Last year, we reviewed Compere Lapin, a restaurant blending New Orleans, Italian, and Caribbean influences. The restaurant, the brain-child of chef Nina Compton, a competitor on Top Chef: New Orleans, has become one of the most beloved restaurants in the city. Compton and her team have won a slew of local and national awards. Food & Wine Magazine named Compton one of the Best New Chefs of 2017. Eater critic Bill Addison placed Compére Lapin on his list of 38 Essential Restaurants in America. In 2018, Compton won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South. New Orleans restaurant critic Brett Anderson awarded Compére Lapin four beans—the Times-Picayune’s highest rating. The appeal of the restaurant, Anderson argued, was that “Every meal at the restaurant over the past six months has brought a creation that, at the time of its consumption, has had the effect of overshadowing something extraordinary that came before.”
In 2018, Compton and husband Larry Miller opened Bywater American Bistro, their much anticipated follow-up to Compere Lapin. The two restaurants differ in significant ways. Bywater American Bistro is located in the Bywater, a formerly working class neighborhood undergoing an artistic and culinary evolution. Bywater is very much a neighborhood restaurant. The simplicity of the name revealing its purpose. The menu features a section devoted to grains as a tribute to the restaurant’s building, formerly the largest rice mill in the country. Now the Rice Mill Lofts house Bywater and residential condos. Compton and Miller live in one of the condos above the restaurant.
While Miller manages Compere Lapin and Bywater American Bistro, Levi Raines helms the kitchen at Bywater. A former sous chef at Compere Lapin, Raines oversees the small open-air kitchen with ease. At a recent dinner, Raines, recently named a 2019 Young Gun by Eater, glided seamlessly between plating, tasting, and expediting, all within several feet of the restaurant’s bartenders, who serve the customers seated at the bar. At any given moment, Raines is six or so feet away from customers, while the restaurant hums around him.
Like Compere Lapin, Bywater American Bistro’s food shines with well-executed food inspired by a sense of place. Let’s take a look at some of the dishes we tried.
The spaghetti pomodoro combines the comfort of spaghetti at home with the precision of one of the nation’s most skilled chefs. The noodles are silk-like in the texture, and the surrounding sauce is combines buttery richness and a delicate balance of sweet and acid.
The ricotta agnolotti is a pasta-lover’s heaven. The ricotta burst with flavor out of the delicate pasta wrapper. Swimming a rich and flavorful sauce, we would have been happy to just eat a giant plate of it.
The rabbit curry, served with jasmine rice and pecans, rivals the flavor found in Compere Lapin’s curried goat. The bold flavors of the curry match up well with the tenderly cooked rabbit. The pecans provide crunch and substitute for cashews or other nuts found in curries.
The spiced Nutella flan is a delightful and surprising dessert. Light and bright, the flan is a wonderful compliment to the rest of the menu. Filling, but not overwhelming, the flan leaves diners with one last bold hit of flavor in a menu full of them.
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