Chef Melissa Jordano is a bad ass.

On a recent French Quarter bar crawl, where the music in most bars consisted of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Ed Sheeran, the barkeep at Saint Cecilia was spinning Butthole Surfers, Beck, and Hank III.

Time to sit back, do some drinking and check out the restaurant’s po boy menu.

An array of draft beer is on offer at the new-ish restaurant and when we spy Parish Brewing’s Envie pale ale we know we’re in a good place.

You can get a dozen raw oysters for $9 during happy hour but we’re always on the hunt for po boys for our sprawling 500 Po Boys Series so we limit ourselves to this section of the menu.

Have you ever read the ingredient list on Patton’s Hot Sausage? We made the grave mistake of doing so a few years back and have been put off ever since. There’s a little meat in those patties but there’s also plenty oats, wheat, rye and rice. All good grains that we eat regularly but none of which deserves space in a sausage patty.

We keep prospecting til we land upon upon braised top round roast beef. Chef Melissa Jordano cooks her beef low and slow for eight hours before shredding it, and stuffing it into a Leidenheimer loaf. Accoutrement includes house-pickled cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes. Debris gravy serves as a sort of meaty condiment.

This is one of the best po boys of the series. Yes, it costs twice as much as Charlie’s down in Violet but French Quarter rent doesn’t come cheap and a chef working on this plane has to be well-compensated.

A careful take on a Roffignac cocktail serves as a fine digestif.

Service at Saint Cecilia is expertly wrought by the barkeep in spite of our sitting on the ad hoc terrace. The sun slowly slips down over the New Orleans skyline and for just a moment we feel like we’re on a patio bar back in Bratislava.

Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians so we’re not surprised to find the restaurant to be a musical oasis in the French Quarter. The old virgin martyr would be well-pleased to find such a carefully-ran restaurant serving as an homage to her in the most Catholic city in the US.

And the punk-noise-rock soundtrack serves as a welcome respite from the godawful music most businesses are playing.

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91 French Market PlaceNew Orleans70116

(504) 522-5851

Hours of operation

Always call ahead