The Old South, Louisiana-Style, Lives at Patout’s : Family brings the flavors of the Big Easy to the Big Orange

I realized something about Louisiana food the night I couldn’t get out of my chair. It was at a dinner party in New Orleans where the main course, crab meat in mornay sauce plus artichoke hearts and hard-cooked egg yolks, provided a generous platform for mass quantities of wine. These people were keen fanciers of bargain-priced Bordeaux--if they’d been born in California they’d live at Trader Joe’s.

Between the crab Colbert and the wine and probably a couple of Sazerac cocktails, when it came time to leave I actually needed help standing up, and my date had to drive me to my hotel. She told me not to apologize. She was used to driving people home from dinner parties.

Because of Paul Prudhomme, Californians basically think of Louisiana food as spicy, although one look at Prudhomme’s heroic girth should warn you that it’s also a very rich cuisine, having a lot in common with the sort of Southern cooking where the aim is to make everything into a rich, savory, aromatic mush.

Patout’s is the place for that sort of Louisiana cooking around here. It’s definitely the most Southern-like Louisiana restaurant in our town. Apart from the fern leaves on the walls in lieu of wallpaper, the notable things about the decor are the Spanish moss hanging from the ceiling and the photos on the wall: photos of fine old Southern homes, not photos of Mardi Gras.

Of course, the Patout family is from Louisiana and does make very impressive Cajun and Creole food. For instance, Eugene on the Bayou, a chicken breast stuffed with a crab mixture which has the real Louisiana flavor, rich and crabby. Patout’s makes an excellent version of that most dashing of Louisiana appetizers, shrimp remoulade. The sauce, like a cocktail sauce that makes back talk, is mostly hot paprika mixed with whole-seed mustard and tarragon vinegar.

One of New Orleans’ habits is topping some simple meat dish with crab meat (always lump crab meat, never the stringy stuff). Patout’s does this on a regular basis with chicken Elizabeth, chicken breast in a rich sauce of reduced cream with a crown of lump crab meat. I’ve also had a veal special that was essentially wienerschnitzel with crab meat and reduced cream sauce.

The most impressive entree to me, though, is ladyfish, which is closer to the Prudhomme end of the spectrum. It’s a Gulf of Mexico red snapper (all Patout’s seafood is flown in from the Gulf), rubbed with spices and grilled, served with shrimp and crab meat in a lemon vermouth sauce. You can also get this dish in a combo called Lady Patout with tournedos Patout, which is beef filet on a round of eggplant with crunchy-fresh shrimp and the hot, smoky flavor of the cured meat product called Tasso.

The only thing I’ve had here that didn’t work was catfish Linda and that was because part of the fish had developed a slight chlorine flavor, as catfish will do on a couple of hours’ notice. A shame, because the pecan-butter sauce was, well, rich and aromatic.

Of course Patout’s has frighteningly rich desserts. A big cube of bread pudding with bourbon-butter sauce. Several pecan pies: one with a layer of sweet potato, and another that is the only really successful chocolate pecan pie I’ve ever had, the gooey, molasses-rich filling somehow bearing the additional load of chocolate. Surprisingly, Patout’s serves one of the most intense chocolate cakes around, an “almost flourless chocolate cake” with a strong bitter chocolate flavor.

Patout’s has had some shake-ups lately, what with sister Gigi Patout going off to work at Angeli (is a Cajun calzone in the works?). Still, not much has changed in Patout’s food, except that the chicken and sausage gumbo seems to have improved. Patout’s old gumbo had the effect of being just chicken soup, but the current one has all the dark, earthy aromas of major gumbo.

It is still a place for rich Southern cooking with no real rival in Los Angeles. Take some of the seafood items: oysters Alexander (oysters with shrimp and bread crumbs, baked on the half shell), crab a la Eugene (crab with mushrooms and bread crumbs, baked in a crab shell) and seafood eggplant (shrimp and crab and bread crumbs on a bed of fried eggplant). All savory, aromatic and, above all, rich. You can order all three in a combo called seafood Patout, which also includes broiled shrimp in vermouth lemon butter sauce, some shrimp and okra gumbo and a plate of red beans and okra on the side.

You can also find somebody else to drive you home, because I’m definitely busy that night.

Suggested dishes: chicken and sausage gumbo, $4/$6; shrimp remoulade, $4/$7; Eugene on the bayou, $18; ladyfish, $22; chocolate pecan pie, $4.

Patout’s, 2260 Westwood Blvd., West Los Angeles. (213) 475-7100. Open for lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, for dinner 6-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, till 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Sunday brunch 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Full bar. Street parking. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $36 to $72.