mary mahoney's old french house

my in-laws rave about mary mahoney's so we finally stopped by. it was okay, but not great.
we were seated in the back room with a lovely view of the parking lot. the room itself was not quaint or charming .
the service was great. our server was friendly, knowledge and efficient. the meal was paced nicely too.
the food was good, but not great. it was heavy on the worcestershiresauceand cheese. and extremely overpriced. i am not cheap. we have eaten dinner at the most expensive steak house in the country. i didn’t mind because the food was worth it. that was not the case here.

i have heard that this was the best restaurant in the area and compares with all the top restaurants in new orleans. i was not impressed with mary mahoneys at all. the salad was a small dish of iceberg lettuce with a tiny slice of tomato. the bread was a piece of french bread like you buy at kroger. their main signature dish had so much worcestershiresaucein it i could barely taste the overcooked shrimp. extremely overpriced as far as the food goes. i guess your paying for the atmosphere of a 300 year old landmark. staff was friendly. have drinks at the bar, read about the history but pass on the food

great place for a restaurant. i love mary mahoney's atmosphere the ambience is perfect, the food however is another matter. we took out of town guests there over the holidays for lunch. our friends ordered the stuffed snapper. the fish was just fair and the side of étouffé was horrible. i tasted it and it was obviously old and someone had tried revive it with some sort of spice we couldn't identify. bottom line it was not edible and was sent back untouched. i had the fried trout with a side of pasta with crab sauce. the trout was heavily battered and not seasoned well the pasta was gummy thesaucewas pasty and i could not find any crab in it. the bread pudding and coffee were great but hardly made up for the poor entrées. the meal was a disappointment. at this price point folks are looking for freshly prepared food not sides but have been sitting out under a heat lamp. if you're looking for fine dining, keep looking!

out of touch. i am not a fan of this sacred biloxi shrine. i don't see any indication that they use seasonal fresh items, or update their stale menu.as an example, they still use old style heavy cream sauces that end up tasting like the samesauceyes, the service is wonderful, as is the setting yet sadly the food does not do anything remotely unique, fresh or current. for this diner, no more chances to disappoint and drain my wallet simultaneously.

never again1. i am from new orleans so i have to disagree with the billing this place likes to give itself as "new orleans style" and "french". the poodle i bought in covington is more french than the cuisine at this restaurant. having just wasted $120 of my hard earned money at mary mahoney's friday night - i feel compelled to warn off as many people as possible..... my husband and i went there to celebrate our anniversary on friday night. i made the mistake of getting their "famous" gumbo. it tasted like nothing but file', it was served to me lukewarm and it was terrible. it is obvious to me that whoever made that gumbo had no idea how to make a roux. to make things worse, i just found their gumbo recipe in a cookbook that we just bought while we were on the coast - it had no file in it - called for okra (there was none in mine) and looked a whole lot better in the cookbook that it did on my plate!!! my husband and i also had broiled fish, served with some burntsaucethat purported to be etouffe' and was served over angel hair pasta along with some broccoli that looked like it came out of the freezer first. again, these were $36 dollar entrees, people - it was an absolute insult! staff was decent, but this restaurant has not evolved since the eighties - they are living off of their former reputation - you want new orleans food? put in the extra mileage and drive to new orleans. you want a decent meal at a fair price - don't go here! this restaurant has deteriorated into tourist trap.... very disappointed - this used to be a great place.....

never disappoints us. bar is small but well-stocked, has superb bartender (lunch). we both had shrimp/crabmeat au gratin (w/small salad, $16.95): very fresh seafood and cheese/creamsauceas usual. big plus: entrees arrived hot and stayed that way throughout the meal.
service can be a little spotty at times.
this restaurant is historic and popular, so make reservations for dinner.

great bread . mediocre food. being from the big easy i know good food and it isnt here. the so called home made dressings should have tipped me off right away. kraft makes a better dressing. my wife ordered the signature dish, lobster giorgio . boy it was an impressive looking dish. looking is the key word here . there was evidence of lobster but no real lobster meat in the dish . plenty of shrimp though, but not delicious tasty ms. gulf coast shrimp. more like the tasteless shrimp one would find at a chinese buffet, thesaucei would swear was made with cambells cream of mushroom soup. no flavor whatso ever. how can a lobster dish be bad? . the filet was so-so at best. no demi glace or any othersauceto compliment the filet. the food came out so quickly i suspect the entrees were prepared earlier in the day and just placed in the broiler. on a good note the bread was very good as was the service . but i am not willing to pay a hundred dollars for a loaf of french bread served well .

good news and ok news. not bad; but not knock your socks off. worth the visit to get out of the hotels. i would come back but average new orleans cooking. spices and heat are very soft, adding hotsauceis a must. bread people will love the bread. if you are thinking about eating i would suggest yes go for it.

maybe we didn't order well. our food was fine but not as special as people made it out to be. the service was excellent. the building was interesting. etoufee was good too even if the crawfish were a bit rubbery, but the etoufee wasn't super oily and buttery the way it is sometimes served.

but the stuffed flounder was not good. it had a weird creamsaucethat made it taste like scalloped potatoes. it seemed like a weird 70's hot dish. i could barely tell that it was seafood. i wanted fresh flounder with the taste of shrimp and crawfish. i didn't get that.

tuna salad was nothing special but i don't think our friend should have ordered that.

our bread pudding was disgusting. the alcohol tasted like rubbing alcohol.

stuffed snapper - served with crawfish etouffee over pasta. stuffed snapper- snapper fillet filled with shrimp & crabmeatsauceserved with crawfish etouffee over pasta

i took my wife to mary mahoney's for her birthday. we both love it and enjoy meeting there for lunch with friends. i usually get a bowl of seafood gumbo as an appetizer and get the stuffed snapper as my main entree. the gumbo was literally brimming with fresh gulf shrimp and really hit the spot. we also enjoy their homemade bread and butter which comes with the meal and we normally finish with bread pudding or a sherbet dessert which also comes with the meal. the stuffed snapper is my personal favorite but my wife usually get's the stuffed shrimp.


-----16 feb, 2011-----

i went to lunch with some business colleagues from out of town who wanted to sample the local seafood cuisine. we got a private area for lunch. i normally get the stuffed snapper (snapper fillet filled with shrimp & crabmeatsauceserved with crawfish etouffee over pasta). since i get that all the time, i decided to get another variation of the snapper. i just got the broiled snapper served with crawfish etouffee over pasta. it comes with a veggie (they served green beans today. it varies because sometimes you get carrots or something else). it also comes with a small salad with your choice of dressing. i ordered a cup of gumbo for a starter and as usual, the gumbo was spot on. their gumbo is in the top 3 on the ms gulf coast in my opinion. everyone commented that the gumbo was brimming with shrimp (there were at least 5 good sized shrimp in the cup i received.) the service was a bit slower than i have experienced in the past. we had a table of 10 people and only one waiter so that may have added to the wait time. the food was well worth it. the snapper i received was cooked to perfection. it was tender and spiced just right and was very good. i am very particular about eating fish and their snapper has always been a good fit for my palette. the etouffee over pasta was also very good. there were plenty of crawfish in my portion and i love their angel hair pasta. you get a choice of sherbet or bread pudding with whiskysaucefor desert. everyone ordered the bread pudding except for 3 people who wanted the mississippi mud (they were out, so the 3 each ordered a slab of chocolate cake instead which they said was very good.) my bread pudding was warm and yummy. i really enjoy going to mary mahoney's. i normally only go for lunch because the prices are twice as much at dinner time for pretty much the same dishes and the same portions.

very disappointed. we were visiting from out of town, and we are used to sophisticated restaurants. at these prices--entrees $28-36--you expect sharp, discreet service, good ambience, excellent food. instead we got a server who not only patronizingly explained after ordering the veal that "it doesn't have a marinarasauceor other sauce"--in case we were upset to not see such a sauce!?!--but when the dessert menu was brought, she told us "don't order the lemon meringue pie--it's not good. not made here and i don't like it. " why is it on the menu then? needless to say none of us ordered any dessert after that comment. no butter was brought with the bread; a coffee was forgotten; the iceberg lettuce salads were sad little afterthoughts; the room we were seated in appeared to be a from '80s addition, complete with tacky acoustic ceiling, odd "ice cream parlor" chairs, and cheap paintings and framed prints askew on the walls. we are all for old fashioned meals in old fashioned places, but this truly felt like a place coasting on former glory. and charging an arm and a leg. cannot recommend this restaurant.

qutie possibly the worst restaurant. i was with a large group of friends to celebrate two 25th birthdays. when we got there the waiters were to busy watching tv to even greet us and even when they did walk in the room they just stared at us. someone at the table had to ask them if we could get our drink orders taken (i have had better service from fast food restaurants). one of my friends had to ask for his drink three times before a waiter brought him one. with that start to the dinner i had a feeling it was going to be down hill from there. next was the appetizers, what a joke. almost everyone had the crab cakes, they were sitting on top of a creamsaucewhich looked as if it had been sitting out for a while because it was the consistency of chowder and not sauce. the taste did not make things any better, it was more cake than crab. then the salads came and not surprisingly the dressing is not made in house, tasted like a bad version of kraft. dinner was the last shred of hope i had of eating something worth the money i was about to cough up. i ordered the surf and turf which included a 6 oz filet and a lobster tail. this was the most depressing, the steak although being cooked to what i ordered was cold (not even luke warm). the lobster tail was tougher than the steak which i could not believe (i always believed that a restaurant could not manage to make something like lobster taste bad) and it was markedly tougher than the steak. after all of that the waiter figured out it was mine and my friends birthday so he offered a cheesecake and the miss mud pie ( i did not order any desert) so it comes out and we shared it with the table and wouldnt you know the desert was on my bill as if i ordered the desert. it just added insult to injury. by that point i just wanted to pay the bill and get out of the restaurant before i lost my mind. if you are even thinking about going to this terrible trap the hard rock has a ruth's chris steak house ( i would highly recommend eating there instead or even either of the hotel buffets located directly across the street from the dump that is mary and mahoney's) please save your dining experience before its too late!!!!!!!!!!!!