Louisiana Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in Louisiana

Louisiana has 45 steakhouses across 20 towns — New Orleans holds 9, Baton Rouge 7, with the rest spread through Lafayette, Shreveport, Lake Charles and the north shore.

Louisiana is a seafood and Creole state, and nobody comes here for beef. Which makes it all the stranger that New Orleans invented a way of cooking steak that the rest of the country copied.

The Louisiana Ten

1. Crescent City Steak House (New Orleans) — open on North Broad since 1934, Louisiana’s oldest family-owned steakhouse, and the place that originated the New Orleans style. Curtained private booths, ceramic tile, an antique jukebox. The story is below.
2. Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse (New Orleans) — on Iberville in the Quarter, from the family that is effectively New Orleans dining royalty.
3. Doris Metropolitan (New Orleans) — Israeli-founded, in the French Quarter, with a dry-aging room visible from the dining room and the most ambitious beef programme in the state.
4. Chemin a la Mer (New Orleans) — Donald Link’s room overlooking the river at the Four Seasons, French technique on Louisiana beef.
5. Charlie’s Steak House (New Orleans) — Uptown, open since 1932, cash-era plain and completely unbothered by fashion.
6. Superior’s Steakhouse (Shreveport) — the best room in north Louisiana by a distance, with tableside service and a serious cellar.
7. Stab’s Prime (Baton Rouge) — the capital’s standard, with a second room in Central.
8. Bon Ton Prime Rib (New Orleans) — Cajun cooking and prime rib in the CBD, a direct descendant of one of the city’s oldest Cajun rooms.
9. Charley G’s (Lafayette) — wood-fired, long-running, and the heart of Acadiana’s steak scene.
10. Brasa Churrasqueria (Metairie) — Brazilian rodizio, skewers carved at the table, and a genuinely different way to eat beef in this state.

A Croatian oysterman invented the New Orleans steak

In 1923, a fifteen-year-old named John Vojkovich left the village of Sucuraj on the island of Hvar and came to New Orleans. He worked an oyster boat in Plaquemines Parish alongside other Croatian immigrants — there were a great many of them in the Louisiana oyster trade — and then moved into restaurants downtown, going dishwasher to busboy to waiter to manager.

In 1934, aged 26, he opened Crescent City Steak House on North Broad. And he did something nobody else was doing: he served the steak sizzling in butter, sliced, in a pool of it, on a plate hot enough to keep it going at the table.

That is now simply called New Orleans style, and it is how steak is served across the city and far beyond it. Vojkovich originated it, and the restaurant has not changed the method since 1934.

It is a very New Orleans story: a Croatian oysterman, a Mid-City corner, and a technique that outlived everyone involved. The same building still has the curtained booths, the tile, and the jukebox.

Around the state

The north shore carries a surprising amount: Gallagher’s Grill in Covington, Pat Gallagher’s 527 in Mandeville, Tchefuncte’s in Madisonville, and Desi Vega’s with rooms in Covington, Mandeville and New Orleans.

Southwest and north: Vic & Anthony’s and Ember Grille in Lake Charles, 1800 Prime in Bossier City, William B’s in Shreveport, and Gordon Ramsay Steak out at Westlake.

The national chains

Seven, and the notable one is that Ruth’s Chris was founded in New Orleans — Ruth Fertel bought Chris Steak House on Broad Street in 1965, a few blocks from Crescent City, and turned it into the largest fine-dining steakhouse chain in America. It runs four Louisiana rooms today, alongside Fleming’s and Sullivan’s.

Browse by city: New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport.