Christina’s Restaurant

Christina’s is a breakfast and lunch hideaway in Baton Rouge’s stately Beauregard Town. It’s a reliable, friendly place that feels more small town than Capital City.  Servers stop for conversation with most tables and conduct transactions in an unrushed manner. People stay for a while after they’ve finished eating and read the paper.

The special breakfast is an American classic: 2 eggs, 2 links or strips and two hot cakes. The bacon and eggs are cooked just right, fresh and not greasy. Pancakes, are perfectly round and as pretty as a picture, even if they are a bit dense. It’s nice that they offer them with Steen’s cane syrup, a superior, local alternative to artificial “pancake syrup.” But it’s moot. We won’t come back for pancakes when there is such a superior choice elsewhere on the menu: biscuits and milk gravy.

The biscuits are unusually light and graceful. The gravy is so silky and balanced that you can eat it like soup, but it’s rich enough to stand up to the fluffy biscuits. It’s a rare version of this stick-to-your-ribs dish that leaves you wanting another round. 

At lunch, seafood gumbo is the about the funkiest, dankest gumbo we’ve had … which is the way we like it. The seafood is well incorporated into the broth, making every bite rich with Gulf flavor. 

Gumbo and the biscuits and gravy reveal the strengths of the kitchen. When ordering, aim South. This is a place that can be counted on to deliver a hot well-brewed cup of coffee and great Southern comfort food.