As Coquette’s Tasting Menu Ends, Another Begins at Wild South

Shrimp in chili butter sauce. | Randy Schmidt

Chef Michael Stoltzfus’s new restaurant draws on traditional southern Louisiana foodways

After sunsetting the tasting menu at his Magazine Street restaurant Coquette, chef Michael Stoltzfus is readying for a new beginning at Wild South, the 40-seat tasting menu restaurant he’s opening in the former Lengua Madre space on February 27. Its focus is the “traditional foodways, ingredients, and techniques that exist in south Louisiana — putting our take on them,” Stoltzfus says. The menu will change organically, reflecting the region’s seasons and tapping into the bounty of its waters: think sweet gulf shrimp harvested nightly; roasted black grouper; bycatch; and local oysters that rival the coasts’ colder waters, Stoltzfus says.

Wild South’s team is much smaller than Coquette’s — with the tasting menu format, they’ll be able to hone in on culinary ideas they weren’t able to explore in a large restaurant, Stoltzfus says. He’s collaborated closely with executive Bret Macris on the menu. Yes, seafood will be its anchor, but expect to find beef, pork, and rabbit on the menu, too, plus vegetables that reflect Louisiana’s agricultural prowess.

Wild South will have two tasting menu options: One with five set courses, and one three-course menu with a range of choices. The latter, he hopes, will help the restaurant feel accessible to the local community it serves. At Lengua Madre, which he co-owned with chef Ana Castro, the single, set-price menu made it hard to build regulars, Stoltzfus says. “We want the restaurant to be part of the neighborhood, part of the fabric of life here.” He plans to hold six or eight seats at the bar for a la carte dining, too.

The menu will evolve organically (“I know everyone says that, but this is really truly going to change,” Stoltzfus says) but a recent preview dinner hosted at Coquette gives a taste of what to expect. Buttermilk-fried cauliflower is crowned with glistening cured tuna roe; roasted black grouper comes wrapped in nori, topped with a fried grouper crackling. Tuna njuda accompanies sweet potato rolls and tender untrimmed carrots; in another dish, the same fish is cured for four hours in lime and gin, then served with crab fat rice in a pool of herbed oil.

Fresh-caught shrimp — Stoltzfus works with a duo of shrimpers who deliver their nightly catch to the restaurant at 6 a.m. — are prepared simply, playing up their natural sweetness: They’re skewered, cooked over embers, and served in a chili butter sauce. Other dish previews include steamed oysters with swordfish bacon and leeks; sourdough fried Lion’s Mane mushrooms; and shrimp and strawberries with caviar.

The decision to end Coquette’s tasting menu, Stoltzfus says, was intended to make the restaurant more accessible to locals — plus, the large restaurant format is better suited to a la carte dining. “It wasn’t hindrance, but it was definitely harder to navigate in such a large restaurant,” he says. “When the [Lengua Madre] space opened up, it was like, oh — this is a great way to transition, to be able to truly dial it in, to focus on this, and grow it in a way we thought it deserved.”

Over at Wild South, gone are Lengua Madre’s colorful vinyl tiles, pink hallway, and selfie mirrors in the bathroom — they’ve been replaced with ceramic tiles and darker tones. In renovating the space, Stoltzfus says, the team was aiming to create something with a little “patina,” something that feels lived in. “We want it to feel like it’s been here a while — in a good way,” he says. Keep an eye on Instagram for updates on reservations.