When Prohibition killed absinthe, New Orleans answered with an anise liqueur of its own called Herbsaint, and Donald Link borrowed the name for the restaurant that started everything.
Herbsaint opened in 2000 at 701 St. Charles Avenue as a partnership between Susan Spicer, who ran Bayona, and Link, her former sous chef. He bought out her share a few years after Katrina and built the rest of his group around it. Cochon, Cochon Butcher, Pêche, La Boulangerie, Gianna, and Calcasieu all came later. Herbsaint remains the flagship.
The cooking sits where French bistro technique meets country Southern food, with rustic Italian threads running through it. Chef de Cuisine Tyler Spreen now runs the kitchen, working directly with local farmers and Gulf fishermen on menus that shift with the season. The result reads simple on paper and lands with more precision than that suggests.
Two dishes have outlasted everything else. The housemade spaghetti comes with guanciale and a fried-poached farm egg, and breaking the yolk turns it into the restaurant’s own reading of carbonara. Regulars tell first-timers to order it, which is unusual advice in a city with this much Creole history on offer. The Muscovy duck leg confit with dirty rice and citrus gastrique has appeared in various forms for most of the restaurant’s run, with crisp skin over a bed of Louisiana rice.
The rest of the menu moves around them. A dark roux gumbo draws as much praise as anything, and cornmeal fried oysters and fried green tomatoes show the kitchen’s lighter touch. Beef short rib arrives with potato rosti and salsa verde. Shrimp and grits come with tasso and okra. Fried frog legs have been called the best in the city. A banana brown butter tart closes most meals.
The wine list is built with intent rather than volume. The restaurant looks for balance and a sense of place, leaning on France, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Germany while picking up newer producers as it finds them. Most come from small operations farming sustainably or organically, with minimal manipulation. The list changes often enough that the website posts only a sample.
Recognition has been steady for a quarter century. Herbsaint earned Link the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South in 2007. Michelin named the restaurant a Bib Gourmand. It has appeared on the Times-Picayune’s annual list of the ten best restaurants in New Orleans every year since that list began in 2003. Eater National included it among the restaurants that defined American dining, Nation’s Restaurant News added it to the Fine Dining Hall of Fame, and Gourmet named it a top 50 restaurant in America.
The schedule favors anyone who likes a proper midday meal. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., opens for dinner only on Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m., and closes Sunday. Reservations run through Resy, and the phone is (504) 524-4114. A semi-private dining room seats up to 34 for banquet events Monday through Saturday, and the group’s foundation supports local youth programs.
Space at the bar and, weather permitting, on the patio stays open for walk-ins. That makes Herbsaint one of the few places in the city where someone eating alone can get a full run at a 25-year-old institution without planning a week ahead.
