Mosquito Supper Club Chef Expands With New Restaurant Saint Claire | Eater New Orleans
"Chef Melissa Martin — best known for her Uptown, tasting-menu–centric restaurant and a duo of James Beard Award–winning cookbooks — partnered with Cassi Dymond to open a country French–themed restaurant that opened on June 26 in Algiers Point. Dymond, co-founder of Maple Street’s Satsuma Cafe and co-owner of Kalimera Construction (which specializes in dynamic restaurant build-outs, including Dakar NOLA, the Tell Me Bar, and N7), helped bring the project to life. Located across the river about 15 minutes from the CBD, the restaurant is housed in a restored 1920s medical officer’s home at 1300 Richland Road, centered on a cul-de-sac, surrounded by live oak trees and just steps from the Mississippi River levee; the site was once part of Camp Algiers, an immigration center, and a WWII-era internment camp. Unlike Martin’s Uptown tasting‑menu project, the new spot does not feature a prix fixe menu or communal dining; the opening menu nods to seasonal vegetables and local seafood, with specific dishes including eggplant fritters with powdered sugar, smoked beets with trout roe, farmed Brightside oysters from Grand Isle, a duck and andouille gumbo, gnocchi with crabmeat in a lemon beurre blanc sauce, and grouper with fried okra. The interior is described as warm and inviting, with a palette of buttery yellow and soft blues, rustic French antiques, mismatched porcelain plates and silverware, and candlelight flickering — cast as the welcoming country mouse to Martin’s Uptown, city setting." - Beth D’Addono
