Drago’s Expands to Lafayette

Drago’s, the New Orleans-area restaurant that pioneered charbroiled oysters, is expanding operations to Lafayette this fall with a new location opening in the spot that formerly housed Mellow Mushroom at 3151 Johnston Street, reports Brett Anderson.

Drago and Klara Cvitanovich, who immigrated from Croatia, opened the first location in Metairie in 1969. Another location opened in the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in 2007 and one opened in Jackson, Mississippi in 2015. Also in 2015, the restaurant was considering an expansion to Baton Rouge that was never finalized.

The restaurant’s most famous dish, charbroiled oysters, came to son and restaurant operator Tommy Cvitanovich when he was thinking about a redfish dish, according to another story from NOLA.COM. The redfish was cooked “on the half-shell” and the shell held all the juices from the “fish and garlic butter sauce.” He applied the same concept to oysters and altered the canon of New Orleans cuisine. [NOLA.COM]