When one travels often, one of the first rules that everyone seems to learn is “Don’t eat at the hotel restaurant.” New Orleans, in its fine tradition of thumbing its nose at the rules, is of course littered with exceptions to the “avoid the hotel restaurant” rule. MiLa Restaurant (817 Common Street, 504-412-2580) is one such exception. With its separate entrance, you could visit MiLa often and never once figure out that it’s a “hotel restaurant.”

As with most restaurants, the bar warmly greets you as you enter. The long and spacious bar area could easily hold many an office happy hour with room to spare. With liquor bottles running almost the entire length, I imagine just about any libation you could dream up would be just an order away. Unbeknownst to us, the cool, contemporary decor of MiLa provided great insight into the meal we were about to have.

MiLa presents itself as a unique blend of southern and French cuisine using local ingredients at their best, when they are in season. Nothing bears this out more than the seasonal tasting menu, featuring a 6 course menu showcasing the flavors of the season with optional wine pairings. ($65 without wine, $100 with). While an attractive option, Cupcake and I stuck to the regular menu.

As we perused the menu, a tiny sample of braised veal cheeks atop potato salad was presented. Incredibly tender veal upon chunky and creamy, but not sloppy, potato salad proved a great first foray into MiLa’s offerings. Now sufficiently enticed, we ventured full on into dinner.

To start, Cupcake had the calamari salad and I went with tuna carpaccio. While the carpaccio was good, the combination of the drizzled sauce with the tuna didn’t quite fit my sometimes picky tastes that night. Cupcake’s calamari salad on the other hand was perfectly delightful with a mixture of calamari grilled just right, not too tough or chewy, and fried to perfection.

Entrees bought more tuna for me, the Kobe fillet and tuna belly, while Cupcake also returned to the sea for the scallops.

Piled behind that fine stack of meat and fish is a wide array of vegetables, including an incredible display of carrots of all colors–certainly enough to make Joseph jealous, even with that amazing coat.

No picture we could snap could really do justice to the size of the scallops. Even more unfortunate, no picture could really do justice to the taste either. Fantastic.

As you’ll note, MiLa certainly makes good on its pledge to incorporate fresh vegetables into each of its dishes. However, taking steps not to force them upon you like a parent with their young child, the chefs have taken care to ensure that the vegetables blend in as an integral part of the dish instead of an afterthought plunked down to hide empty portion of the plate.

To close out the meal, we both went with our go-to’s. Cupcake with chocolate and I with strawberry.

As the hearty serving of fresh whipped cream and rich chocolate torte shaped like a Reese’s peanut butter cup kept Cupcake happy and quiet, beside the occasional “mmmmmmm,” I’m guessing she liked it.

The strawberry pavlova really hit the spot for me and seem to encapsulate MiLa’s approach to food: “We’ll take traditional southern foods in season (the strawberries) and spin them out in ways you aren’t expecting (a light and airy pavlova instead of the typical, heavy shortcake).”

From the location, the decor and the food, MiLa certainly challenges the conventional, but fails to alienate. Instead, MiLa’s fresh approach and creative methods force nothing, except for you to expect the unexpected. Definitely a spot to move up near the top of your queue.