Restaurant Lagniappe is bringing the spirit of Mardi Gras to Minneapolis

NINA MOINI: Thousands of people are descending to New Orleans this weekend ahead of Mardi Gras. Also known as Fat Tuesday, it falls on the last Tuesday before the Christian fasting season of Lent. So besides colorful beads and parades, people traditionally spend the day eating rich and fatty foods.

Well, you don't have to go all the way to Bourbon Street in New Orleans to celebrate, though. In Minneapolis, a new restaurant brings the cuisine here. Lagniappe opened just five months ago in the rebuilt Coliseum building on Lake Street in Minneapolis.

And joining me now all the way from New Orleans on the phone is the owner, Chris Montana. Thanks for being here with us, Chris.

CHRIS MONTANA: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: And also in New Orleans is the restaurant's mixology consultant, Daniel Victory. Thanks for being here as well.

DANIEL VICTORY: Oh, thanks. I'm so glad to be here.

NINA MOINI: Well, I'm not surprised that you're both down there in the mix of things. Chris, what's the scene like right now down there in New Orleans? Are people just kind of getting ready? Or is everything in the full swing?

CHRIS MONTANA: Oh, we're fully into it. 75 degrees, sunny, and there's people dancing in the street. It's a beautiful time.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Daniel, what are you up to down there?

DANIEL VICTORY: Well I, being a traditional New Orleanian, I find myself cooking for the masses of people that are coming to visit. Because when you live here in New Orleans, everybody wants to try to come to New Orleans and visit you during these times, like Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest. So with a house full of people, I find myself making a bunch of food, and drinks, and doing all the fun things, getting ready to go out and celebrate and revel in the streets.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I bet that is a place you live where a lot people want to come visit. So I want-- oh, go ahead.

DANIEL VICTORY: I tell all people all the time when they're coming in looking for colleges and they're scouting different colleges, I'm telling them all the time, if you want to see your parents all the time of them visiting you at college, move to New Orleans, because they will be here three or four times a year.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Whereas in Minnesota you're like, do you want to visit me in January?

[LAUGHTER]

I do want to talk about the Coliseum Building, where the restaurant is located. I haven't been there since the grand reopening of the building this past summer. But it was rebuilt after being damaged in the riots of 2020. And your other business, Du Nord Distillery, was located there. But, Chris, why was it important for you to be back in that space of the Coliseum Building after it was rebuilt.

CHRIS MONTANA: Yeah, our distillery is about two blocks away from the Coliseum. And in 2020, it was damaged too. The Coliseum was set on fire multiple times in the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd.

And for us, it was important-- it was and it is-- important for us to be a part of the rebuilding of that community. There's a lot of beautiful things that happen on Lake Street and a lot of progress. I saw Lake Street in the '90s all the way through, and it made huge strides and took some really big steps back in 2020. And we want to be part of its next chapter so we can start talking about how great it is to go down there and speak a little less about the destruction that we all had to live through in 2020.

NINA MOINI: And, Daniel, being from the area, New Orleans, can you tell me a little bit about the history of this food? And do we have a lot of it in the Twin Cities, in Minnesota? Or what's the need like there?

DANIEL VICTORY: So I find-- doing the traveling throughout my life-- and I find that everyone has a Cajun dish or restaurant in some area.

NINA MOINI: Right.

DANIEL VICTORY: Generally, people have this notion that Cajun or Creole food means spicy. And it really doesn't. So the Cajun people were coming from the Acadian region of Canada, and they came down and settled in Southern Louisiana.

Cajun food is more rustic. It's got a little spice to it, but it's got to do a lot with pork and a lot with crawfish because they were so accessible back in the day. I'd like to call it the poor man's cooking. So it's one pot, you'll have whatever you have in the refrigerator-- you'll throw it in the pot. You add plenty of water and spices, and you get gumbo if you add it over rice.

If you cook rice into it and all the water gets absorbed by the rice with the flavors, then you have jambalaya. Where Creole people were more French and European settlers mixed with this whole Caribbean and African influence, and so they had a little bit more money. And so they were able to go to the store, and they had a wider variety of flavorings.

And so you'll see things like tomatoes and different things like that inside of the dishes. But it doesn't necessarily mean spicy. It just means flavorful.

We had a chef, Paul Prudhomme, here in New Orleans, and he said, I want every bite to feel like I have a party going on in your mouth. And that is the true essence of New Orleans cooking.

NINA MOINI: Just parties everywhere. Yeah. Chris, do you ever find that you have to tamper down or explain to people in Minnesota, it's not that spicy? Because sometimes I feel like there's a bit of a fear of spice.

CHRIS MONTANA: It's funny, because I think it certainly was true when I was a kid. I think that in the Twin Cities, I think palates have changed.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

CHRIS MONTANA: I do think there is a little bit of a fear that maybe they're going to go in and get burned up. But they really aren't, as Daniel said, this food's not that spicy. But we have Thai restaurants in the Twin Cities. We have Mexican food in the Twin Cities.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

CHRIS MONTANA: That's spicy food.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely.

CHRIS MONTANA: I think that palates have changed. I really do think that the Minneapolis consumer, the Twin Cities consumer, because we have such a great food scene, they've already crossed a lot of those horizons. And they're a curious eater.

And so I really, now, I don't find that I have as much of a challenge in convincing people that their palate can accept it. I do have a little bit of a challenge convincing them that they can pronounce the name of the restaurant. But--

NINA MOINI: Will you pronounce it? Will you pronounce it just so everyone knows?

CHRIS MONTANA: It's pronounced Lan-yapp.

NINA MOINI: OK.

CHRIS MONTANA: I've heard everything else. Lag-nappy.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

CHRIS MONTANA: All kinds. But it's pronounced Lan-yapp.

NINA MOINI: All right. Good for everyone to know. And, Daniel, Mardi Gras, also, obviously, drinking, making drinks is part of the spirit and the celebrations. What are you bringing into the cocktails at the restaurant with that influence?

DANIEL VICTORY: Well, we tried to keep the restaurant cocktails always being innovative. And we're doing one right now. We have the hurricane going, and we have the Sazerac, and all the different ones that are true traditional New Orleans. And then we try to just twist them a little bit when we meet the Twin Cities as well.

So just fun things-- for me, the key is, we were talking about this Mardi Gras celebration we're going to do on Tuesday, and it's like that Lagniappe, that little extra. So when people walk in, nobody's expecting to get, hey, here's around of toast of drinks, or here's this.

Let's have a good time. And I think that is when alcohol has a bit of an abundance-- that's what we try to do is create that event where you love the bartender, and they love you back. And there's an unspoken or unfelt hug, but it's there. And it's the energy of the place that we really want to feel. And sometimes it's easier to get that energy with just an extra sip or two.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So we have about a minute left. But when we have folks from the restaurant industry, chefs, and different people, we like to ask them, since we're over the lunch hour, what's for lunch-- you're just at home, you're throwing stuff together. How about you, Chris?

CHRIS MONTANA: Oh, that's a good question. If my kids are home-- I'll tell you, one of the things that I make, I make it every week-- I always make red beans and rice.

NINA MOINI: OK.

CHRIS MONTANA: Always. And it's a winner with the kids. They will tear through a pot of red beans no problem. And one of the nice things about red beans is that I can put basically whatever meat I have in the house that needs to get eaten up.

So maybe we did a pork thing, whatever that pork is, I've done it with ribs where we just strip the meat off the bone and threw it in there. Kids love it. I've done it with chicken. You do it with whatever sausage. Always works.

NINA MOINI: All right. And how about you, Daniel. Real quick, what's your favorite go-to lunch?

DANIEL VICTORY: Oh, roast beef po boy.

NINA MOINI: All right.

DANIEL VICTORY: It drips down to the elbow. The messier, the better.

NINA MOINI: All right, that's pretty simple. Daniel and Chris, thank you both so much. Best of luck with everything. Congratulations.

CHRIS MONTANA: Thank you for having us.

DANIEL VICTORY: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Chris Montana is the owner of Lagniappe, and Daniel Victory is the mixology consultant. Thanks, as always, this week to senior producer Aleesa Kuznetsov, producers Ellen Finn, Ellie Roth, and Alanna Elder, sound engineer Derek Ramirez, our newscaster, Emily Reese.

I'm Nina Moini. Have a great weekend. Tomorrow at noon, it's Politics Friday with Brian Bakst. We'll see you back here Monday.