Three Muses (#299, 6/13/14)
When looking for a fun place to get dinner and listen to real New Orleans music, venture down to Frenchman Street and visit Three Muses. Be warned, however, it’s a small place, so you may have a wait, but once you get your table, hang out, sample some of the interesting and tasty food and enjoy whatever show happens to be playing.
I think for a place like this, I need to start with the atmosphere. I went on a night when Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue was playing. She always puts on a great show and while I didn’t think this environment was as fun to see her, it was still very entertaining. While the place was small, we didn’t feel crowded into our table and didn’t have people hanging over us, so a solid experience. I guess my only issue is that I’m probably not one to mix music and dinner in this way. I’d rather get a good dinner, then go see a band, but that’s just me. I’m giving it a 20 out of 30 for atmosphere.
The food was outstanding based on a first visit. I had some mini gnocci (I believe with prosciutto in a cream sauce, it’s not showing on the online menu). Pasta is the specialty of Daniel, so worth giving some a try – this was great, but just a small serving, like many of their plates. I also had some of the Korean barbecue tacos, which were solid, not as good as the gnocci. We also tried the feta fries, which were excellent and the scallops received high marks as well. Almost forgot to mention the drinks. They have a solid win list as well as a good variety of craft cocktails – I had a spaghetti western and it was very tasty. Very good on the food, I’m going with a 40 out of 50.
The service here was great as well. Surprisingly efficient. We went on a Friday and had about a 30-minute wait (they told us 45). Again, it’s small and they don’t take reservations, so no problem with that wait. They told us they don’t really have wait staff assigned to tables, so you either grab someone if you see them, or order at the bar. That concerned me at first, but we had people checking on us regularly and we never even considered it wasn’t normal wait staff. And this was on a busy night; no idea how they kept up so well. The excellent service gets a 19 out of 20.
Final score = 79.