August: Full Steam Ahead

301 Tchoupitoulas Street, New Orleans, has entered the latest phase of its rich and storied history.  In October 2001, the establishment opened as the highly anticipated restaurant named August.  The curious street name, “Tchoupitoulas,” is older by far than any building, and its origins are lost in the mists of history.  It has been suggested that it may be a Native American term, to do with the nearby river, or the fishing therein.  It may also derive from a French statement, also to do with the fishing, “chopic ques tous la” [“the mudfish are all here”]. 

Number 301, the historic property on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Gravier Streets in what is now known as the Central Business District, was once at the very center of commerce in old New Orleans.  In the nineteenth century, the area was the wholesale grocers’ warehouse district, providing the city with its dry goods, oil, tobacco, wines and whiskies, as well as hardware, soap, candles, and plate glass.  The lot itself dates back to at least 1832, and by 1866 contained a two-story brick building used as a “barroom and eating saloon,” and, during the 1870s, specifically as an “oyster saloon.”  It was acquired in September of that year by Edward Conery, Sr., a prominent wholesale grocer, landowner, and steamboat financier, who, it is thought, constructed the present Italianate structure by the early 1880s — a popular style known locally as “French-Creole.”  

Through the tall, glass-paned front doors is the rich mahogany-paneled bar, lined at eye-level with original beveled-glass mirrors.  Its ceiling is coffered in mahogany as well, punctuated with gleaming brass panels.  Floor-to-ceiling French doors lead through to the Main Dining Room, which seats sixty, with walls of exposed brick and distressed gilded paint, chairs and banquettes covered in burgundy-colored velvet, and an abundance of sparkling crystal chandeliers overhead.  A monumental floral arrangement atop the great central velvet banquette provides an ever-changing tableau of color.  The Wine Room, seating twenty-four, is just off the Main Dining Room.  Lanterns of wrought iron and old glass and walls of light oak make for a dramatic transition from the ornate Main Dining Room, and with the copious cellar itself fully visible on an upper level, the lower level is a remarkable space for intimate dining and small private parties.  Fourteen hundred bottles of boutique wines, chiefly French, line the walls in handsome wooden trellised racks, surrounding diners with a jewel-like glow.  Just beyond the Wine Room is the cozy Gravier Room, its black shutters and earth-toned textiles upholstering the high-backed banquettes creating an atmosphere of quiet seclusion. 

Upstairs, the Grand Hall is the site of the most elegant special events, seating up to ninety for banquet gatherings and 200 for cocktail receptions.  The serene, light-filled space is lined with immense windows, with an imposing fireplace gracing one end, against a backdrop of exposed red brick. 

From its origins as a warehouse space belonging to one of the most prosperous merchants of nineteenth-century New Orleans, the historic corner of Tchoupitoulas and Gravier Streets is once again poised to reclaim its position as a bustling neighborhood center—not for wholesale groceries, but for fine dining and spirits, as August.