Saint John Lands New Downtown Location Opening This Fall | Eater New Orleans

"After closing its French Quarter doors in May 2024 with promises to reopen elsewhere, I learned Saint John has landed new permanent digs downtown and will reopen this fall at 715 St. Charles Avenue, the former home of Le Chat Noir. The single-story, modern space has a similarly large footprint with two bar areas flanking the entrance and a spacious, open dining room in the back, and Cook touts the more central, accessible location with walk-on streetcar access, increased parking, and Mardi Gras parade route views. Opened at 1117 Decatur Street in 2021 as a follow-up to Gris-Gris, Saint John is a Creole restaurant rooted in Cook’s Louisiana upbringing and informed by his and chef de cuisine Daren Porretto’s research into 18th-century Creole cuisine; their interpretations feel modern and approachable, exemplified by the signature Oysters Saint John, which combines fried, poached-in-cream, and oyster dressing served in puff pastry. That signature dish, along with favorites like Creole beef daube, baked macaroni pie with red gravy, slow-braised smothered turkey necks, and a roasted garlic Caesar, are slated to be on the new menu (with more items to be finalized this summer), and the reopening may coincide with Cook’s cookbook release on September 17. Prior to closing, the restaurant cited staffing shortages, lease rates, and the impending summer slowdown and had earlier weathered a high-profile dispute in November 2023 over a $40,000 Entergy bill that led to a 48-hour outage before being resolved." - Clair Lorell