2 May 2024
Milkfish founder and chef, Cristina Quackenbush. | Josh Brasted/Eater NOLA
Milkfish chef Cristina Quackenbush is joining forces with Anh Luu and Haley Vanvleet for the immersive, mystical new restaurant and absinthe bar in New Orleans
Cristina Quackenbush has been conjuring her roots through her cooking for most of her life. Come summer, she’ll bring a new restaurant that integrates witchcraft, mysticism, and Southeast Asian foodways to the French Quarter. After more than two years of weekly appearances, Quackenbush will wrap her last pop-up meal at Twelve Mile Limit on Thursday, May 2 to make room for a restaurant she’s calling Tatlo, a “Filipino witchy absinthe bar and kitchen serving divine food” behind the Old Absinthe House (240 Bourbon Street).
For the past 12 years, Quackenbush has channeled the bold flavors of “Filipino soul food” through her hugely popular one-time restaurant and current pop-up Milkfish. She’s a whirling dervish of energy, a force for good not just through her plates of chicken adobo and lumpia, but through the nonprofit she co-founded in 2020, Good Trouble Network. The Filipino American chef moved from her Midwest home to New Orleans in 1999 to find a like-minded community in a place that saw the first Filipino settlements in North America in the 1760s.
Tatlo means three in the Tboli language, one of many dialects spoken in the Philippines. Quackenbush is one of three partners in the enterprise. The second is chef Anh Luu, a Vietnamese American and native New Orleanian, former executive chef at Bywater Brew Pub, and pop-up chef with her Vietnamese street food concept Xanh. Luu is also a familiar face from an episode of Season 8 of Queer Eye. The third chef is Hayley Vanvleet, a Cordon Bleu graduate whose resume includes Meauxbar, Curio, Peche, and Belle Epoque, which currently occupies the space that Tatlo is taking over. Vanvleet, who also pops up around town with her rice bowl spot, Smoked Bowls, will bring her skills into the mix both in the kitchen and to the bar’s cocktail program.
So why is Quackenbush bringing a “witchy” bar to the Quarter? “Because I practice witchcraft,” she says. “It’s part of my personal journey that has helped me through a lot of challenges. I’ve dabbled all my life. There have always been powerful spirits in New Orleans, voodoo priestesses, and witches, and there still are today. And absinthe is a powerful spirit all on its own.”
She describes Tatlo as offering a portal to a world where every dish tells a story influenced by the diner’s own yearnings, with a deep connection to the supernatural. “We will be offering our guests immersive experiences through Asian dishes that merge Filipino and Vietnamese culinary traditions with local flavors and cocktails.”
Each diner’s journey begins with a choice of candle color for the table. Red might mean romance, green for wealth, and so on — with a menu tailored to those goals. “This is not just dining,” says Quackenbush. “It’s an immersive trip through the personal, the mystical, the historical, exclusive to the New Orleans experience. Our menu will pay attention to the cycles of the moon, enhancing both the nutritional and mystical properties of our dishes.” The idea is to nourish both the physical and mental well-being of the guest as the dining experience channels the spiritual world.
Quackenbush isn’t sharing what dishes will be offered yet but emphasizes that elements of New Orleans, Filipino, and Vietnamese food will be present and intertwined.
“Every meal will be a ritual of connection and nourishment,” she says. “Witchcraft and supernatural spiritualism are not just facets of my own personal philosophy. They are what’s at the heart of Tatlo.” She promises more details in the coming months, with a soft opening planned for early summer and the full operation in place by fall.
“We want the locals to come to the Quarter,” Quackenbush says. “There is a mystique there that you just don’t find anywhere else.”