Compère Lapin

Nina Compton's restaurant opened in 2015 in the Old No. 77 Hotel, and it cooks the city the way the city actually is: Atlantic world, not just Gulf world. Compton was born in St. Lucia. She puts curried goat on the menu next to gumbo because that's the honest arithmetic — New Orleans has always been Caribbean, Creole, French, African, a city built at the nexus of empire and forced migration and trade routes that never stopped at the mouth of the river. In 2018, Compton won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South, the first St. Lucian-born chef to take the title. The recognition wasn't for fusion or novelty. It was for cooking what she knows against what the city knows and letting both traditions hold their ground. The name comes from Br'er Rabbit, the trickster in Creole folklore who survives by wit. It's a good name for a restaurant that refuses to flatten its influences into something easier to explain. Reservations recommended — this is one of the most original restaurants to open in the Warehouse District this decade, and people know it.