New Orleans did not always chargrill oysters. The dish traces to one Metairie kitchen and one man’s experiment, and it spread from there across the whole city.
1. Drago’s Seafood Restaurant, Metairie and Riverside
Drago and Klara Cvitanovich fled Croatia after the war and opened their restaurant in Metairie’s Fat City in 1969, after Drago spent years tending bar and shucking oysters at his sister’s place on Harrison Avenue. He built the business on relationships with the hundreds of Yugoslav immigrants who had settled in south Louisiana working the fishing, shrimping, and oyster industries.
The dish came later. In 1993, their son Tommy started experimenting with a sauce of garlic, butter, and herbs, brushing it onto freshly shucked oysters, dusting them with Parmesan and Romano, and cooking them in the shell over a hot grill. He developed it partly in response to a raw oyster scare going around at the time, giving people a way to eat oysters without eating them raw. The grills now turn out more than 900 dozen on a busy day.
The oyster grill sits as the centerpiece of the dining room, with columns of flame and steam bursting around the shells. Expect a wait in the bar, especially on Fridays and during Lent. The Metairie original is at 3232 N. Arnoult Rd, and a second location overlaps the lobby of the Hilton New Orleans Riverside downtown.
2. Felix’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar, Lakefront
Felix’s put the New Orleans oyster bar on the map in the 1940s, building a room where people could belly up and watch their oysters get shucked. The Lakefront location opened in 2018 in the space that had been Brisbi’s, on Lakeshore Drive at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain.
The layout makes the cooking the show. Two oyster stations sit out in the dining room, and flames leap high inside a glass-enclosed grill area for the chargrilled oysters. Next to it runs a double-sided oyster bar, with one counter facing the dining room and another opening through a roll-down door onto the deck, where diners watch boats move up the marina channel below.
The menu here runs bigger than the French Quarter original, with more entrees and boiled seafood including shrimp, royal reds, blue crab, king crab, snow crab, and Dungeness. Management described the approach as an old Bucktown menu. The address is 7400 Lakeshore Drive, open daily from 11 a.m., closing at 9 p.m. most nights and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Reviews on the chargrilled here run hot and cold, so temper expectations. Call (504) 304-4125.
3. Casamento’s Restaurant, Uptown
Joe Casamento came from Ustica, a small Italian island off Sicily, and opened this Magazine Street room in 1919. It has run more than a century on locally sourced Louisiana oysters shucked steps from the table at one of the oldest oyster bars in Uptown, and in the city.
Oysters arrive four ways here: on the half shell, fried, charbroiled, or built into the signature oyster loaf on thick white bread. The tile-covered dining room is a landmark in its own right, and the menu extends to fried soft-shell crabs, one of the better seafood gumbos in town, shrimp, trout, and meatballs and spaghetti.
Casamento’s sits at 4330 Magazine Street. The restaurant has historically closed for stretches of the summer, so call before going.
4. Mr. Ed’s Oyster Bar & Fish House
Ed McIntyre opened his first restaurant in 1989 and has since built out five locations across greater New Orleans, including the French Quarter, Metairie, Mid-City, and St. Charles Avenue.
Oysters come chargrilled, fried, or raw, alongside the older baked preparations of Rockefeller and Bienville. Each location runs both a stand-up oyster bar and a cocktail bar, which makes it an easy stop for one dozen and a drink rather than a full meal. Po-boys, platters, and fish specialties fill out the menu.
The St. Charles Avenue location is the most convenient for anyone working the streetcar line, and the French Quarter locations are the busiest.
