Only One Louisiana Restaurant Made Yelp’s Top 100 for Romance

Louisiana, romance, food, and love all go hand in hand in a perfect blend that sums up life along the bayou. The only problem is that quite often our love and romantic intentions are directed at our great Louisiana food. That's not to say we don't enjoy good company along with candlelight, soft music, bubbly drinks, and a taste of chocolate. We just tend to have more days where the emphasis is placed on the food and less on the love affair connected with it.

Now that doesn't mean we are at all opposed to enjoying a nice romantic meal at a fabulous restaurant. What makes that meal romantic? It's usually the ambiance of the restaurant. The decor is a little more on the elegant side. The waitstaff is usually nicely attired. The drive-thru, well they don't have a drive-thru at these kinds of places, now do they?

So, right off the bat, we've eliminated two major players in Louisiana's restaurant scene. We've taken out places with drive-thrus and I am pretty sure we can take out the selection of eateries that also sell fuel and have an endless selection of hot dogs spinning slowly on a rotisserie.

This is where the folks at Yelp come in. Yelp is an online site that allows consumers to rate and rank various businesses around our community and the country. Restaurants live and die by Yelp reviews and the site recently released their annual list of Top 100 Romantic Restaurants in the United States. Only one Louisiana eatery qualified for the list.

I guess we shouldn't feel so bad. Arkansas and Mississippi had none. Tennessee and Alabama also had just one. And, if you're looking for romance in the Great Plains you can forget it because there is a romantic restaurant void that stretches from North and South Dakota through Nebraska, then westward through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

What is Louisiana's Most Romantic Restaurant?

According to Yelp, that distinction belongs to Cafe Sbisa. It's located on Decatur Street in New Orleans and is known for its Southern, Cajun, and Creole dishes. The Yelp search process which honored Cafe Sbisa looked for reviews that used words such as "date night", "romantic", and "valentine" when compiling their list.

Cafe Sbisa clocked in at number 61 on the Yelp survey. The number one romantic restaurant was a place called Penumbra, it's located in Chicago. Number two was Miami Beach's Pane & Vino. Cafe Monarch of Scottsdale Arizona was ranked third while Cesarina of San Diego and La Grande Boucherie of NYC rounded out the top five.

Yes, it is a bit ironic that a restaurant named La Grande Boucherie made the list and its not in St Martin Parish, go figure, right?