Chef and restaurant proprietor Yves Carreau and his team have a knack for finding unoccupied niches in Pittsburgh's dining scene, and knowing how -- and when -- to fill them.
The concept of a California wine bar was fairly unexplored here when he opened Sonoma Grille on Penn Avenue seven years ago, and many of us had never heard of ceviche or cachaca when he opened Seviche a few doors away. But Downtown Pittsburgh was ready for both, and embraced them both.
Are we finally ready for bayou cuisine and classic New Orleans cocktails? Pittsburgh has tried this before, notably at Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street Square on Camp Horne Road, then at a small take-out shop in East Pittsburgh, but never to lasting effect.
Perhaps it was the suburban locations -- if you're gonna do it right, you need to do it on the square. New Orleans has its French Quarter, known as "Vieux Carre" -- literally the "old square" -- and Pittsburgh's most famous square is Market Square, now home to NOLA, the latest Carreau endeavor.
It also may be the most natural fit of the three restaurants: Mr. Carreau was born in France, and New Orleans and creole food draw heavily on French influences (among others).
In that respect, the menu came together easily, said executive chef and NOLA co-investor Andrew Hebson. New Orleans' staples such as red beans and rice, jambalaya, peel-and-eat barbecue shrimp, frog legs, po' boys (hoagies stuffed with batter-fried seafood) and the muffaletta sandwich make up most of the menu, and whatever isn't native to the Crescent City is probably a favorite recipe of either Mr. Hebson or Mr. Carreau.
That menu might not have worked five years ago in Market Square, when the restaurant selection there was more limited and the open-air drug trade a bit more robust. But given the square's recent renovations, and the new apartments and YMCA nearby, the timing seemed right. The NOLA team is renting the space from its neighbors, Nicholas Coffee Co.
"He's very shrewd in that way. He has a knack for knowing when it's the right time for the right concept. So far, his chances have paid off," Mr. Hebson said.
The NOLA investors took a chance on rehabbing the former 1902 Landmark Tavern, a Market Square mainstay that closed last year. The handsome, dark-wood back bar remains largely intact, but the rest of the space has been gutted. A divider that bisected the front of the house has been removed, the kitchen has been remodeled, and from floor to ceiling, east to west, it's a colorful new space. Artist and muralist August Vernon, an Ohioan by birth who grew up in Pittsburgh's South Hills, is responsible for the artwork and portraits that enliven the dining rooms.
If New Orleans is adored for its food and restaurant scene, its cocktail legacy is second to none, giving us some of the all-time great drinks: the Sazerac, the Vieux Carre, the Crusta, the Ramos Fizz and the iconic Hurricane. Brian Schaaf, the head bartender by way of Il Pizzaiolo in Mt. Lebanon and Bigelow Grille Downtown, said that NOLA's cocktail menu, like its dining menu, wrote itself to a degree.
"We wanted to kind of focus on a lot of the traditional New Orleans cocktails as much as possible, to introduce them to a Pittsburgh audience," he said.
They also built their own house cocktail -- the NOLA -- out of bourbon, simple syrup, lemon juice and absinthe, the last of which has a deep history in New Orleans (as well as a bar named after it, The Absinthe House). NOLA also hopes to augment its rye selection, if for no other reason than to help build a better Sazerac (made of rye whiskey, bitters, sugar and absinthe).
"I don't feel like we can have any street credit as a New Orleans bar if we can't get a Sazerac right," he said.
NOLA opened in mid-March. It's closed on Sundays, but is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. the rest of the week, with live jazz and blues acts three nights a week. Visit nolaonthesquare.com for details.
First Published: April 28, 2011, 8:00 a.m.
