Iris is located in the Bienville House Hotel on N. Peters between Bienville St. and Conti St.  If you have been to New Orleans, you have more than likely walked right by it and didn’t even know it.  I’m from New Orleans and never knew it was there.  We didn’t have reservations and were able to easily get seated as a party of 11 plus my 2 year old.  Typically, on a Saturday evening, this would make you second guess your restaurant choice…but hunger and a 2 year old win over rational thought.

 The restaurant has a nice cozy feel to it. It’s not that big but is large enough to sit comfortably.  I’m not one to tell you that the lighting was nice or the decorations were appropriate.  It’s just not something that catches my attention unless it is too dark for me to see what I am eating.. then I got a problem. So to start everybody got cocktails.. a wide variety from a Jack n Coke to a fruity mix drink that my wife strangely ordered.  Nine out of ten times she will order a Chocolate Martini. So seeing her drink a cocktail with fruit hanging off of it like we were on the beach , was quite unusual.  Anyway, to start I got the Kurobuta Pork Cheeks which was accompanied by a raw vegetable salad. The pork cheeks were perfectly tender and the crunchiness of the raw vegetable salad tossed in a vinaigrette dressing  complemented the pork cheeks nicely.  This was my first taste of pork cheeks and I must say just like my introduction to sweetbreads, I will definitely order them again.  For an entrée, I ordered the veal short ribs with fresh red beans and legumes.  The short ribs were tender but had a little more fat on them then I would have liked.  The red beans and legumes were cooked perfectly..not too mushy but also not too hard.  Of course, we drank some red wine the name of which escapes me at the moment.

Very rarely do we order dessert… unless something chocolate catches my wife’s eye. So we called it a night and came home satisfied with a good meal at a decent price.  If you are ever in the area of N. Peters (Canal Place, Jax Brewery, Coyote Ugly) and get in the mood for a nice sit down meal at a reasonable price, check out Iris’ Restaurant in the Bienville Hotel.