Modern takes on classic New Orleans cuisine are helping its culinary scene bounce back
New Orleans had 800 restaurants before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city; now it has 1,400. And in May the city scooped three ‘Oscars of the food world’, with contemporary takes on the city’s cuisines leading the way
Monday August 22, 2005, was a typically sultry, steamy New Orleans day. By the end of the week, however, the city would be devastated by Hurricane Katrina, at the time the strongest hurricane recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. Winds of up to 193km/h and a subsequent storm surge destroyed the famous levees and flooded 80 per cent of the city. More than 1,200 people died; The Big Easy would never be the same again.
It may seem incongruous discussing a natural disaster in a story about restaurants, but there’s a very good reason. Prior to Hurricane Katrina there were about 800 restaurants in the city but, in the 12 years since, the number has almost doubled to 1,400, even as the population has fallen by more than 100,000.
Consequently, New Orleans’ burgeoning, critically acclaimed dining scene and restaurant industry is one of the success stories to emerge from the tragedy. In May, at the prestigious James Beard Awards – considered as the “Oscars of the food world” – the city took home three: rising star chef, outstanding bar programme and best regional chef.
That success is especially remarkable as the city’s population is only 400,000, a fraction of larger metropolises. The figure does, though, explain its culinary sense of community.
“New Orleans struggled to stay alive in the wake of Katrina, but we responded the only way we know how: eat, drink and repeat,” says Jack Carson, chef at the Aberdeen Marina Club in Hong Kong, a New Orleans native.