About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Catahoula, 79 Potomac Ave., SE
When Thomas Malz and Rachel Sergi found the space that would eventually house their new Cajun and Creole restaurant Catahoula, they noticed five bald cypress trees—the distinctive conifer of the bayou—had been planted outside. The view of the Anacostia River from the Navy Yard space also reminded Malz of the Mississippi seen from the Central Business District of New Orleans.
Those details felt like fate: the two business partners want Catahoula, which is named after a breed of Cajun hunting hound that is the state dog of Louisiana, to recreate the vibe of the Bayou State in DC.
Catahoula opens today, May 14, in the space formerly occupied by All-Purpose Capitol Riverfront, which closed earlier this year.
Both Sergi and Malz have family connections to Louisiana and some serious Crescent City cred. Malz, a veteran chef with French-Canadian roots, has worked in the kitchen at Cochon in New Orleans along with numerous DC restaurants. Sergi, Catahoula’s beverage director, can tell you anecdotes about hanging out in New Orleans in the ‘90s with Lydia Lunch.
In the indoor “brasserie” space, Malz focuses on seafood like broiled oysters and barbecue shrimp, and dishes from the refined New Orleans cooking tradition practiced by chefs like Paul Prudhomme, such as corn-and-crab bisque, petite prime rib à la Prudhomme, and chicken-sausage gumbo.
Outside, there’s an 89-seat beer garden-like space where the menu is focused on po’boys and crawfish boils, and will eventually incorporate some Viet-Cajun dishes.
“Eventually, the brasserie will continue to evolve into a Franco-North American brasserie through the lens of that kind of French, opulent, old-school thing that they capture so well when you look back at Prudhomme and Emeril,” Malz says. “The boil yard will evolve to be kind of the ‘laissez les bons temps rouler’ side.”
Sergi has worked behind the bar at Zaytinya, Jack Rose, the Duck and the Peach, and Off the Record, the bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel. Her cocktail menu at Catahoula incorporates elegant New Orleans classics like the Sazerac and the Ramos gin fizz (shaken with a green cast iron cocktail cranker behind the bar), but also the kind of frozen slushie “hand grenades” that people walk around with on Bourbon Street.
A constantly-shifting playlist will feature New Orleans artists from The Meters and Allen Toussaint to Big Freedia.
“We’re trying to give New Orleans some love up here because it’s a great town,” Sergi says. “We want to put the fun back in the restaurants. You come here, you’re going to hear louder music than you would in most restaurants and bars. You’re going to have a crawfish boil outside.”
Ike Allen covers politics, food, culture, and transportation in DC and writes the monthly Hidden Eats column for the magazine. He grew up in DC.
