Mosca's

4137 HIghway 90 W., Avondale, LA - (504) 436-9942

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Posted By Michael Stern on November 24, 2008 1:34 PM

Mosca's reopened less than a year after Hurricane Katrina; and aside from a fresh paint job inside, you'd never know the weather had been bad the fall before. All the great things about the place are just as they have been since 1946, most importantly, oysters Mosca – a festival of garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs all cosseting little nuggets of sweet oyster meat.

The parking lot is a gravel wreck; the outside is dark and nefarious; in fact, on a recent trip to New Orleans, Stephen Rushmore and I were told that Mosca's for many years was the hang-out of the region's chief Mafioso. If it's your first time, I guarantee you will think you are lost when you make the drive. And even when you find it, you will wonder: can this two-room joint with the blaring juke box and semi-secret kitchen dining area really be the most famous Italian roadhouse in America? Inside, conviviality reigns; I saw only friendly sorts of folks eating; no one looked like a cast member of The Godfather or The Sopranos.

Aside from the setting and location, the primary thing you'll notice upon arriving at Mosca's is the aroma. Garlic reigns. There are whole cloves of it in the painfully tender chicken a la Grande, which is a cluster of wine-sautéed pieces that arrive in a pool of rosemary-perfumed gravy. Thank God for spaghetti bordelaise, which is little more than a heap of thin noodles bathed in oil and butter and garlic. It is an ideal medium for rolling up on a fork and pushing around in extra chicken gravy or last of the oysters Mosca breadcrumbs to sop up their goodness.

Go with friends: the bigger the group, the more different dishes you can sample; and you do need also to taste Mosca's crabmeat salad, Italian sausage, chicken cacciatore, and Louisiana shrimp. Everything is served family style.

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Posted By Paul Oehlke on July 7, 2010 11:23 PM

I learned of Moscas during while living in New Orleans during the early 80s. The first visit with the seemingly long drive over the Huey Long bridge to the West Bank to what was a plain and austere to the simple white sided, green trimmed building was unpromising. Then my party ordered from the simple menu and ate our dinner, family style. The meal and subsequent meals were all memorable. At the time, the rumor was that Grandma Mosca was up at 4 am everyday making fresh pasta.

Many years passed. Katrina blew in and flooded Moscas. After the remodeling, a few stylish changes were made in the dining room decor, but the menu remained, to the best of my memory, the same. If anything, the dishes had been refined and were tastier than ever. The crab salad is to die for. Fresh iceberg lettuce, a generous helping of fresh crab meat, and the wonderfully rich, but understated dressing was exquisite.

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