THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Cafe Atchafalaya

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Cafe Atchafalaya Restaurant Review:

What draws customers back to Café Atchafalaya’s old clapboard building, aside from the authentically Creole-Southern cooking, is its aw-shucks approach to both the atmosphere and the menu. Don’t look for a photo spread of this Uptown standby in Architectural Digest. Decor isn’t the right word for the bare-top tables, simple wall art, make-do furniture and homey curtains. The front bar is even more rudimentary. Owner-chef Iler Pope’s rural-Mississippi origins come through in the fried green tomatoes, stuffed pork chops, beef brisket and lemon chess pie. Fancier fare includes properly herbed and seasoned crab cakes, seafood gumbo and soul-warming fruit cobblers. While none of this may thrill a trend-tracker, it makes for honest eating, except perhaps for the meat loaf, which somehow managed to be tough the last time we tried it.