile of claws and the citrusy sauce made an interesting contrast to the meat. I also liked them dipped in the shrimp vinaigrette. They are listed at MKT which was $36.00 that day.
The server asked if we wanted bread which was a Housemade focaccia. We agreed and it was a good thing to have with these two appetizers. It was tasty but more than we needed but only added $3.00 to the bill.
Grilled hanger steak was topped with marrowed bordelaise and served with fries. It came cooked as ordered, sliced and well coated with the sauce. The marrow pieces were on top and melted into the sauce. It was fine and tender enough but the stars on the plate were the fries. They were thin-cut, absolutely crisp on the exterior with good potato flavor. They were well salted which helped to eat with the beef, as it was undersalted. I’d call them delicious and the beef average.
We added a side of Sauteéd spinach to go with the steak and fries. It was a good-sized bowl of nicely cooked fresh spinach. Lightly buttered it was a good addition but again more than we could eat.
We split a scoop of Candy Cane ice cream for dessert. It was listed as a special that came with chocolate fudge and a brownie but asked if we could just have the ice cream. The server made that happen and it was just $3.00. It was very sweet and compared poorly with what we’d had the day before at Clancy’s.
