All Saints

Catahoula brings genuine Louisiana cooking to Queen Village.

by Adam Erace

Neal Santos BOWLED OVER: Chef Paul Martin's gumbo, done in the Acadian style, is a true gem of Catahoula's menu.

[ review ]

For many South Street-area residents, New Orleans means Mardi Gras — and Mardi Gras means a mess, at least as far as Philly's riotous interpretation of the holiday goes. Rumbles in the streets. Upchuck on the doorsteps. Unfortunate, no? Though recent local Fat Tuesday celebrations have been policed into mild-mannered kerfuffles, the ghosts of Gras past still haunt the tree-lined precincts of calm Queen Village.

Enter Catahoula, a Front Street Louisiana-themer that's been exorcising those demons since changing over from Sauté this summer. Thanks to chef Paul Martin, N'awlins associations in this part of town now tend toward bangin' bacon-studded collards, oyster po' boys that won't make you po' and smoky Acadian gumbo as mahogany-brown as the banisters in an antebellum estate.

Martin hails from Lafayette, 100 miles west of New Orleans, where his pop owned a restaurant and his mom perfected that gumbo. It's her recipe on the menu at Catahoula, prepared in the Acadian style that forgoes the tomato, okra and seafood found in chichi Creole versions. In the low light of Catahoula's front bar, the chicken stock-based stew can almost look black, darkened by an oil-and-flour roux that takes an hour and a half to fully develop. Spicy andouille and braised chicken add to the intense, almost masochistically savory experience, one that will swallow you whole if you don't swallow it first.

I could go to Catahoula, eat gumbo and nothing else, and leave very happy. But there are other temptations. Like oysters and po' boys, advertised on faux-vintage banners affixed to the handsome brick front of the restaurant, which is named for Louisiana's state dog, the Catahoula hound. (Martin had one, Pepper, as a kid.) The canine's silhouette joins fleurs-de-lis in the bayou-influenced eatery's sign, an oval coat-of-arms done in purple, black and blue. Shaded by a dark awning, a picture window looks inside at a new bar, installed after owner Nikki Kaufman blew out Sauté's candles. On one recent night, the catchily sinister theme song from True Blood floated from the speakers and out the door like incense.

The "oysters" sign outside doesn't lie. Martin serves them three ways daily: raw, fried and poached. Make that four if the roasted ones are on special. In this preparation, the bivalve blobs wore oven-browned fedoras of crab-and-fennel stuffing, cradled in shells as big as a center's palms, brimming with briny oyster liquor and melted lemon-saffron butter. Blue Points, the thuggishly muscled gangsters of the oyster kingdom, starred in this version. They're amazing cooked, but are so ungainly raw that it's a wonder why joints continue to serve them that way — Catahoula included, with jets of green Tabasco mignonette.

Wide as cornmeal-crusted coasters, three perfectly fried Willapoints (a quality canned variety from Washington state) joined shredded lettuce and sliced tomato inside the oyster po' boy. There are shrimp, catfish and barbecue pork fillings for this classic sandwich, but I can't imagine any of them being as tasty as this one, sweet and salty on a crunchy Sarcone's roll. (Martin may be from down South, but he's been up here for the past six years and knows where to get good bread.)

This isn't the first time Martin has lived in Philly. The once-semipro cyclist spent a year in the Northeast in the '80s as part of a locally sponsored junior team before moving to Europe, and then on to Texas and Oregon, where he got back into cooking. In Philly, his résumé includes Starr spots (Alma de Cuba, Pod, Washington Square), Farmicia, Patou and Carmine's Creole Cafe in Bryn Mawr. Martin helped out during the opening of Sauté — he's boys with departed chef Nick Cassidy — which helped him land the exec position when Kaufman decided to reconceptualize.

Shifting the restaurant's focus from new American (of which we have plenty) to New Orleans (of which we have next to none) was a smart move, but like an old piano, Catahoula still needs some tuning. There are things I would change — the fraternity bro's iPod of a soundtrack for one, the cooked-to-mush mudbugs in the blonde crawfish bisque for two.

I loved the split and griddled buttermilk biscuit, but its sidecar of housemade black currant jam was more of an overcooked murky purée. The pear cobbler was so-so, its gelato spiked with SoCo. The bar's chicken wings are boneless, which I might want when I'm wearing dentures and a Life Alert. Till then, give me a bone to gnaw on, like a Catahoula hound. I did like their crunchy exteriors, though, formed from the same cornmeal breading as the fried oysters, and the hunks of indigo Roquefort scattered atop were a nice upgrade on the blue-cheese front.

I wouldn't change anything about the dense, maize-yellow hush puppies with truffled tartar sauce; the gooey pecan pie, blackstrap molasses and buttermilk gelato keeping the sweetness in check; or the fiery shrimp étouffée, a dark gumbo moat encircling white rice and sweet shrimp. Cocked on top, the spears of succulent fried okra — again, that cornmeal crust, so good! — may have been the best-tasting thing Catahoula has to offer. I could eat a whole basket of them.

Speaking of okra, jars of okra pickles and other brine-suspended vegetables line the bar back's tall shelves like apothecary curios. I'm already thinking about pickled pearl onions sunk into icy gin Gibsons and Bloody Marys serving as umbrella stands for pointy pickled green beans. Till then, join me in draining pints of Abita and Sixpoint and classic Southern tipples like Hurricanes, Sazeracs and mint juleps. Consider it practice for a Mardi Gras of a classier sort.

(adam.erace@citypaper.net)