15 July 2024
A prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich from Lunch. | Merrill Stewart/Eater NOLA
Lunch is making a home at the revamped food hall in advance of its 2025 restaurant opening
A mother-son duo slinging Tuscan-style sandwiches on schiacciata in New Orleans have landed a new home in advance of their 2025 restaurant opening: the revamped, better-than-ever St. Roch Market.
Lunch, the newish pop-up from Lisa and Jack Greenleaf, has been selling sandwiches featuring imported Italian meats and cheeses at various bars in the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods since April, with plans to open a restaurant by the same name at 2601 Dauphine Street. While that restaurant remains in the works, the Greenleafs have made a temporary home for their popular sandwiches at the St. Roch Avenue food hall.
Lunch launched at St. Roch Market on Friday, July 12, and it’s been a busy few days, Greenleaf tells Eater. “The folks that run St. Roch are so amazing to work with,” says Greenleaf of Kevin Pedeaux, who became the food hall’s new operator in September 2023. Pedeaux, whose CR Coffee Shops was one of the food hall’s original vendors, stepped in to take over the lease last summer as the food hall floundered, teetering on the brink of closure. Since then, the market has experienced a revival of sorts, with Pedeaux filling it with a robust roster of popular vendors for the first time since before the pandemic and reshaping the bar’s offerings.
Merrill Stewart/Eater NOLA
Lisa and Jack Greenleaf bake schiacciata bread daily for sandwiches.
One non-negotiable for Greenleaf was installing an oven in their space for baking fresh schiacciata bread daily, she says. The bread, pronounced skia-cha-ta, is “the ideal sandwich bread”: a thinner, crustier cousin of focaccia native to Tuscany and the key to the whole operation.
Lunch gained a following popping up outside of Pepp’s Pub for its succinct menu of sandwiches, including one with prosciutto di Parma, fresh mozzarella, fire-roasted red peppers, pistachio pesto, basil, and balsamic glaze; one with a chicken cutlet, spicy broccoli rabe, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, and lemon aioli; and one with breaded eggplant, roasted zucchini and red onions, arugula, and ricotta cream. At St. Roch, they’ve added a new one: pistachio mortadella, burrata, arugula, pistachio cream, and fig spread. “It’s now neck and neck with our most popular prosciutto sandwich,” says Greenleaf.
Greenleaf sources the mortadella, prosciutto, cheeses, and other meats from Perrone & Sons, a longtime local purveyor of Italian products. “It really does make all the difference,” Greenleaf says.
Lisa Greenleaf/Lunch
LUNCH’s new mortadella sandwich on the menu at St. Roch Market.
Lisa and Jack have also introduced breakfast items at St. Roch: a potato and onion frittata, avocado toast, and baked goods like cheddar jalapeno scones, “which have all been selling out,” Greenleaf says. They are rolling out salads like kale and beet, chicken cutlet Caesar, a classic chopped Italian, caprese pasta salad, and Mediterranean quinoa salad, all of which are served with a side of schiacciata.
“So many regulars have been in already, which is so reassuring,” says Greenleaf. “Everyone is so happy that they can come by anytime they want to get a sandwich rather than waiting for us to pop up.”
Lunch is currently open at St. Roch every day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the restaurant is expected to open at the intersection of Franklin Avenue and Dauphine Street in early 2025. For a list of current vendors at St. Roch Market, which includes Aritza’s Kitchen, Taceaux Loceaux, Genevive’s, and Slow and Pho, see the market’s full lineup.