24 July 2024
Beer-battered drum is on the menu at Junebug. | Randy Schmidt/Junebug
Junebug, from the group behind Brewery Saint X and Devil Moon BBQ, will serve an ambitious menu past midnight
There’s an exciting new bar and restaurant in the works in New Orleans’s Warehouse District, and it promises to fill a pandemic-related void just about everyone in town is aching for: good late-night food.
Junebug, from the restaurant group behind nearby Devil Moon BBQ and Brewery Saint X, is set to take over a historic recording studio location at 748 Camp Street. The food will vary from those spots, where New Orleans pitmaster Shannon Bingham serves nostalgic Southern staples alongside Louisiana-style barbecue, and instead aim for “sophisticated bar food” with Southern and French inflections, according to a press release.
While the bar and kitchen’s hours haven’t been finalized, Junebug plans to serve a full menu, plus nightly specials, past midnight — an increasingly rare offering since the pandemic reduced New Orleans’s late-night food options and practically eliminated 24-hour dining. Bingham, who will lead the kitchen at Junebug, says: “New Orleans is obviously one of the great late-night cities, but there just aren’t enough places to eat late; Junebug will be part of the solution.”
Among the menu items currently planned are French bistro-style plates like blue crab gratin with pan con tomate, foie gras mousse with banana bread, and confit beef cheeks. Croquettes monsieur, a play on a croque-monsieur, will be served with honey mustard, and a pâté melt, a play on a patty melt, will combine country pate, gruyere, and griddled onions on rye. The Southern influence is apparent with dishes like pickled shrimp dip served with fried saltines, beer-battered drum serve with sauce gribiche, pecan pimento cheese, and snacks like spicy cheese straws. There’s burrata with smoked carrot marmalade, an endive salad, and raw oysters served with satsuma mignonette. Rounding out the offerings are a few familiar bar food items like a “killer” burger and fried chicken sandwich, but overall, this is one ambitious late-night menu.
On the drinks side, Sophie Burton is bar director. Burton has most recently worked at Bar Tonique and Holy Diver in New Orleans, and before that helped open Jojo’s Beloved Cocktail Lounge in Atlanta’s Politan Row food hall. House cocktails can be made in two different ways: full strength or refreshing. For instance, the full strength version of one drink, the Why Worry, combines Toki, a Japanese whiskey, with pear eau de vie, chamomile tincture, and lemon oil. The refreshing version of the drink, called the Double Loop, adds salted lemon soda to the above ingredients. Speaking of eau de vie, or fruit brandies, Junebug will specialize in them — mixed into cocktails but also on their own, “a broad range of storied but hard-to-find offerings from the U.S., Europe, and beyond,” says the release. Happy hour will run weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m.
Junebug is the latest New Orleans venture from Neighborhood Restaurant Group, a D.C.-based company managing a portfolio of nearly two dozen restaurants in Virginia and Washington that includes popular 14th Street spot ChurchKey. Founder Michael Babin and partner Greg Engert, a D.C. beer legend and James Beard Award semifinalist, have again enlisted Bingham for the food. Prior to Devil Moon BBQ and Brewery Saint X, which opened in 2023, Bingham ran St. Roch Market food stalls and pop-ups Emmylou’s BBQ and Buttermilk, worked at Gautreau’s, and helped open Blue Oak BBQ.
Junebug’s address on Camp Street has a storied history. The second floor was home to legendary recording engineer Cosimo Matassa’s Jazz City Studio from 1966 to 1978, where he recorded with Allen Toussaint and the Meters. Junebug will play music from that particular era of funk, a soundtrack of vinyl “pulled from an extensive record collection.” The space will feature a bar, lounge area, and partially covered courtyard. It’s expected to open in October 2024.