re: TulaneLSU's Top 10 memories and dishes at Impastato's

Impastato’s Restaurant opened on April 30, 1979, three days and 22 years after Mr. Joe had arrived in the States from Sicily. The restaurant’s location on 16th St. was a no-man’s land between Causeway Blvd. and the burgeoning Fat City, which was overtaking the French Quarter as the center of the city’s nightlife and dining. New Orleans’ oldest beignets stand, Morning Call hid it from the masses at Lakeside. No fewer than three restaurants had already failed in that location.



“Little Joe” and his wife Mica rarely advertised in the first three decades of business. They didn’t need to, as the family already had deep social tentacles in the restaurant business and the food was a showstopper. “Little Joe,” of course, was so known because his uncle, Giuseppe, patriarch of The Napoleon House, was “Mr. Joe.” Over the years, Little Joe became Mr. Joe. He’s now 81 and as active as ever in the restaurant.



Little Joe started in the kitchen of The Napoleon House, before finding his way to the nearby kitchen of Moran’s La Louisiane. “Diamond Jim” Moran, whose birth name was James Brocato, bought out Segreto’s Italian Restaurant, which had previously been Masero’s. Segreto’s, as my faithful readers will recall, was where the first documented pizza was sold in New Orleans (1945).

Moran transformed La Louisiane’s cuisine from French Creole to Italian Creole before dying in 1958. Although it was not the first of Italian Creole restaurants, it was the one that popularized the fare, leading to New Orleans’ role as America’s greatest city for Italian food.

Dyad of deliciousness

The list of Creole Italian restaurants, any of which would thrive on Arthur Avenue, Mulberry Street,or 9th Street in Philadelphia, is enormous. Many are lost to the winds of history, but I include a few of note in chronological opening order: Compagno’s (1909), Pascal’s Manale (1913), Turci’s (1917), Napoleon House (1920), Broussard’s (1920), Mandina’s (1932), Sclafani’s (1945; the owner’s grandson now runs Ruffino’s), Mosca’s (1946), Liuzza’s (1947), Venezia’s (1957), Messina’s (1961), Elmwood Plantation (1963), Rocky & Carlo’s (1965), Tony Angello’s (1973), Sal & Judy’s (1974), Agostino Ristorante Italiano (1975), Smilie’s (1985), II Tony’s (1987), Vincent’s (1989), Irene’s (1992), Kenner Seafood (1997), Fausto’s (1989), Eleven79 (2010), and Gendusa’s Italian Market (2015). Connecting the familial and apprenticeship lines of the players in these restaurants would result in a Jackson Pollock-like canvas of curves and lines, thicker than red gravy.

What makes Italian food Italian Creole, a term which was first introduced to the New Orleans lexicon in 1975 by Richard Collins? That tricky word Creole has been a thorn in the side of many historians. The Portugese word criollo, from which we get creole, simply means locally grown. I will only say that the term Creole Italian signifies Italian food cooked in the NOLA Metro that incorporates some local ingredients, like soft shell crab, redfish, and speckled trout. It’s not a complicated definition and any attempts to refine it are foolhardy. Do not let a newcomer who does not have deep roots in New Orleans attempt to define it.

Impastato’s is the quintessential Creole Italian restaurant. When you enter the doors, you know you are among family and friends. Mr. Joe is usually there to greet you, and if he’s not, the maitre’d, Mr. Fontanille, or “Billy,” as regulars know him, is. Mr. Fontanille celebrated his 40th year at the restaurant this year. Mark, his brother, is head chef and has been there 38 years. I’ve never met Mark, but his food introduced me to culinary mysticism.



Impastato’s meals begin with Melba toast and braided Italian rolls from Angelo’s bakery




That continuity has crafted a restaurant that years from now will be mourned when it is no longer. What passes as great food today in New Orleans at places like GW Fins, Shaya, August, Peche, Maypop, and that nationally popular sandwich shop whose name I cannot remember is completely forgettable once the flavor passes the palate.

What three things do I require of food? First, it must sustain me. Second, it must taste good. Third, and perhaps most important, it must tell a good story. These newly popular restaurants don’t have a good story to tell, and I doubt they ever will.

No restaurant in the world has higher marks in these three categories than Impastato’s. One need only walk the rooms to appreciate its story. The stories are plastered on the walls, in cheaply framed pictures of family and friends, smiles stuffed with spaghetti and softshells. If only I could fly back to the 80s and 90s when one would have to box out a member of the Dome Patrol to get a table.

I wonder if any restaurant in New Orleans in the last 40 years has hosted more celebrities than quaint, forgotten Impastato’s. I cannot count on ten hands how many Hollywood and gridiron celebrites I’ve seen there over the years. It’s certainly more than the number of jerseys and helmets on the walls.

Our visit that crisp December night changed hearts. My parents had previously, like good Uptown snobs, shunned all things Metairie. The provincialism of that neighborhood’s residents is owed to a trickle down effect of white supremacy. I had to move to Mid-City to appreciate it, a thing I call Uptown geographic supremacy. As if in a cave looking at shadows, suddenly freed to ascend to true light, that night, nearly 30 years ago, we became converts. No longer would we let the chains of the parochialism of our ancestors bind us. I can only imagine the profound displeasure of my great grandparents if they knew of my adoration of Italian food in Metairie.