Galatoire's, the fabled New Orleans restaurant, has always been a litmus test of who is in and who is out in New Orleans. For almost a hundred years it has welcomed the famous and the infamous, gourmet and gourmand to its dining rooms. The venerable waiters, the dress code, the strict holding to standards that most other restaurants dispensed with many moons ago--all combine to make this restaurant a place of legends. Almost all New Orleanians worth their salt have at least one good Galatoire's tale under their belt and some of them can dine out on their recounting of meals taken and events witnessed for years. The restaurant, at times, seems to be the city's ultimate private club, more democratic in its entry requirements than the Boston Club, but no less exclusive in whom it admits to its pantheon of the accepted. Here, though, the criterion is not birth, wealth, or these days even race, but rather an appreciation of good food, an enjoyment of convivial company, a reverence for the values and virtues of times past, and a twinkling sense of humor.

The wondrous ways of this quirky and oh-so New Orleans restaurant are revealed in Galatoire's: Biography of a Bistro by Marda Burton and Kenneth Holditch. Their precise rendering of the history of the restaurant offers a glimpse of the place and a platform from which to understand some of the Galatoire's mystique to those who have never waited on the snaking line in the hot sun, been astonished by the Friday afternoon goings-on around Christmas, or witnessed the madness of a June White Party given by a group of school friends from Natchez.

The authors fully comprehend the drama of the restaurant and thus have organized the work as though it were a theatrical production. The curtain rises with a mise en scene history of the Galatoire family and continues with a presentation of the dramatis personae: family, staff, and diners. Special members of each category are given their own star turn in the spotlight. Big Daddy, the dancing waiter; Imre Szalai--the "gypsy" who based a 29-year career on the words "good choice"; and Gilberto Eyzaguirre, whose firing elicited not only mailbags full of letters but a cabaret show of their reading and marked a major milestone in the difficult rite of passage between Galatoire's old and Galatoire's new.

Celebrities from Tyrone Power to Richard Gere make their appearances. Names of the famous and notorious flow like Sazeracs at a Friday luncheon, and the list of writers would dazzle a Pulitzer committee, but they are all overshadowed by the locals who have made the spot their own. We meet Alice O'Shaughnessy and Helen Gilbert, sisters who held constant court at Friday luncheon for more than 20 years, and grande dame Marian Atkinson, who for decades dined at the restaurant every night of the week, except Mondays, when Galatoire's is closed.
Food, however, does not take a back seat to the scene. The book offers not only information about the genesis of many of the house favorites but also recipes for 20 favorites, from Crabmeat Yvonne to French-fried Eggplant. One cavil is that Café Brulot, although a featured ingredient in many of the recounted stories, is missing from the list of recipes.

Lavishly illustrated with snapshots of people who have left their mark on this sampler of New Orleans life, the book is a marvelous social history of the restaurant and the city it enchants. The book brings Galatoire's and its world to those who haven't been fortunate enough to be ushered into the dining room and seated royally at the Tennessee Williams table, instructed on the proper mixing of Tabasco and powdered sugar for eggplant dipping, or finished a meal with Imre's "Gypsy Brulot." An hour or two with this feast of pages is sure to make believers of them as well.

During the long outside wait at the restaurant-sponsored book signing this summer--one of the few Galatoire's parties that didn't make the book--regulars nervously scanned the index for their names, whooping with delight (and relief) when they found themselves and then recalling the events described. The indoor line for the book signing had a sense of déjà vu for many of the regulars: glasses clicked, friends and relatives greeted, and the room filled with the din, madness, and camaraderie of happy well-fed folk who revel in their battles over chipped ice, smoking, relaxed dress codes, Gilberto's firing, and the indignities of the 21st century. Some may call us dinosaurs, but after devouring the splendid Galatoire's: Biography of a Bistro I know why I wouldn't have it any other way.