The Night We Were Tossed From Mosca’s: New Orleans JazzFest Anecdotia Part I

Posted: April 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Culture, Ruminations | 3 Comments »

To get to Mosca’s Restaurant from New Orleans proper, you have the pleasure of crossing the Mississippi River over the Huey Long Bridge, a structure, the construction of which allowed some gubernatorial-supporting steel contractor to vacation often and wherever he wished for the rest of his days.

It’s a gorgeously antiquated erection, which might, if built in more modern times, have been called a Bridge to Nowhere. Unless you happen to be a gator in search of a more brackish abode. Which is to acknowldedge that Mosca’s is hard by serious swamp on Highway 90W in either Westwego, La. or Avondale, La., depending on whether you believe the eatery’s website or Google Maps.

It’s not as easy to miss the roadhouse as it used to be. Before the hurricane — not Katrina, the one before that, whatever her name was — there was no sign.

There was, of course, the aroma of chicken pan frying in garlic and oil which indicated unmistakably this was the gravel parking lot to pull into, not those in front of any other clapbord edifice along this desolate stretch of blacktop.

Since that hurricane, there’s a sign. And a restaurant, which is among the stalwart survivors of Katrina’s wrath.

And that incredble — and superbly named — Chicken A La Grande remains the house specialty after all these decades. It’s a good thing.

The lore is that family patriarch Provino Mosca was Al Capone’s chef. Or some such. Which makes this more an Elmore Leonard kind of joint than a Robert Penn Warren. Though it’s hard to believe that the writer who novelized Huey Long’s life never supped on Oysters Mosca.

The official history, as one can imagine, is coy about the Capone thing. From my experience the legend that Mosca’s is a hangout for the mob is also suspect. The several times I’ve dined there, the other tables seemed more full of Moscowitzs from Shaker Heights than Eddie Fish Eyes from Cicero down to make his cousin’s beau an offer he can’t refuse.

Which is not to say that it isn’t a dining adventure that must be experienced.

Johnny Mosca runs the place. Or, at least he did when we last visited several years back. He’s a quiet sort. Yet his demeanor says he could have been a prototype for one of Elmore Leonard’s characters.

He is a man of dour countenance.

Which my krewe discovered not the last time we visited but the time before that.

There were the I Bros., their shtick cranked to 11. There was our friend Bill with his kids and maybe a friend of theirs or two. (Not the accumulation he “chaperoned” at a later festival, when he shared a single hotel room and a single bathroom with 11 collegians and prepsters. For which adventure he was awarded both Parent of the Year and Dumbass of the Year trophies.)

It was an evening as grande as Mosca’s signature dish. Libations. Laughs. Garlic overload. We ate those chickens and oysters and crab salads, the whole Creole Italian schmear.

It’s not a late night joint, and we easily outlasted the rest of the tables. We got the hint to depart when they started stacking chairs. Full of bon homie and beverages, Bill wanted to stop and play the electronic poker machine on the way out. Fortunately we dissuaded him as Johnny Mosca looked daggers our way.

As we are exiting, Bill, with his bull horn bravissimo, commences to extol the virtues of the restaurant to Mosca.

“We love this place,” Bill bellows.”It’s our favorite place to eat anywhere, not just New Orleans.”

Johnny Mosca, one hand holding the exit door open, one hand holding keys to the place, is staring through Bill.

“We come back to JazzFest every year, and I want to make a reservation right now for one year from tonight.

To which, the maitre d’ replies: “Get the fuck outtahere.”

---