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Devillier's cooking manages to be both sleek and wholesome, showcasing vegetables as well as it does veal sweetbreads, and favoring technique and taste equally.
Every fall, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune restaurant critic Brett Anderson selects the Top 10 Restaurants in New Orleans. It only includes restaurants that meet the expectations of fine-dining restaurants in terms of ambition, food quality and service.
La Petit Grocery is the new best all around restaurant in New Orleans, where Justin Devillier, a former standout from Top Chef NOLA, is the chef. It’s a a modern take on fine dining in an incredible room that will make you want to stay there all night.
It’s the 100th episode of Sharp & Hot! Host Emily Peterson brings out two of her friends from Garden & Gun magazine: Managing editor Philip Rhodes and New Orleans Chef Justin Devillier.
The composed plates are lovely to eyeball, better yet when you dig into the likes of smoky blistered shishito peppers informed with bacon and cream cheese, silky venison tartare served with garlicky mayonnaise and baked rigatoni bathed in a rich ragout of short ribs laced with fontina cheese.
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of New Orleans, The Big Easy bounces back with even more allure.
Lamb Tartare with Quail Eggs and Crispy Quinoa from Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery.
“Everybody who came back remembers where they had their first meal,” said Michael Hecht, chief executive of the economic development group Greater New Orleans, Inc. His was a hamburger and a bourbon on the rocks at La Petite Grocery, a bistro on Magazine Street.
Devillier’s food is grounded in classic technique; he and his staff, which includes Paul DiMaria, Trip Hartsell and Mark Falgoust, know when to stick to the classics and when they can take flight. At Balise, Devillier’s recently opened restaurant in the CBD, they’re getting that balance right.
Review of Balise: Chef Justin Devillier’s CBD spot serves refined Southern fare in a tavern atmosphere
Travel Tips: 48 Hours in New Orleans Featuring Shrimp and Grits, Barber Shop Shaves, and Live Jazz
“Cooking with the history of the food culture here is really a lot of fun,” says chef Justin Devillier. “You don’t have to follow it exactly, but it’s one of those things that’s always there if you need inspiration.”
Justin Devillier from Le Petite Grocery and Balise talks about his love of Louisiana fishing.
James Beard-nominated chef and owner of Balise, Justin Devillier, is known for his refined French bistro food that has just the right amount of Southern decadence to bring it home. The burger at Balise is one of our favorite in New Orleans.
Devillier says La Petite is his “beautiful woman” and Balise is his “handsome man” — the latter a noticeably masculine affair, all dark woods and angular interiors. The menu is eclectic to say the least, with nuanced seafood dishes sharing space with cheeseburgers.
Chef Justin Devillier shows FWx how he cold-smokes egg yolks to use as the base for a creamy aioli.
America’s Best Cities for Foodies
2015 James Beard Award Nominees
For the Big Red Hammer cocktail, chef Justin Devillier stirs his house-made Bloody Mary mix with Tito's Handmade Vodka in a generous Mason jar and tops it with poached shrimp, blue-crab claws and house-pickled vegetables to cure what ails ye.
These Are The Finalists For The 2015 James Beard Award
From go-to gas station snacks to Southern food secrets, 13 top chefs answer our tough questions.
Chef Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery in New Orleans explains that the savory rice porridge on his menu was influenced by Asian broken rice-style dishes, like congee. Influence also comes from closer to home. Devillier points to Southern-style grits, that are never doctored up with sweet toppings like syrup, as inspiration for his porridge.
Pastry chef Bronwen Wyatt creates poetry on a plate. The seamless balance of sweet and savory can be found in her grilled vanilla bean panna cotta with satsuma sorbet and pistachio brittle and her grilled Alabama peach with mayhaw sauce harnesses the tart, fruity flavor of the berries that grow wild in the Louisiana swamps.
At La Petite Grocery, New Orleans Magazine’s 2014 Chef of the Year adds a bit of the unexpected to iterations that we’ve either forgotten or never considered.
At La Petite Grocery, Justin Devillier's cooking is elemental. His technique is precise, with knife cuts as sharp as a prism's edge. But he employs that skill not to show off, but to coax the maximum flavor from each ingredient.
Balise marks a big move for a young chef who lately has earned a place squarely in the city’s culinary spotlight. It begins a new chapter for a historic building and it adds to what is shaping up as a robustly diverse downtown restaurant hub.
Justin Devillier Talks Balise & A Look Inside
The 33 Most Anticipated Restaurant Openings, Winter 2015
Devillier is already an industry veteran. He and his wife Mia own a majority interest in La Petite Grocery, the Magazine Street restaurant where he has honed his skills over the past 10 years and which regularly ends up on short lists of New Orleans best restaurants.
If you're looking to side-step the hype and find delicious food, follow an off-duty chef. We asked some of the Crescent City's best to reveal their favorite lesser-known food haunts.
In New Orleans, restaurants open nearly every week and they (hardly) ever close. How big is our city's appetite for dining out? Is there no limit to the number of restaurants New Orleans will support? It looks like 2015 will be no different, with big openings like Justin Devillier's Balise.
La Petite Grocery's Pasty Chef, Bronwen Wyatt Discusses Seasonal Desserts
Every fall, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune restaurant critic Brett Anderson selects the Top 10 Restaurants in New Orleans. It only includes restaurants that meet the expectations of fine-dining restaurants in terms of ambition, food quality and service.
From bycatch to unusual catches of the day, a growing appreciation for underutilized seafood is changing menus across the South
"I think there's ingredients here that are definitely regional. Things like gator. Things like soft-shell crab. Things like crawfish. They get very expensive once you get out of the region. So, a big part of the benefit of being here and having those things local is there's not three or four middle men between me and the product." -- Justin Devillier
Also on the menu from New Orleans chef Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery, local oysters from the May River, which runs alongside Palmetto Bluff, poached lightly in herbed chicken skin butter. Yes, you read that right. Compound butter whose compound is butter and deep-fried chicken skin
Restaurant of the Year Nominees: Restaurant August, MoPho, La Petite Grocery, Pizza Delicious, Square Root Winner: Pizza Delicious
SURE, YOU'VE BEEN to New Orleans—for Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest, maybe a bachelor(ette) weekend. There was a late-night stumble along Bourbon Street, a Sunday stroll past Garden District mansions. You still have a string of beads stuffed in the back of a kitchen drawer. But you've changed—and the Big Easy has, too.
Ever wonder where celebrities eat when in town? You'll wonder no more after reading this interview.
On 'Top Chef: New Orleans,' Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery and the soon-to-open Balise proved he's a serious contender on the small screen. On Tuesday (Sept. 30) at 9 p.m., Devillier takes on another contender in Esquire Network's "Knife Fight."
If you’ve spent any time in New Orleans, then you probably don’t need us to tell you that this amazing city is full of amazing food. But we also know that there are a lot of people out there who have a) never been here or b) barely leave the French Quarter when they visit. Both of those things are travesties. So in an effort to encourage you to do some Crescent City exploration, here are 14 things that you need to eat the next time you’re in New Orleans.
Justin Devillier, the chef/owner at New Orleans's La Petite Grocery, has also noted the way the restaurant chefs have blurred culinary lines, and he points to gumbo and shrimp and grits, too. "I think you see a lot of restaurants sharing these ideas across the South," he says "The last time I went to Charleston I had a really really good Louisiana roux, and you come to New Orleans and you get shrimp and grits."
As one of New Orleans' most anticipated openings, Eater tracked down the busy chef, catching him right after returning from vacation. Devillier shares the thought process of choosing the name of the new restaurant (Balise), gives an exclusive sneak peek at the first draft of the menu, and discusses how he plans on bringing crudite back as the new sexy beast of the local dining scene.
Watch Justin Devillier Serve Thousand Year Old Egg on Knife Fight
When maxed out on crawfish etouffee, you’ll be grateful these 10 forward-thinking restaurants—all far from touristy Bourbon Street—exist.
How does a chef pull off a year like the one Justin Devillier has had? Devillier, 32, was cast on Bravo's "Top Chef: New Orleans." He didn't walk away the winner, but Devillier's charm, the kind that no doubt in his youth won over many a date's wary father, grew his flock of fans. For the third year in a row, he was nominated for the James Beard award for the Best Chef South.
A normally reserved Monday night (Aug. 4) turned into an epicurean feast when six talented chefs, all based in the South, created a menu of dishes that showcased their expertise. This dinner was also a benefit for the Friends of James Beard Foundation — represented by Kris Moon (his first visit to New Orleans) and Michelle Santoro — which plans to dedicate proceeds to a culinary program in the city.
... " In reality, La Petite's cheeseburger is an act of gourmet decadence that happens to be adorned with sensible, high-grade accoutrements."
Every day during the month of August, we’re highlighting one restaurant from our recent ranking of the 31 Best Restaurants in New Orleans. Today’s restaurant, La Petite Grocery, is #23 on our list.
Southern Living Deputy Editor—and intrepid restaurant scout—Jennifer V. Cole hit the road to determine the top 100 places to eat in the South now. The list highlights Jennifer's favorite restaurants for 2014, both new and old, in her most frequented towns.
La Petite Grocery owners Justin and Mia Devillier's highly-anticipated second restaurant which takes over the former Ditcharo's space later this fall is to be called Balise, Todd A. Price reports this week: "The name, Balise, comes from a French term for water markers used for navigation."
From coast to coast, America's restaurateurs are getting ready to unleash a whole new crop of restaurants upon the nation in what promises to be a busy Fall openings season
Chef Justin Devillier and his wife Mia, who own Uptown's La Petite Grocery, were interested in opening a second location. But the space had to be exactly right. When they saw that Ditcharo's at 640 Carondelet St. was available for lease, they were intrigued. "It's a quintessential, New Orleans Creole townhouse building," Devillier said. "If it were a normal building, we wouldn't even have looked at it."
La Petite Grocery in New Orleans will host a Friends of James Beard Benefit Dinner on Monday, August 4.
Chef Justin Devillier is finally revealing plans for his upcoming and still yet-to-be named CBD restaurant at the former Ditcharo's space (640 Carondelet St.), set to open this fall. Here are the details you need to know at this time, per Todd Price:
“Eat Local” may be a national trend, but in steamy, dreamy New Orleans the focus is on local living. The Crescent City is fiercely devoted to its homegrown traditions–be they culinary, musical, cultural, or otherwise. Though some of our habits and haunts–like gumbo, go-cups, and the French Quarter–are famous the world over, others remain a bit more elusive to visitors. Here are just a few of them.
Chef Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery and his wife Mia entered into a long-term lease for the former Ditcharo's location at 640 Carondelet St. The couple will open a second restaurant there in the fall. Construction begins in July.
These reinvented classics are indulgent wonders to bite and behold! If you’re heading to the country’s latest foodie capital, you best be hungry for all its signature flair and flavor. Follow your munchies when you Follow Your NOLA!
New Orleans chefs love Creole Tomatoes – a passion that extends to the French Market Creole Tomato Festival (June 7-8) and to the fest's inaugural Summer Harvest Gala (June 4).
French Market gala to be held on June 4 The French Market Inaugural Summer Harvest Gala will be held from 6:30 to 10 p.m. June 4 at the French Market. Abita beer will be pairing its “harvest” beers with dishes created by chefs from La Petite Grocery, Peche Seafood Grill and other local restaurants. Cane & Table will offer handcrafted cocktails.
If there are two things we love it’s New Orleans chefs and Gulf seafood. Seriously, who can get enough? Today Fisher’s at Orange Beach Marina announces the chance to dine with some of the Big Easy’s Best Chefs.
NOLA— Brett Anderson notes that Food & Wine'sBest New Chefs has failed to include a New Orleans chef in its 2014 class: "The last New Orleans chef to land a Best New Chef nod was Sue Zemanick back in 2008." Anderson then lists "the beginnings" of his own Best New Chef dream team: Justin Devillier, Mike Stoltzfus, Alon Shaya, Rebecca Wilcomb, and Isaac Toups. [NOLA.com]
New Orleans is without question one of America's great culinary cities, as evidenced by the hordes of visitors whose primary goal is to eat their way through the city's formidable roster of restaurants. But with such a rich, deep and varied assortment of dining options, where does one begin?
Chef Justin Devillier is cooking his way to super chef status at this Crescent City mainstay. Justin has been churning out creative riffs on traditional Louisiana cuisine since taking over ownership in 2010. Blue crab beignets with malt vinegar aioli; turtle bolognaise with bucatini, sherry, and soft-boiled egg; and Gulf shrimp and grits with roasted mushrooms and smoked bacon dazzle the palate.lapetitegocery.com
The sweeter side of New Orleans is found at La Petite Grocery when pastry chef Bronwen Wyatt, 30, is in the kitchen. Before she picked up the rolling pin, however, she was adept with a pen, majoring in English and Fine Arts at Tulane and moving to Maine to become a freelance journalist.
With its rich history of Spanish, French and West Indies influences, New Orleans has a long list of iconic dishes to try and many classic places to go for them. But once you’ve had a beignet at Cafe du Monde or a Parkway Bakery po’ boy, you may want try something different. Here is a list of shops, restaurants and bars to get you started provided by local chefs, bartenders and restaurateurs, including their places which are also worth visiting.
A running diary of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year a.k.a. Charleston Wine + Food Festival: Zero Cooking School Guest Chef Series with Justin Devillier What We Ate: The “Big Easy in the Lowcountry” menu did not disappoint. Chilled blue crab salad (our new summertime fave), shrimp okra gumbo (the key is to “burn” but not over-burn the roux flour) and fried rabbit biscuits with green tomato jam (we “stole” a tub of jam which Chef assures us is delicious on cheese).
Knife Fight, bro network Esquire TV's underground culinary competition show hosted by Top Chef season 2 winner Ilan Hall at his Los Angeles restaurant The Gorbals, returns for a second season beginning April 15 and three notable New Orleans chefs are set to battle. Tory McPhail of the legendary Commander's Palace will go head-to-head with Sue Zemanick of Gautreau's and Ivy in one episode, while Justin Devillier from La Petite Grocery will face off with a Los Angeles chef in another episode.
The Esquire Network's underground, after-hours culinary competition Knife Fight gets a renewal for its second season, and its competing chef line-up gets a major upgrade for season two, premiering Tuesday, April 15. Like last season, each episode pits two chefs in a head-to-head cooking battle at host Ilan Hall's Los Angeles restaurant The Gorbals.
Last month, the James Beard Foundation announced the semifinalists for its annual awards; today, it unveiled the finalists for its chef and restaurant awards, as well as for journalism, cookbooks, television and restaurant design awards.
The James Beard Foundation has announced the final nominees for the 2014 James Beard Awards at an event in Chicago (the semifinalists were announced back in February). The Book, Broadcast and Journalism Award winners will be announced Friday, May 2. The winners in the chefs and restaurant categories will be announced on Monday, May 5 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Here are the nominees:
The James Beard Foundation announced its 2014 finalists this morning in Chicago, and New Orleans chefs were largely shut out of the national categories, with the exception of Pêche Seafood Grill, which is in the running for the nation's Best New Restaurant. The other nominees in that category include three New York City restaurants (Betony, Carbone and Estela) and San Francisco's Coqueta.
One Lafayette chef and seven New Orleans chefs are on the James Beard Foundation’s list of semifinalist nominees for its 2014 Restaurant and Chef Awards. Donald Link, of Herbsaint in New Orleans, is a semifinalist in the Outstanding Chef category. Those nominated in the Best Chef, South, category include Justin Girouard, of The French Press, Lafayette, and six New Orleans chefs, Justin Devillier, La Petite Grocery; Ryan Prewitt, Pêche Seafood Grill; Alon Shaya, Domenica; Michael Stoltzfus, Coquette; Isaac Toups, Toups’ Meatery; and Sue Zemanick, Gautreau’s.
Each year the James Beard Foundation honors the top chefs, restaurants and food writers in America. On Wednesday (Feb. 19), the 2014 chef and restaurant semifinalists, which include New Orleans chefs, were announced live from Orlando's East End Market.
This just in: The James Beard Foundation has released its very long list of restaurant and chef semifinalists.
The James Beard Foundation announced its 2014 semifinalists Feb. 19, with 14 nods to New Orleans restaurants, chefs and bar professionals. The Beard Awards are some of the highest honors given to American culinary professionals. The finalists will be announced March 19 in Chicago, and the 2014 James Beard Awards will be held in New York City May 2 and 5.
The James Beard Foundation has just announced the 2014 Restaurant and Chef Award Semifinalists. This longer list will be narrowed down to final nominees on March 18. The awards ceremony will take place in May in New York City's Lincoln Center, as it has in years past. The James Beard Awards are the highest honor for food and beverage professionals in America, and New Orleans represents pretty well this year. Congrats to the following local semifinalists.
When it comes to eating oysters, there are usually two camps: those who slurp them down naturally in all of their briny goodness, and those who dress them up in a fryer, on a cracker or even in broth with a dollop of aioli. It matters not which camp you’re in. If you’ve made a habit of ordering dozens of oysters over ice-cold beers with friends, you know there’s something atavistic about feasting on this variety of seafood.
Justin DeVillier of La Petitie Grocery in New Orleans shares the story of how he became a chef.
This week on The Morning After, Jessie Kiefer and Sari Kamin celebrate Australia Day with two esteemed guests (that have little to nothing to do with Australia). Sari chats with Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery in New Orleans about his culinary experience and his take on New Orleans food. Hear how Justin's California cooking has influenced his spin on New Orleans cuisine.
Diners at La Petite Grocery tentatively poked at the cuisine. Some had difficulty getting any food onto a fork in the dimly lit dining room. “You have to hunt for it and find it,” explained Don Banning, who has been blind most of his life. The unusual dining experience aptly called “A Blind Taste” was a five-course dinner and patron party held at the Magazine Street bistro benefiting WRBH-FM 88.3 “Reading Radio,” radio for the blind and print handicapped.
Justin Devillier, Executive Chef and Owner of La Petite Grocery in New Orleans, discusses his NOLA restaurant and his inspiration.
How much of eating food is connected to sight? Does it affect flavor? Or does the sense of smell take over? For a group of WRBH Reading Radio supporters, experiencing what it was like to taste food without seeing was one reason to attend an “A Blind Taste” benefit at La Petite Grocery. Another reason was that La Petite Grocery chef Justin Devillier (you can see him on Bravo’s “Top Chef”) created the night’s menu — hors d’oeuvres and five-courses paired with fine wines — that tempted all senses. So, how could one resist — even dining with a blindfold on?
Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery cooked his way onto “Top Chef: New Orleans” by advancing out of the 10-chef online “Padma’s Picks” competition. Galatoire’s Michael Sichel was the other New Orleans chef to survive the online cookoff to join the regular season, and was eliminated from the competition Oct. 30.
I didn’t start eating in New Orleans this year until early September, when I returned home from a year a of hibernating in New England. As a consequence, I ate more meals outside of New Orleans last year than I did in it – the first time such a statement has been true since the turn of the century.
Chef-owner Justin Devillier uses sweet-and-sour satsuma oranges — the first citrus fruit to ripen in the fall in Louisiana — and octopus — one of the fastest-growing seafoods on menus — for this popular appetizer. First, he vacuum-packs octopus with salt, peppercorns, lemon and bay leaf and cooks it at 71 degrees centigrade for five hours. Then he grills the octopus and garnishes it with a vinaigrette made with satsuma oranges, rice vinegar, celery, pickled…
Six short days are left until Thanksgiving and you're in a bind. You haven't mapped out a menu. The food mart only has gimpy turkeys left. You threw a shoe through your television screen after watching Alton Brown do 45 minutes of interpretive dance with a human-sized turkey baster to fill time on Food Network Thanksgiving Live. Your grandmother stopped speaking to you last Thanksgiving when you showed up at dinner with Mud Flap, the bathroom attendant from the local heavy metal bar, as your plus one and he ate for plus five.
Next Monday, Eater will present the 2013 Eater Awards, our fourth annual celebration of all that's made America's restaurant world run—and run wild—in the past twelve months. Winners will be selected on both the local and national levels in five major categories. Voting for Restaurant of the Year has just closed, with La Petite Grocery and Peche pulling away from the competition
Justin Devillier— La Petite Grocery chef by day, Top Chef cheftestant by night—is now the last New Orleans chef standing on the 11th season of Bravo's addictive cooking competition since Micheal Sichel of Galatoire's was eliminated during a spooky, scary Halloween challenge.
New Orleans may be America’s hottest food city, but in the city where the po-boy is king, the Big Easy isn’t exactly the first city that comes to mind when you think of hamburgers. That being said, there is no shortage of places to go to get a delicious rendition of the American classic. But rather than just tell you, we asked six renowned local chefs about their favorite burgers and where to find them.
Two New Orleans chefs will feel the heat in the new season of Bravo’s “Top Chef.” Season 11 not only will be set in the Big Easy, but will feature Michael Sichel, executive chef at Galatoire’s, and Justin Devillier, chef/owner of La Petite Grocery. The two nabbed the last spots on the show during a recent digital video series, “Padama’s Picks,” on BravoTV.com. “Top Chef” judge and host Padma Lakshimi picked Sichel and Devillier from 10 competing south Louisiana chefs.
Many locals know chef Justin Devillier from his restaurant La Petite Grocery (4238 Magazine St., 504-891-3377; www.lapetitegrocery.com), but foodies nationwide are getting to know him as a contestant on Bravo's cooking competition Top Chef.
Uptown regulars keep most of the red leather banquettes warm in this handsomely recast corner grocery store. More than half the menu changes regularly
In New Orleans, oysters are almost an art form. You eat them covered in spinach and garlic and bacon and cheese, eat them roasted, baked, even grilled over an open flame in their shells.
A dozen New Orleans chefs, restaurants and bars were nominated in February for the 2012 James Beard Foundation Awards, and with the release today of the foundation’s pared down list of finalists the city is still making a good showing
La Petite Grocery, New Orleans — Abita root beer braised short ribs — accompanied, right or wrong, with a French 75 cocktail. The young chef, Justin Devillier and his wife Mia Freiberger are breathing new life into the already charming space, running it more like a family business. I can’t wait to go back.
LA PETITE GROCERY 4238 Magazine St., 504.891.3377 Open: Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Prices: Dinner starters and salads $6 to $13. Entrees $14 to $28. Reservations: Recommended. Parking: Street and gated lot across the street
“Justin Devillier was raised in Dana Point California, a small beach town in south Orange County. Growing up, Justin enjoyed the laid back lifestyle of living on the beach. Summers were spent fishing for Yellowtail and Albacore tuna”