Chef Michael Gulotta's Maypop Just Landed in the Warehouse District

Maypop, the hotly-anticipated Southeast Asian meets Southern eatery, is now open inside the booming Paramount building in the Warehouse District, Ann Maloney reports. The restaurant snuck open just before Christmas.

It’s the newest concept from the MoPho team— owned by chef Michael Gulotta and his partners Jeff Gulotta and Jeffrey Bybee— who also run popular pop-ups Tana at Treo and Rum & The Lash at Finn McCool’s. Maypop diverges from its ultra-casual sister operations with an eye toward refinement, including a pretty wild menu that draws inspiration from Vietnamese, Cajun, Creole and Sicilian cuisines.

It seems like a natural progression for Gulotta, a former August chef who left the Besh Group in 2013 to venture out on his own, managing to turn pho and pig roast hotspot MoPho into a beloved Mid City fixture over the course of the last three years. He also snagged Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chef honors in 2016.

If you ever had a chance to sample his now-defunct tasting menu at MoPho or gobbled up a bowl of pasta at Tana, then you’ll already be familiar with some of the tricks that Gulotta and his chef de cuisine Will "Trey" Smith have up their sleeves— curries, housemade charcuterie and noodles, and various fermented ingredients abound at Maypop. On the menu, you’ll find a terrine that reportedly tastes like gumbo, crispy pompano in a grapefruit curry, coconut milk and oyster buccatini topped with dried shrimp pangritata, and a red bean pasta in an andouille and fermented black bean bolognese sauce.

The restaurant features a full bar, and will also offer a slightly more casual and fast lunch service as well.

Status: Officially open at 611 O’Keefe Avenue, Monday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. 504) 518-6345. On Facebook here. Official website here.

• Maypop, from MoPho chef Michael Gulotta, now open in CBD [NOLA.com]
• Maypop, new in the CBD, a step up from MoPho, a step beyond for the menu [Advocate]
• All Openings [ENOLA]