A New Orleans venue that once hosted its fair share of local and traveling cabaret performances from 1999 to 2011 has now reopened as Le Chat Noir, a casual, upscale restaurant that showcases its unique take on New Orleans cuisine, according to this article from Nola.com. The debut of Le Chat Noir is indebted to its culinary vision set forth by Seth Temple, a Lake Charles native and Nicholls culinary grad. Temple earned a scholarship from Nicholls’s John Folse Culinary Institute to attend the elite Institut Paul Bocuse in France, and upon his return to New Orleans, he worked in local kitchens that included Kenton’s and Couvant before he traveled to London and cooked at the Michelin-starred restaurant Lyle’s.
Debuting in December 2021 at 715 St. Charles Avenue, Le Chat Noir opened its doors in a space that had previously been the Italian restaurant Marcello’s, which closed due to the pandemic. Although before the building housed Marcello’s, it was known over a 12-year span as the home of the cabaret venue Le Chat Noir. But now thanks to a commercial vision from James Reuter, the founder of Bearcat Café off Freret Street, the building has reopened under its old name and as a different genre.
The Nicholls culinary grad told The Gambit that it was at Lyle’s that his perspective of ingredients, how he liked to eat, and the relationship between the two began to completely shift. Gambit writer Beth D’Addono said of the cuisine, “Temple’s artful food commands the spotlight, the star of the show that went curtains up in early December. Temple is an alchemist as much as he is a chef, coaxing big flavors out of farm-fresh ingredients. What he does with hakurei turnips is brilliantly simple — a sauté of the small, crunchy vegetable, greens attached, in a miso-fueled umami sauce studded with candied kumquats and fronds of bronze fennel. Twirl the turnips like linguine, being sure to get the hybrid citrus in every bite, and the depth of clean flavor is worth a standing ovation.”
Temple’s menu at the restaurant is approximately 70% locally-sourced, and at least 50% of the total meals are either vegan or vegetarian thanks to his connections with local vendors such as West Feliciana Parish’s Mushroom Maggie’s Farm, Kenner’s JV Foods, and Belle Chase’s Matt Ranatza Farms and Saxon Becnel & Sons citrus.
James Reuter, the founder of Bearcat Café and Bearcat CBD, just around the corner on Carondelet Street., brings with him a particular style that is indicative of other Bearcat restaurants, specifically in that they often defy simplistic categorization and feature a menu that’s representative of both a health-conscious California cafe and a permissive chef-forward tavern. While Le Chat Noir already appears to be sharing some of those characteristics like its wide array of vegetarian, paleo, vegan, and gluten-free dishes, the restaurant also seems like a more ambitious undertaking, given the history of the location.
The recent history of the Le Chat Noir cabaret is ever-present in the restaurant as the kitchen is exactly where the old theatrical stage once stood, the dining room is set in the old theatre space, and the restaurant’s lounge and impressive oyster bar are located beside the window-lined front bar, which used to feature performers mixing and mingling after post-show.
As of the time of writing, the restaurant is open for dinner with plans to serve lunch and happy hour on the horizon. The cuisine is vibrant and delicious without reinventing traditional New Orleans dishes, and with it being set in the spotlight of an old-New Orleans performance venue, the restaurant is able to satisfy the show-stopping spectacle of classic Crescent City flavor, life, and culture with every bite.
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