In 1993, Drago Cvitanovich put an oyster in its shell on an open flame, hit it with garlic butter and Parmesan, and accidentally invented the dish that would become the most imitated plate on the Gulf Coast. He did it in Metairie, not New Orleans. That detail matters. Jefferson Parish has been quietly building one of the great American restaurant corridors for decades, and it started long before charbroiled oysters. Mosca's opened in 1946 on a dark stretch of Highway 90 near Westwego — an Italian roadhouse so far from anything that first-time visitors think they're lost. Provino Mosca, an Italian immigrant, cooked in a building owned by crime boss Carlos Marcello. Eighty years later, the family still runs it, the exterior still looks rough, and the Oysters Mosca still arrive in cast iron. Deanie's has been shucking in Bucktown since 1961, R&O's has served roast beef po'boys against the levee since 1980, and the Westwego Shrimp Lot still sells that morning's catch off the boats. The supply chain is short here — boat to dock to kitchen, sometimes in the same parish, sometimes in the same morning. New Orleans gets the fame. Jefferson Parish feeds the habit.