Copper Vine’s Opening Menu Raises the Bar for Wine Taverns

Copper Vine, a new wine pub aimed at “democratizing” wine, is bringing 30 wine taps and a crackerjack menu from chef Michael Brewer to its nearly 6,000-square foot CBD home (with the only patio seating on Poydras Street) very soon.

Brewer, who reigned as the 2015 King of Louisiana Seafood (which he won with a fish-filled take on nachos), looked at menus from long-running Maylie’s restaurant (which occupied the space from 1876 to 1986) for inspiration, but the Copper Vine menu is thoroughly modern.

A traditional dish like chicken fricassee gets crawfish boil peanuts and boudin rice, for example. He tops deviled eggs, one of Maylie’s standards, with Louisiana lump crabmeat, and Murder Point oysters with pineapple and mint granita and caviar.

Brewer’s recent work with City Pork (a Baton Rouge-based company that operates City Pork Deli and Charcuterie, City Pork Brasserie and Bar, as well as a City Pork catering arm) is evident in menu items like the house-made boudin, served in the gumbo with quail. Charcuterie items are made at the tavern and the bacon on the club sandwich is smoked there as well.

Sara Essex Bradley

Other offerings include free popcorn (serve yourself), duck fat fries with garlic aioli, carpaccio with Tabasco-pickled strawberries, salads, flatbreads topped with luxuries like duck confit, escargot, and pork trotter marinara, and main dishes that include a few sandwiches and clever, wine-friendly entrees like mushroom pasta with Cognac, foie gras, parmesan cream, and a poached egg.

Copper Vine was most recently Happy’s Irish Pub, a “breastaurant” that owner Kyle Brechtel closed in hopes of making a more neighborhood-friendly watering hole.

Here’s the very first look at Copper Vine’s menu.

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