Best Restaurant For A Romantic Dinner

Unlike some of our other more blatant eateries -- Tantra or Touch, for example -- chef-proprietor Kris Wessel's Liaison isn't all about sex. It is, however, all about the sensual: the feel of a large airy dining room with a high ceiling and billowing linens. The look of a sleek bar that has the friendly, open-door ambiance of a corner shop. The taste of Wessel's restrained yet exuberant New Orleans-inspired cuisine that combines classic French technique with local and seasonal ingredients. Don't look for too much blackening seasoning, though. This restaurant doesn't hit the diner over the head with Cajun flavors and drag her off to a cave for a bout of postprandial feasting. Rather Wessel seduces the sophisticate in all of us with items like filé gumbo with blue crabs; grillades of veal served over grits; crêpes stuffed with oysters; or zesty short ribs. Wash it all down with a sparkling kir royale, and you've got the perfect introduction to the main course after the dinner, if you know what we mean (wink, wink).