WHEN WENDELL H. GAUTHIER was growing up in Iota, a southwestern Louisiana town whose name betrays its size, he dreamed of the high-rolling, big, easy life of old New Orleans, a place of great mystery, romance, and intrigue. New Orleans is the only Caribbean city in the continental United States—and not just because of its tropical, sometimes stifling (especially in August) climate. Beauty and decay exist side by side: The stately mansions of oak-lined St. Charles Avenue cut a swath of opulence through blocks of boarded-up shotgun houses. The town's thriving music community gave birth to jazz a century ago, but now the city incubates a growing, drug-addled underclass and suffers from a skyrocketing murder rate.
A bustling port has bestowed a kaleidoscope of culture—French, Spanish, African—on the city's architecture, cuisine, and way of life. New Orleans lies in the Protestant-dominated South, yet the customs and trappings of Roman Catholicism are omnipresent. Meanwhile, bars legally and eagerly dispense booze 24 hours a day The city is right at home in a state whose current governor's earnings from gambling in 1993 were four times his official salary—vet few citizens, save a newspaper columnist or two, seem at all upset.
Since he moved to New Orleans 20-odd years ago, Wendell Gauthier has found this environment to his liking.
It helps that he's been successful. As a plaintiffs attorney he has won big in suits stemming from the MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas in 1980 and from a 1988 explosion at a Shell Oil refinery in Norco, Louisiana. In March, he and a group of high-profile attorneys—including San Francisco's Melvin Beth—filed a $100 billion class-action suit against several of the nation's cigarette manufacturers, alleging the companies misrepresented the addictive nature of their product.
But most New Orleanians know Gauthier as a key player in the project that will reshape the city's entertainment and economic landscape. He fronts a group of local investors who have teamed up with Harrah's Casino Hotels to erect the world& largest land-based casino in the heart of New Orleans, to open in late 1995. Gauthier and his partners are betting on proven maxim: What New Orleans does best is leisure.
Back when Gauthier, 51, attended Loyola University law school in uptown New Orleans. "The Quarters" (he favors the local colloquialism for the city's historic French Quarter) was the place for attorneys to congregate. "The Napoleon House was, and still is, a climate that draws the legal community. There was a seaman's place, Rick's, on Decatur Street. It had three rooms, and they claimed that in the first room, you could get knifed to death, in the second room, beat with chains, and in the third, just plain shot." (The bar did offer one advantage: plenty of prospective clients for budding defense attorneys.)
"The social scene today has so much more to offer," he says. For the visiting is Mulate's. "If you want to eat real Cajun food, those guys are from the Breaux Bridge and Lafayette area—they know what Cajun food really is."
'Food, drink, and music have long been the axes of sensory indulgence around which life in the Big Easy revolves, at a slow and deliberate pace, with plenty of time for smelling the magnolias.' |
When lawyering at the federal courthouse downtown, Gauthier often lunches at the Bon Ton Café, a small, stylish place that features Cajun and Creole dishes, and at Mother's Restaurant, famous for its "debris" po'boy—a loaf of French bread sliced lengthwise and smothered with the meaty shavings that slough off a slab of roast beef. Gauthier has ftieled many a Saturday morning skull session with a Mother's feast. "Anybody who comes to town has to go to Mother's at least once:' he says. "I advise breakfast. It's a breakfast you'll never forget: big, big biscuits with butter on them—you can't be on a diet—and grits and sausage, every fattening thing you've ever heard of, all at once."
After breakfast, walking is a good idea. Any of New Orleans's downtown hotels—the Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, Hotel Intercontinental—are all good jumping-off points for a stroll along the landscaped Mississippi riverfront.
"You should stroll down by the river, keep walking by the Aquarium of the Americas if you're into that, and River- walk Mall is gorgeous. It dumps you right into the French Quarter. The Queen of New Orleans riverboat is now docked [at the Hilton]. The Queen is a beautiliil way to see the river and enjoy some good gaming activity at the same time."
Until his gigantic casino opens, Gauthier suggests taking in the town's original big room. "You really need to see the Superdome. Go when it's empty. You can call and arrange tours. It's staggering to see the size of that building. I've been there for ball games, but after it had been open for 10 years, I went on a tour, and I was amazed. You really don't realize the bigness of the place when there's an event going on."
Even though Gauthier doesn't get out as much as he used to, he is still happy to play host to visiting counselors—especially his old pal Beffi.
"I have reservations for him for breakfast at Antoine's in the year 2000. One day seven years ago he said, 'I don't know how much longer I'm attorney, he recommends City Lights, a nightclub in the refurbished Warehouse District, "if you're interested in who's free and single. The House of Blues [Dan Aykroyd and a host of celebrity investors spent $7 million to convert an old three-story shoe warehouse into a state—of—the—art music showroom to challenge more traditional joints like Tipitina's and Preservation Hall] caters to both couples and the singles scene. Tremendous place."
Although Rick's is gone, and T-shirt shops and tourist traps abound, Gauthier insists "everybody has to see the Quarters." He says he derives most of his knowledge of the burlesque clubs from hearsay but can oWer some pointers. "If you're a little on the risque side, go to Crescent Cabaret and Maiden Voyage. I don't frequent those places—we had some people in tioni out of town one night several riionths ago who wanted to see them. They're classier, more upscale, more gentlemen's clubs. I would stay away from the other striptease joints on Bourbon Street.
"A fun place on Bourbon is Jelly Roll's. [Trumpet legend] Al Hirt plays there and puts on a great show. It's one of the must-see places in New Orleans, if you're into music.
"Right across from Jelly Roll's is Chris Owens's place. Chris has got to be in her 60s [Owens's age, and how the showgirl/philanthropist continues to disguise it, are the subject of much gossip around towni, and to see her put on that [burlesquej show is phenomenal."
For a quiet drink, the ancient Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, toward the residential end of Bourbon Street, is a colorfisl stop, although Gauthier isn't sure about claims that the bar was once owned by its namesake. "It's a quaint little place—just like the one on the corner of Esplanade and Decatur, The Mint. We go right after work a lot of times, with coat and tie. I've enjoyed some of the music there. It's a real comfortable place, if you want to get away and hide from everybody. Nobody is going to bother you there."
Other such bideaways are nearby, just east of the French Quarter in a funky, eclectic pocket where Checkpoint Charlie's (a combination rock and blues club/laundromat), Snug Harbor (one of the city's finest contemporary jazz halls), and Café Brasil (a large, neon-lit room with music ranging from reggae to klezmer) are within staggering distance of one another.
Unpretension is the rule, and so is live-and-let-live; thus, Gauthier and his coat—and-tie pals can pull up to Café Brasil in a Rolls Royce and mingle freely with the regulars, whose attire leans toward tie-dye and whose transportation tends toward sandals.
"That's a fun place to go and party' grins Gauthier. "It spells French Quarter, and it spells the cult of New Orleans." Gauthier is not entirely anonymous there. One evening, when the battle for the rights to the casino was raging and Gautbier was a nightly fixture on local newscasts, he was eating dinner in the Praline Connection, an upscale soul food restaurant across the street, when Julia Roberts—in town filming The Pelican Brief—recognized and approached him.
FOOD, DRINK, and music have long been the triple axes of sensory indulgence around which life in the Big Easy revolves. Still, the town lives at a slow and deliberate pace, with plenty of time for smelling the magnolias. New Orleans dining runs the gamut from high-end, world-famous French Creole bistros to neighborhood soul food joints. For the quintessential gastronomic experience, Gauthier cites relatively recent additions to the city's fabled and wide-ranging culinary oeuvre; they are, he says, equally conducive to business and fun. "If you want a Southwest flavor, Mike's on the Avenue is the best. If you want just good food, Emeril's is one of the tops; and they've opened a place in the Quarters, NOLA [an acronym for New Orleans, Louisiana], across from the Napoleon House. And you have the old standards—Commander's Palace, Antoine's, Galatoire's. Those always give you good service and good food'
As a native of southwestern Louisiana, Gauthier is amply qualified to assess New Orleans's Cajun cuisine. His favorite source for gumbo and jambalaya going to be around.' And I said, 'Mel, you're gonna see the year 2000. I'm so sure of it, I'm going to make reservations at Antoine's.'
"Beth loves Antoine's. We made it last week. I've never been a big drinker, because I can't handle it. But he drank seven sazeracs [a stout local specialty that boasts a generous portion of Irish whiskey]. Now, I would have passed out. And he was still standing. He's 87, he had seven sazaracs, and he was still standing."
Mr. Belli could be a local.