Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine Throws Open its Doors Today

Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine (7834 Earhart Blvd., New Orleans), the pre-Katrina stalwart and destination on Freret Street before it was known as restaurant row, will cut the ribbon at its new home on Earhart Boulevard today, reports Ian McNulty. Afterwards, the restaurant will open for regular business.

Celestine Dunbar and her family have not had a permanent home for the beloved institution in over a decade, since Hurricane Katrina’s flooding and “the financial morass that followed” made it impossible to return. The original location is still vacant.

Longtime Dunbar’s chef, Frank Jones, will be in charge of the kitchen again. According to McNulty,

The menu at Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine has fried seafood platters and po-boys, rib eye steaks and barbecue ribs, chicken wings and seafood pasta. Daily specials proceed at a familiar cadence – red beans or lima beans with fried chicken (Mondays), candied yams with cabbage or barbecue chicken (Tuesdays), meatloaf with smothered potatoes (Wednesday) and mustard greens with turkey necks or fried chicken (Thursdays).

At breakfast, which begins at 6 a.m., the kitchen serves liver with grits and eggs next to the pancakes and pork chop plates. Dunbar’s now has a few lighter dishes too, like grilled fish and chicken.

For the last 10 years, Dunbar has kept cooking. She ran “a food court stand for Uptown university students, delivered plate lunches to Chalmette refineries and set up booths at neighborhood festivals.” The new location of the old favorite feels different, with a larger space, but the hospitality and the food make it feel like the Dunbar’s New Orleans has always loved (and missed). [ADVOCATE]

Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine

7834 Earhart Blvd., 504-509-6287

Breakfast (from 6 a.m.), lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. (from 10 a.m.)