page 25
interview we just figured we’d do all-American classics and focus on using the best ingredients we could possibly find.” For years, Vella has run his Vella Vetro art glass studio on the second floor of the Studio Inferno building, so converting what had been Inferno’s retail gallery space into an eatery was a natural choice. The restaurant is small and has a suitably artful feel, one melding salvaged woodwork and steel with the classic lines of a diner. Jims bakes its own bread in-house. The menu offers a few salads, including one with blackened shrimp, cherry tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs. Among the lighter sandwiches are a caprese, a vegetarian version of the cheese steak made with portabello mushrooms, and a straight-up grilled cheese on sourdough. Fries are hand-cut, and there’s a refreshing tomato, cucumber and onion salad on the list of sides. Jims serves lunch Tuesday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Pursuing the pupusa
FIVE grEat mussEls DIshEs
ClINt NuNEz O w N ER , C A i N C O N S t R uCt i O N & D ES i gN S
Boucherie
a
dding a walk-in closet is a common enough job for contractors renovating old New Orleans homes. Clint Nunez’s clients are more likely to ask for walk-in coolers. His company Cain Construction & Designs (2310 Perdido St., 302-1850; www.cainneworleans.com) also does residential work but lately has developed a specialty in design/build projects for restaurants and bars, with a list of recent clients including Patois, Tru Burger, Sylvain, Maurepas Foods, Chiba, the Eiffel Society and Republic. Nunez ran Fiorella’s Cafe for much of the 1990s and started Cain Construction in 2003. What are the big things local restaurants are asking for these days? Nunez: With all the specialty drinks now, they want to make the bar more a part of the experience. They need more room for all they do and what they’re stocking, and they want them to be eating bars. The open kitchen is big now, too. It’s part of the transparency they want. So we might build the space so you can see what’s going on, but you don’t have to see the whole circus. We’ll close off the dishwashing station, for instance. How much do you think a restaurant’s design impacts its success? N: What do people complain about the most on Yelp and Twitter and all that? It’s prices, noise and how comfortable the chairs are. I think I read those posts more than the chefs. So we work on noise and comfort issues a lot. Bathrooms are always a big deal. I always tell clients “your bathrooms are representative of your kitchen.” So you have to do them right and, most of all, keep them clean. Do you like dining in restaurants you’ve done, or is that like being at work for you? N: We come back all the time, it’s part of that relationship you build. You don’t want to be like the fisherman who changes his oil and pours it into the water. Your business and what you do is circular, and you have to take care of people who take care of you. Restaurants are as much a part of the city as the river; it’s something that flows through the city here and it’s fun to be part of it.
for the very old-school (and very American) hard-shell corn tacos with shredded lettuce and cheddar. There’s still even a “Taco Tuesdays” deal, with $1 tacos from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on that night. Most of all, however, Pupuseria Divino Corazon is still a destination worth the bridge toll for pupusas, Salvadoran tamales in thick cream sauce, meat pies with bronze-colored crusts and crinkle-fringed edges and boiled yuca topped with chicharron. Moreover it’s worth the trip to see one of the most inviting and welldone dining rooms of any Latin American restaurant to open since. Note that there’s a full bar, tropical drinks and an under-$5 kids menu but inconveniently early closing times: 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday.
Cafe Nero at Who Dat Coffee Cafe
The old corner store at the intersection of Burgundy and Mandeville streets in the Marigny has long been home to
a coffee shop. It was Marigny Perks for years, it later turned into Coffee Friends and more recently the business became Who Dat Coffee Cafe (2401 Burgundy St., 872-0360). It still serves as a coffee shop, but owner Craig Nero recently expanded the options, adding dinner four nights a week in a back room that’s been dubbed Cafe Nero. With a round of remodeling just wrapped up, Cafe Nero serves dinner Thursday through Sunday, while Who Dat Coffee Cafe’s regular breakfast and lunch menu continues daily. There are ongoing dinner specials, like a surf and turf on Saturday, a rib-eye steak on Thursday and one-off specials such as softshell crab with remoulade. The daily cafe menu includes sandwiches and salads, brunch dishes like eggs Benedict or jalapeno cornbread with eggs, plus a large assortment of muffins, cupcakes and other baked goods arrayed in a collection of heavy glass jars and pie domes lining the service counter.
8115 Jeannette St., 862-5514 www.boucherie-nola.com Hammy potlikker and greens transform the traditional dish.
C’est La Vie Bistro 4206 Magazine St., 304-6497 www.cestlaviebistro.com Mussels a l’Auvergnate features steamed mussels with a rich, tangy blue cheese sauce.
Drago’s Hilton New Orleans Riverside, 2 Poydras St., 5843911; 3232 N. Arnoult Road, Metairie, 888-9254 www.dragosrestaurant.com Mussels are char-broiled in butter-garlic sauce, just like Drago’s famous oysters.
Lola’s 3312 Esplanade Ave., 488-6946 www.lolasneworleans.com Large green mussels are served with chilled, chunky vinaigrette.
Meauxbar Bistro 942 N. Rampart St., 569-9979 www.meauxbar.com Mussels are steamed in red curry broth with coriander and basil.
OFF
the
menu
Trends, notes, quirks and quotes from the world of food. “I’ve always thought of tipping as a form of corruption on par with graft in Third World countries. Oh, you want me to do my job? Give me money. I usually tip 15 percent to 20 percent since this is the local custom, but this custom derives from stingy employers who’ve long refused to pay wait staffs appropriately and expect the customers to make up for it.” — Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, writing for Fox Business about gratuities at restaurants.
Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > june 19 > 2012
It wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted Central American food in general — and pupusas in particular — you probably were headed to the West Bank for a cantina called Pupuseria Divino Corazon (2300 Belle Chasse Hwy., Gretna, 3685724). The business has been around since the late 1980s, growing out of what originally was a fruit stand to become a family-run restaurant. Thanks to the large and rapid growth in the local Hispanic population since Hurricane Katrina, there are a lot more Latin American restaurants all across the area. Many specialize in Central American food, and the pupusa is everywhere as a result. But, as a recent return visit to Pupuseria Divino Corazon confirmed, this pioneering West Bank eatery has not lost its appeal. In case you haven’t been introduced, pupusas are disks of cornmeal, thicker than a tortilla but still flat and slender, which are stuffed with some combination of beans, tiny bits of chicharron and salty white farmers cheese. They’re cooked to a golden toastiness on the griddle and traditionally are served with curtido, a tart, ribbon-thin cabbage and vinegar slaw. One pupusa is a tease, two are not enough, three start to get there, but somehow at four you’re completely stuffed. Like other restaurants, Pupuseria Divino Corazon originally brought a then-little-known food specialty to the scene by piggybacking on the popularity of another genre. So as places like Kim Son and Nine Roses presented early Vietnamese menus to New Orleanians alongside familiar Chinese-American fare, this pupuseria griddled up its pupusas and heaped on the curdito for one table and for the next served mass-appeal Mexican standards like gooey enchiladas and cheese dip. You still can order Tex-Mex next to traditional Salvadoran food here, and in fact Pupuseria Divino Corazon is a sanctuary
FIVE in
27