Jacques-Imo’s Café

Half traditional Creole, half brilliant innovation

Address: 8324 Oak Street New Orleans,LA 70118
Phone: (504) 861-0886
Hours: 5:30pm - 10pm (Fri-Sat 10:30pm)

The food at Jacques-Imo’s Café is half traditional Creole, half brilliant innovation from chef/owner Jack Leonardi. The restaurant is a noisy, dark, joyous place to have some serious fun. Located on the west side of the Tulane University campus, the surrounding neighborhood has a warm and welcoming feel. Parking can be a challenge, though, so be prepared to search around for an on-street spot. Take the St. Charles streetcar line if you’d rather not drive.

Once you arrive, you’ll find the restaurant by the sign which reads “Warm Beer, Lousy Food, Poor Service”. There’s usually a substantial wait for a table, but the bars and art galleries on the block will keep you amused until it’s time to be seated. The Maple Leaf Bar down the street, with frequent live music, is a big draw—or you can simply sit outside the restaurant, enjoy an Abita or a Chimay Ale served in a goblet, and pique your appetite with fresh oysters from the truck located there.

Don’t have an hour and a half to wait? Try this time-tested trick: arrive fifteen minutes before opening and get in line.

Once your name is called, you’ll walk through the kitchen on the way to your table—an instant immersion in Creole smells, taste, and atmosphere. Local art graces the walls of the dining room. It’s worth a visit just to see the decorative boar’s head with a Barbie doll in its jaws! Music might be Cajun, 80’s rock, or Jimi Hendrix—take your chances. The chef, Jack/Jacques, is known for boisterous interactions with customers in the dining room. (Don’t worry if he yells, “who dat?” at you. Just yell it right back. It’s a New Orleans thing.)

Once you’re seated, everyone gets corn bread baked in a muffin tin and topped with garlic and green onions as well as a spinach salad graced by a single, perfect fried oyster. Their famous appetizers include fried green tomatoes with a shrimp remoulade and a rich, perfectly balanced alligator cheesecake (Does a savory cheesecake sound strange? It’s really more like a quiche.)

Main dishes of note include the blackened red fish in a crab chili hollandaise sauce, scallops in a red wine poached pear sauce with peppers and pecans, a chicken pontalba with béarnaise sauce, and a soft shell crab dish that goes by the name “Godzilla”. The enormous barbeque shrimp are succulent with flavor, while the fried chicken simply defines fried chicken. The Carpetbagger Steak, a tender butterflied filet served with oysters, blue cheese, onions, and hollandaise sauce, is not to be missed. Some criticize Jacques-Imo’s for their scant vegetarian options, but the menu does include a Vegetarian Delight with Thai Coconut Cream with its own cotiere of fans.

Entrees cost $15-$25; with drinks the tab for a couple can easily run over a $100. There’s good news for those of you up north: Jacques-Imo’s in New York opened last spring on the upper West side.

In NOLA but strapped for cash? Try Crabby Jack’s, a po’boy casual dining establishment run by Jacques on the Jefferson Highway. There’s a little something for everyone.