Madisonville runs on boats. The Tchefuncte River comes down past the 1837 lighthouse into Lake Pontchartrain, and on a Saturday the traffic on the water outnumbers the traffic on St. Tammany Street. The Anchor is the shaded, open-air ground floor of Chef Michael Gottlieb’s place at 407, right on the river, and it is the casual half: po-boys, appetizers, frozen daiquiris. Boaters pull up and climb out. Gottlieb came from Savannah, where his family’s bakery opened in 1884, and he swapped the standard Leidenheimer loaf for a buttered, toasted bun on the shrimp po-boy, which is either heresy or an improvement depending on who you ask. Tchefuncte’s upstairs is the dressed-up version. Downstairs is the one with your feet on a dock.
