The Landmark List: Our 2024 Restaurant Inductees
Our inaugural awards highlight places across the country worth building a trip around. Today's list features must-visit restaurants in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Oxford, and Milwaukee.
We love to travel. For us, nothing is more exciting than the chance to explore new cities and towns each year. But there is something comforting about returning to a familiar place. It’s the rare year that you won’t find us eating lobster rolls in Portland, Maine; sharing shrimp po’boys in New Orleans, Louisiana; or drinking throwback cocktails in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We keep going back because of the restaurants, bars, and hotels we love there — and the chefs, bartenders, and hospitality all-stars that make those places special. We plan entire trips around these spots, and think you should, too. To us, they are Landmarks.
For our inaugural Landmark List, we wanted to establish a set of criteria in order to be included. First, we are only including establishments that have been open for a minimum of five years — American Weekender Landmarks are beloved places with staying power. Second, we are only including spots where we have visited again and again over the years so we can promise a consistent experience. And third, these spots are great. Their food and their drinks are at the top of the game and set the standard for not just not their community, but for restaurants and bars around the country.
Today we’re announcing our four restaurant inductees for 2024. We’ll be announcing our bar inductees in two weeks. Bookmark these spots and start planning your visit now — you’re in for a treat.
Amy Cavanaugh & Kenney Marlatt
Editors, American Weekender
Modern Caribbean restaurants have been on the rise across the country, and for nine years, Nina Compton has been one of the leaders of this movement. At Compére Lapin, her first restaurant, which is located in the Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery, Compton explores different facets of Caribbean cuisine and mixes them with New Orleans influences for a menu that we seek out every time we’re in town.
You’ll see homey flavors from across the Caribbean, including Compton’s native St. Lucia, done up with her refined techniques. Among the menu signatures are the fabulous buttermilk biscuits, served with honey and bacon butters, and the curried goat with sweet potato gnocchi and cashews. Get both; they’re a good base onto which to build the rest of your meal. Other items you might see are a little gem lettuce salad with crispy shallots and cilantro-coconut dressing and an Ital stew with chive roti. For Sunday brunch, there are dishes like Gulf shrimp and grits with sauce Creole and a croque madame with pimento cheese.
The restaurant gets packed during New Orleans’ busy season, but when we visited this past winter, we didn’t have a reservation. We managed to snag two seats at the bar, where we drank CL Daiquiris (a rotating offering that pulls in house rum blends and fruits like guanabana) and ate crispy skewers of bass belly with jerk peanut sauce for dipping, which were unusual and so delicious. We saw once again why of the many, many great restaurants in this town, Compére Lapin will always be one of our favorites.
Year Opened: 2015
Must-Order: Buttermilk Biscuits, Curried Goat with Sweet Potato Gnocchi
535 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, LA 70130 | @comperelapin
Goose the Market is the kind of neighborhood market and sandwich shop we all dream of having down the street. [Editor’s Note: I’m lucky enough that it was my neighborhood market and sandwich shop when I lived in Indy. — KM] Over many visits to Indianapolis, we’ve gone to Chris and Mollie Eley’s charming corner store each and every time. We stop in at the market (run by Mollie) to stock up on local craft beers, produce from local farms, and charcuterie made by Smoking Goose Meatery (run by Chris). We also come to eat.
The Market offers Smoking Goose products on charcuterie boards and in sandwiches, including the Batali, a local favorite since the shop opened more than 15 years ago. Named for American charcuterie pioneer Armandino Batali, it’s made with coppa, soppressata, capicola, provolone, mayo, romaine, pickled onions, and the genius addition of arrabiata sauce — it’s our dream spicy Italian sandwich. Other signatures are the Gander, a vegan take on the Batali, and the Goose with ham, mozzarella, basil, black pepper, and olive oil. More offerings, including additional sandwiches, soups, gelato, and small plates served in the cozy downstairs Enoteca, rotate daily.
One of the newest Smoking Goose products is Big Red Wagyu Beef Salame. “We wanted to do an all-beef salami since we get a ton of requests for pork-free products,” Chris Eley says. “Wagyu beef was a great option. It has a ton of red wine, which is where it gets its name, but it’s also an homage to Indiana University.” That wine comes from Daniel's Vineyard, located about 30 minutes from the market. “It’s specially blended for the salami,” he says. “We round it out with porcini mushrooms, since the idea of a steak dinner informs the salami. It’s a very full-bodied, flavorful salami.”
Recently at the Market, that salami starred in a sandwich with triple cream Trillium cheese from local Tulip Tree Creamery, house pickled mushrooms, and a baguette from nearby Amelia's Bread. It’s sandwiches like this that make every visit to Goose the Market a taste of Indiana.
Year Opened: 2007
Must-Order: The Batali, charcuterie board
2503 N Delaware St, Indianapolis, IN 46205 | @goosethemarket
On our visits to Oxford, we typically wind up at Snackbar a few times. We head in for happy hour to sit at the comfortable bar and sip $8 Sazeracs and snack on rosemary-parmesan frites with Tabasco aioli. Or, we grab a nightcap, like the marvelous Old Manhattan, made with añejo tequila, Carpano Antica, Cherry Heering, Angostura, and whiskey barrel-aged bitters. And we always have dinner in the dining room to eat from chef Vishwesh Bhatt’s South-meets-India menu, which is always changing to reflect the season. (Bhatt explores this cuisine extensively in his recent cookbook, I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef.)
“I learned how to cook in the South, but I grew up eating my mother’s food and those are the flavors I really enjoy,” Bhatt says. “I found that a lot of ingredients were similar. I don’t want to mess with all the great classics and wonderful things, but I think there are flavors and techniques that make things fun and make them unique to me.”
At Snackbar, which is part of John Currence’s City Grocery Restaurant Group, Bhatt serves dishes like sweet tea fried chicken, a Tuesday staple for 14 years. “It’s a tribute to Willie Mae’s, the iconic restaurant in Treme in New Orleans,” Bhatt says. “I started thinking about what generally goes with fried chicken at a Sunday picnic, and that’s sweet tea.” He brines chicken in sweet tea, salt, and hot sauce, and serves it with rotating sides like butter beans and pepper jelly. His okra chaat is a summer classic, and includes fried okra with chopped peanuts, cilantro, and serranos. “Okra and peanuts are quintessential Southern ingredients, but also ingredients I grew up with,” Bhatt says. “We spice it up like Indian street food chaat with lime juice. Chaat is a dish that will have sweet, savory, spicy, crunchy all together. Instead of doing a date and tamarind chutney, I use sorghum since that’s available here.”
Snackbar turned 15 this year, a milestone for any restaurant. “I don’t feel like 15 years is a long time, but of course it is,” Bhatt says. “It’s a mark of how our town supports us. To last this long and remain relevant speaks volumes to the folks who work here. Everyone who walks into work, mostly college kids, buys into what we’re doing.”
Year Opened: 2009
Must-Order: Sweet Tea-Brined Fried Chicken, Okra Chaat
721 N Lamar Blvd, Oxford, MS 38655 | @snackbaroxford
Brunch in Milwaukee is practically a religion, and no place in town does it better than Uncle Wolfie’s Breakfast Tavern. For six years, Wolfgang Schaefer and Whitney McAllister have been serving inventive takes on morning fare. Yes, there will be a wait on weekends, so go early, or grab a coffee on the way over and hang out.
Awaiting you are delicious johnny cakes, made with cornmeal and topped with whipped butter and syrup; thick, tender biscuits with rich, peppery sausage gravy; and the Spamlette, an omelette filled with tamari-glazed Spam, caramelized shallots, Alpine cheese, and shiitake mushrooms with a squiggle of Kewpie mayo on top. Maybe the BETLCH, a breakfast sandwich with bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato, Cheddar, and hot sauce (sambal aioli) is more your speed, or the breakfast poutine with beer cheese, sausage gravy, bacon, pickles, and cheese curds, is just what you need to get going in the morning. It really doesn’t matter what you get — it’s all great.
Uncle Wolfie’s is located in a 1902 brick Miller tied house that sat empty for decades. Inside, there are cozy tables and a central bar with stools. In the back, there’s sister shop Orange and Blue Co., where you can peruse the pottery, jewelry, and other gifty items while you wait for your table.
Start with drinks when you get your seat — you will be having several. You’ll get water, of course, and a small glass of orange juice would be nice. You’ll also want a coffee — strong and black if you like, or perhaps a brown butter miso latte if you’re feeling fancy. The Bloody Mary, however, is non-negotiable, and is served in a pint glass with a skewer of cheese curds, cornichons, and a sausage stick. As is local custom, the Bloody Mary will arrive with a small beer back, called a “snit” for those in the know. And so without much effort, you’ve achieved the five-beverage brunch, which is so quintessentially Wisconsin.
Year Opened: 2018
Must-Order: Spamlette, Johnny Cakes, Bloody Mary
234 E Vine St, Milwaukee, WI 53212 | @unclewolfies
We’ll publish the second half of our 2024 Landmark List in two weeks, when we honor three cocktail bars that have pushed their local drinking scenes forward. If you’re thinking about visiting an American Weekender Landmark, you can can find more nearby places for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks in these past issues:
Have a favorite place you think should be an American Weekender Landmark? Leave a comment below or chat with us on Substack! You can also download our Field Guides, check out our archives, or follow us on Instagram @americanweekender. We’ll be back next week.
Great list!
This is fantastic!