75 N.O. restaurants, clubs, hotels added to 2008 Zagat list
Besides key newcomers “� namely chef John Besh’s brasserie, Luke, and MiLa, which is owned and operated by husband-and-wife chefs Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing “� this year’s guide includes a host of new Latin restaurants. It names at least three new Brazilian churrascarias, or steakhouses, as well as three new Mexican cantinas in the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny and Mid-City neighborhoods.
Tim Zagat, chief executive of the nationally recognized Zagat Survey, said he attributes the increase to the rise in Latin workers who have come to New Orleans to help rebuild. Wendy Waren, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Restaurant Association, says that’s only part of the reason. “Some of these restaurants are pretty high end,“� she said. La Boca, for instance, is an upscale Argentinian steakhouse situated in the Warehouse District “� far from the devastated parts of the city where workers congregate. Latino workers are more likely to visit the “taco trucks,“� mobile eateries akin to a lunch truck that are now a feature of the New Orleans landscape. “I think our appetite for diversity has expanded, and I’m not sure if that’s because of where we were dispersed after the storm, but a lot of people in the restaurant industry have seen the recovery as an opportunity to expand in New Orleans and to try something new,“� Waren said.