Bananas Foster — Brennan's

Chef Paul Blangé created Bananas Foster in 1951 at Owen Brennan's restaurant on Bourbon Street, naming the dish for Richard Foster — a friend of Brennan's who happened to chair the New Orleans Crime Commission. The table-side flambé is half cooking, half theater: banana liqueur and rum ignited in a copper pan, the flames catching in front of the customer. Brennan's still flambés 35,000 pounds of bananas into the dish every year. Owen Brennan never saw the Royal Street location open. He died in his sleep on November 4, 1955, at forty-five, from a massive heart attack. The restaurant opened the following spring in a two-story French Quarter mansion at 417 Royal Street, built in 1795. That building once housed the Banque de la Louisiane, the first bank in Louisiana. From 1841 to 1891, it was owned by the Morphy family — chess champion Paul Morphy lived there until his death in 1884. Brennan's purchased the building outright in 1984. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 spared the block from flooding, but second-story refrigerators melted and seeped onto lower floors. The wine cellar lost temperature control; the entire collection spoiled. The restaurant reopened in 2006, closed in 2013 after financial trouble, and reopened again in 2014 under new ownership — Terry White and Ralph Brennan, a cousin of the original owners, who bought the building and business at auction. Reservations recommended for dinner. The flambé still happens at the table, in copper, with real fire.