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interview them too.” The tasting follows a different format than usual sip-and-greets. Participants join groups of five or six people, and these groups rotate among the winemakers, getting time with each to sample wines, hear their stories and ask questions. There are two sessions, one at 6 p.m. and another at 7:30 p.m., and each is limited to 25 people. That might sound a bit like a winetasting version of speed dating, but it’s intended to give customers access to the visiting winemakers. It also seems like a sensible solution to managing 50-plus people in the tight confines of the Green Goddess. Winemakers will be stationed in different parts of the building and (weather permitting) the pedestrian mall outside. Green Goddess chef Chris DeBarr will serve a selection of appetizers. Tickets are $75, including tax and gratuity. Call Green Goddess for reservations. After a holiday hiatus, the Faubourg St. John wine shop has resumed its popular “Friday Free-For-All.” The free wine tastings are held Fridays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event also features tapas prepared by chef Richard Papier. Papier has worked in many New Orleans kitchens, including Emeril’s Restaurant, Herbsaint and the Delachaise. More recently he’s been providing catering services to movie sets around town. His cooking, which he describes as “down-home multicultural,” incorporates many different influences but is reliably straightforward and rustic. His tapas at Swirl are between $5 and $7 each.
Theo’s Eyes Elmwood
FIVE LATIN GROCERIES
Co-owner, Besh Restaurant Group Born in Nicaragua, Octavio Mantilla got his start in the restaurant business at age 16 as a dishwasher. After earning degrees from Tulane University and the University of New Orleans, he went to work for Harrah’s casinos in New Orleans and St. Louis, Mo. Today, he and business partner/chef John Besh co-own the Besh Restaurant Group, which has nine properties, including a branch of their New Orleans bistro Luke in San Antonio, Texas, and the latest, Borgne, a seafood restaurant which opened this month in the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. This year, Mantilla began a leadership role on the New Orleans Tourism & Marketing Board. You’re active both in the restaurant business and the tourism industry now. What’s your perspective on the recent run of high-profile sporting events the city has just hosted? Do these events impact your dining rooms? Mantilla: They definitely do, but it’s about more than just getting people in the restaurants. It’s the national attention that comes along with it — it’s spreading the word about New Orleans on a bigger scale and getting people to think about coming here. Conventional wisdom says many restaurants rely on tourism here. But what role does the restaurant industry have in tourism? M: The city’s restaurant reputation helps bring tourists here. Once they’re here, we have a chance not only to show them our food but to show that it’s part of our culture and who we are. Maybe that keeps them coming back. You started in the restaurant business young and rose through the ranks. Does that experience influence how you do business today? M: The whole culture at our company is based on what John (Besh) and I have been through in our careers, working our way up. The reason we have nine restaurants now isn’t because John and I just decided to open them. It’s because we have the talent within our organization and we want to promote them. We have so many people who are passionate enough to run their own restaurants, and that’s why we’ve expanded. There are more aspiring chefs and general managers in the ranks too, so down the road we might be opening more with them. — IAN MCNULTy
suggesting they add a location in the Elmwood area. The Elmwood Theo’s will be about the same size as the Mid-City restaurant, and Orintas says it will have more outdoor seating, a larger bar and a bigger draft beer selection.
Cultivating a Local Foods Cafe
The Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center (1618 O.C. Haley Blvd., 352-1150; www.zeitgeistinc.net) has long been a New Orleans destination for movies. It’s also becoming a spot for alternative brunch, one featuring a menu composed entirely of local foods. On the second Saturday of each month, Zeitgeist hosts the OCH Art Market (www.ochartmarket.com) and, starting last week, the Local Foods Cafe. The cafe is a partnership between NOLA Locavore (www.nolalocavore. org), a group that promotes eating locallyproduced foods (and which organizes the annual Eat Local Challenge), and the PPX Dinner Club (www.ppxneworleans.com), a pop-up eatery run by chef
Matthew Elliott Kopfler and Tess Monaghan. Zeitgeist’s building doubles as the NOLA Locavores headquarters, so it’s providing the space, and PPX will handle the cooking. Lee Stafford of NOLA Locavores says he hopes to develop the concept into a permanent local-foods restaurant. “We’ve been wanting to add a restaurant at Zeitgeist for a while,” he says. “We’re starting with having it at the art market because we’ll get the traffic we need, but the end goal is to have a locavore cafe there open seven days a week.” For the past few months, Kopfler and Monaghan have been running PPX as a once-a-week pop-up on Wednesday evenings inside the F&M Patio Lounge (4841 Tchoupitoulas St., 895-6784; www.fandmpatiobar.com), among other locations. Their menus make regular use of local foods, but for this new project all of the ingredients come from local producers, with much of it sourced through Hollygrove Market & Farm. Local Foods Cafe serves on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Brazilian Market & Cafe 2424 Williams Blvd., Suite N, Kenner, 468-3533
Portuguese is in the air, and South American goods are on the shelves.
Celina’s International Grocery 3601 Williams Blvd., Kenner, 712-8690
This Latin superstore, perhaps the largest locally, is attached to a taqueria.
Ideal Discount Market 250 S. Broad St., 822-8861; 3805 Hessmer Ave., Metairie, 883-5351
A pair of markets with excellent butcher sections offer hot food to go.
Norma’s Sweets Bakery 2925 Bienville St., 309-5401; 3221 Georgia Ave., Kenner, 467-4309
Get Cuban sweets, bread and grocery staples at either location.
Union Grocery 1933 Stumpf Blvd., Gretna, 366-3604; 2105 W. Esplanade Ave., Suite A, Kenner, 469-1861
www.unionsupermarket.com The Mid-City original is now in Kenner.
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Trends, notes, quirks and quotes from the world of food. “Food trucks are not for the faint of heart. For our cafe, I don’t have to worry about someone coming in and moving my restaurant,” Kim Billingsley told Nation’s Restaurant News. Billingsley is co-owner of No Tomatoes, a Los Angeles food truck that spawned a brick-and-mortar cafe. The No Tomatoes truck was reported stolen in December and was recovered by police 200 miles away in a motel parking lot in Fresno, Calif., where it had been repainted with the words “Bad Boy Burgers.” It was returned to its owners in time for them to serve Rose Bowl crowds in Pasadena on Jan. 2.
Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > january 17 > 2012
Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza is expanding with a third location in the works in Elmwood. Construction is underway on a new strip mall near the entrance to the Elmwood Shopping Center on South Clearview Parkway, and Theo’s is slated to begin making pizza there this summer. “I think this will be a big stepping stone for us to have three locations,” says Theo’s co-owner Jammer Orintas. “Eventually, we’d love to have another one downtown in the CBD, one on the West Bank, maybe one in Slidell.” Expansion always was part of the blueprint for Theo’s, though Orintas says Hurricane Katrina derailed those plans for a while. He and fellow college friends Greg Dietz and Ted Neikirk opened their first Theo’s (4218 Magazine St., 894-8554; www.theospizza.com) less than a year before Katrina struck, and they say the chance to reopen quickly after the flood was an important part of establishing their brand. The Magazine Street Theo’s was among the first wave of restaurants to reopen and the partners watched their new business skyrocket as returning residents filled any eatery then operating. In 2009, the partners opened a much larger second shop in Mid-City (4024 Canal St., 302-1133; www.theospizza.com). Orintas says their next expansion was guided in part by emails from people living around Harahan and River Ridge
OCTAVIO MANTILLA
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