There’s still gumbo, smothered turkey necks and baked macaroni pie on the menu. There’s still a large bar up front and an open kitchen facing the dining room in back. There’s still a second floor with private dining and event rooms opening to balconies. Now though, vintage green St. Charles Avenue streetcars rattle past those balconies and by the broad windows lining the bar.
Saint John is back, though now the restaurant that started in the French Quarter is getting a new start downtown at 715 St. Charles Ave. It officially opened Sept. 27 following a week of trial runs.?
Four months ago, chef/owner Eric Cook closed Saint John, saying its location on lower Decatur Street was holding it back from its full potential and vowing to return. Now he has a chance to prove what Saint John can be in a beautiful new setting already familiar in the local restaurant scene.
The restaurant officially opens Friday at the address that was previously home to the restaurant Le Chat Noir (which closed in 2023), and Marcello’s before that (it was also a cabaret theater called Le Chat Noir many years back).
Cook is a New Orleans native and Marine Corps veteran who's been working in local restaurants since leaving the military. He finally opened his own restaurant, Gris Gris in the Lower Garden District, in 2018 with an elevated take on Southern comfort flavors.
Saint John is dialed more directly to the cornerstones of Creole cuisine when it first opened in 2021.
On the new menu
To develop their menu, Cook and his chefs pulled down vintage, dog-eared cookbooks from the shelves of their families’ homes and from the racks at used book stores.
The result is an upscale treatment of deep-running Louisiana flavors (most of the entrees are in the $40 range).
There are Creole dishes not commonly found at restaurants, at least not at new restaurants, like rabbit fricassee, crabmeat Remick, daube (made with short ribs) and chicken bonne femme, roasted with bacon lardons.
Dishes that have become signatures are back, namely the baked macaroni pie, smothered turkey necks in brown gravy and the oysters Saint John, which brings them three ways: poached in cream, fried and made into oyster dressing for a vol-au-vent, a version of the local Thanksgiving table staple.
New additions include a rabbit fricassee appetizer made with gnocchi and a bone-in veal chop parmesan that should be split (or at least ordered with plans for a leftovers dinner for home).
The lunch menu adds sandwiches (including a fried chicken banh mi) and brunch dishes daily, like boudin Benedict, eggs in purgatory (baked with spicy tomato sauce) and grits and grillades.
The first location of Saint John was the subject of a high-profile dispute with Entergy last fall when the chef shut down the restaurant briefly, which at the time he described as the last straw in a culmination of issues that built through a slow summer. But the decision to close in May and relocate came from an assessment of the restaurant’s revenue, the high cost of lease rates and doing business in the French Quarter, and the impending summer.
New cookbook, signings
It’s been a busy fall for Cook. While steering the rebirth of Saint John, his first cookbook “Modern Creole” was published in September. A collaboration with local writer Jyl Benson and photographer Sam Hanna, it’s a trove of many his restaurant dishes and more home-style recipes.
Upcoming book signing events include a visit Saturday (Sept. 28) at Dorignac’s Food Center, 1-3 p.m., Octavia Books on Oct. 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and at the Oak Street Po-Boy Fest on Oct. 27 at Blue Cypress Books, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, the former Saint John location at 1117 Decatur St. is slated to open as a new restaurant called Cajun Flames in the weeks ahead. This will be the second restaurant from the trio of chefs behind LUFU NOLA, a modern Indian restaurant in the CBD. Cajun Flames will focus on New Orleans-style flavors, including fried seafood and an oyster bar.
Saint John
715 St. Charles Ave., 504-381-0385
Lunch and dinner Wed.-Mon. (closed Tue); officially opens Sept. 27?