Mahony's Po-Boys has been on Magazine Street since 2008, when chef Benjamin Wicks left fine dining…read moreto bring an upscale kitchen's standards to the po-boy shop. It piled up awards at the Oak Street Po-boy Festival, changed hands, closed, and then came back under new owners who talk about respecting the classics while giving the format a fresh read. That is a lovely mission statement. I went in hoping to taste it, and since the pitch is respect for the classics, I judged it on the classics. What I got was a polite reminder that a famous name is not a recipe.
I wanted this to work. The new owners have said that bringing back a neighborhood po-boy shop is partly about cultural preservation, and I am all for that. A place with this much history should not have to coast on it, and walking in, I was rooting for the sandwich the way you root for a friend's band before you have heard the demo.
My wife and I each ordered a half muffuletta with fries, about $15 each. The muffuletta came out cold, which I understand is the traditional way, so I have no quarrel with the temperature, only with what was inside it. The bread is advertised as coming from Leidenheimer's bakery, and I want to believe that, but it was faintly stale, like a loaf that has heard stories about better days. There was a fair amount of meat and cheese with a serviceable flavor, perfectly fine and nothing to write home about. A postcard, maybe, from somewhere with decent weather.
Then there is the olive salad, which is the whole argument on a muffuletta. Mine had a sour, vinegary edge that tasted slightly rancid, and not the good kind of sour that wakes up a vinaigrette. It was the kind that makes you stop chewing and look across the table for a second opinion. When the olive salad is off, the sandwich has nothing left to say, and this one went quiet fast. A muffuletta can survive middling bread and meat if the olive salad is doing its job, but it cannot survive all three clocking out at once. If this was a one-time slip, the kitchen should know, because the olive salad is the thing the whole sandwich leans on.
The fries were what you would expect from a bar, which is to say fine in theory. I asked for them extra crispy and they arrived limp. Either the request never made it to the kitchen or the kitchen heard it and chose peace. Either way, extra crispy turned out to be more of a suggestion than a setting. The fries were not offensive, just tired, like they had heard the request and decided to sit this one out.
The room is basically a bar with a few tables, and it has the feel of an old house, which has a certain charm. The old-house bones are the kind that should make you want to linger over a sandwich, and they might have, if the dining room had not doubled as a break room. Employees chatting by the bar were practically at our table, so we became accidental members of the conversation. I like a friendly staff, but I came for a sandwich, not a seat at the staff meeting. The tables in the back were off limits because staff were sorting through Halloween decorations. I respect the commitment to the season, though the decorations seemed to hold more of everyone's attention than the dining room did, and it felt like the real business of the day was happening in the back.
Service was friendly, slow, and a little stilted. Different people appeared from the back at different points in the meal, and apart from our waitress there was no telling who was who, like a play where the cast keeps changing and nobody handed us a program. Nobody was rude, and I want to be clear about that. It just felt like the restaurant was happening around us rather than for us. I never did work out who was in charge, though I suspect it was whoever was holding the Halloween decorations.
To be fair, this was not the worst meal I have ever had. It was also not the best. It was middle of the road bar food, and for a place that promises respect for the classics, the classics were the weakest part of the table. I tried to find a favorite bite to report and came up empty, which is its own kind of review. At about $15 for a half muffuletta and fries, the price is not offensive, but it asks you to forgive the bread, the olive salad, and the fries, and I was not in a forgiving mood.
A practical note: we only tried the muffuletta and fries, so I cannot speak for the po-boys, which are what the shop built its reputation on. If you go, I would order a po-boy instead of the muffuletta and keep your expectations for the fries modest.
I would not come back on my own. If you are a muffuletta person, you have standards, and this sandwich did not meet mine. If friends wanted to go, I would tag along and quietly suggest other options. I will say this for the olive salad: it was the only thing at the table with a strong opinion.