Former Maurepas Foods Chef Will Lead Next Location of Gracious Bakery and Cafe

Chef Michael Doyle, previously of Bywater’s Maurepas Foods and Press Street Station, will lead the new Gracious Bakery + Cafe, opening inside the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI) in January.

Doyle is widely considered the catalyst for the Bywater’s influx of restaurants in recent years, opening the highly-acclaimed Maurepas Foods on Louisa Street in 2012. The produce-driven restaurant closed in 2015, after which Doyle became head chef a few blocks away at Press Street Station, the teaching cafe attached to the NOCCA Institute that supported the public arts high school. Press Street Station closed at the beginning of 2018, and Doyle’s next move has been anticipated since.

NOCHI is the culinary training center on Howard Avenue that’s long been in the works, founded by restaurateurs Ti Martin and Dickie Brennan and supported by UNO, Tulane, and Delgado University. After years of false starts and delays, it is set to open January 2.

According to a press release from NOCHI, the fourth location of Gracious Bakery + Cafe will have an expanded menu with a focus on lighter dishes informed by Levantine spice profiles including a short rib debris sandwich with Harissa slaw on a Challah bun and Piri Piri fried chicken with tabasco peppers, cornmeal waffle and Steen’s cane syrup. The cafe will be open to the public as well as a gathering place for students and faculty Monday through Saturday.

The ever-expanding Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts empire purchased the former Maurepas Foods space in 2016, and after years of inactivity, the space recently appears to be under renovation.

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• Bywater Innovator Maurepas Foods Will Close For Good on October 5 [ENOLA]
• NOCCA Institute shuts down its restaurant, Press Street Station [NOLA.COM]
• New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute Now Slated To Open in 2017 [ENOLA]
• Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts Buys Maurepas Foods Space in Bywater [ENOLA]