La Boca

Credit: New Orleans Magazine
Written by Robert Peyton & Jay Forman
Photography Credit: Greg Miles

La Boca If you’ve been to La Boca you’ve met Orestes Rodriguez. He is the friendly, unassuming fellow who greets you warmly at the door and takes you to your table, periodically checking in to ensure that everything is just the way you want it. He is sociable without being intrusive, his desire for his guests to enjoy their meal is motivated by an honest sincerity and his low-key personality dovetails perfectly with the feel of his restaurant.

Rodriguez’s presence at La Boca isn’t due to lucky chance. Rather, it’s the happy expression of a longtime relationship with Adolfo García, who co-owns the restaurant with Nicolas Bazan. “I knew Adolfo before he went to culinary school,” Rodriguez recalls. “Back then he was a server at La Riviera. We’d run into each other a lot and see each other off and on after working.”

Rodriguez and García remained close friends along the way, so when García and Bazan followed through on their plan for a post-Katrina Argentine-style steakhouse, García knew who he wanted at the door. He tapped his longtime friend for the Maître d’ and General Manager position. Rodriguez slid easily into the role and has been a constant presence at La Boca ever since.

Born in Cuba, Rodriguez came to New Orleans in 1970. “I fell in love with New Orleans when I got here,” he says. “I like the people, I like the culture and I like the fact that the city is a melting pot.” He worked a series of odd jobs, including a stint at Coca-Cola, until he found his way into the restaurant business. He spent an astonishing 30 years at La Riviera in Metairie, a remarkable amount of time in an industry marked by increasingly high turnover. Rodriguez represents a more genteel time when being a host was a profession and not just a job, and La Boca is a more pleasant restaurant because of it.

Along with his duties at the door, Rodriguez is responsible for everything that goes on in the dining room. “I’m responsible for our customers and the servers. I do wine, inventory. I take reservations and set up for the parties, whatever needs to be done pretty much,” he says. Guests at La Boca will see him clearing tables and helping out in just about every way, save working the grill. “No cooking,” he laughs.

The prevailing atmosphere at La Boca is warm and inviting, with a contemporary edge and a bit of urban chic imparted by the exposed wooden beams and brick walls of its Warehouse District locale. The restaurant is small, with just 47 seats augmented by a few at the bar; overall, it is a space that lends itself well to both intimate two-tops and small groups of diners.

However, the Argentine focus on the menu required some due diligence on Rodriguez’s part before opening. “The whole concept was something totally new to me,” he remembers. “We brought the concept in from Buenos Aires and I had to learn about that. I had to go to the library and learn a little bit of the history of everything so I could explain things to the customers.”

A good restaurant isn’t just about good food, though La Boca certainly has this. To truly distinguish itself from the pack, a restaurant’s parts must come together into a harmonious composition. The kitchen, the service and the ambiance all contribute to the diner’s overall experience. And at La Boca, Rodriguez brings these parts together. His genteel nature infuses the dining room and contributes to the positive feel of the place, making the whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts. La Boca is one of those restaurants that, when I go there, I ask myself why I don’t go there more often. There is a welcoming feel to the place, it seems cozy and “right-sized” and perfectly attuned to itself and what it tries to be. And a share of the credit for this goes to Rodriguez. He is down-to-earth, sincere and really cares about his customers’ experiences.

“I feel very comfortable here,” he says. “It is like a home to me. I enjoy what I do. I like the satisfaction of talking to the clients, the feeling I get when I know that they are happy about the meal and the service. I am happy when they have a good experience and say that they look forward to coming back again.”   – Jay Forman

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 2:41 am and is filed under JAY FORMAN, MEDIA MENTIONS, MYNEWORLEANS.COM, NEW ORLEANS MAGAZINE, NEWS & EVENTS, PRESS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.