Melissa Martin grew up in Chauvin, a Terrebonne Parish fishing town on Bayou Petit Caillou, and Mosquito Supper Club cooks the food she ate there.
She opened it in the spring of 2014 in a converted house at 3824 Dryades Street, Uptown near Napoleon Avenue. The first version held two farmhouse tables in a single room and seated up to 24 strangers at once. Platters of crabs and oysters, baskets of biscuits, and small pots of gumbo went around the table hand to hand. Martin built the whole idea on a belief that strangers talking over dinner might do some good in the world.
The mission behind the menu goes beyond nostalgia. Louisiana loses coastal land to the Gulf at a pace that threatens towns like Chauvin, and Martin set out to record Cajun recipes and customs before that way of life washes away. Her 2020 cookbook, Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou, organizes chapters by ingredient, from shrimp and oysters to rice and sugarcane. It won the James Beard Award for Best Book in U.S. Foodways in 2022, along with IACP Cookbook of the Year. The Beard Foundation has also nominated Martin twice for Best Chef: South.
The kitchen has launched other careers too. Serigne Mbaye covered kitchen duties here while Martin focused on writing, and he ran his own Dakar NOLA as a pop-up out of this house before it grew into a Beard-winning restaurant of its own.
Dinner still runs on the house party model. The flagship communal supper comes family style at shared tables, and the restaurant describes it as built for adventurous diners. Guests who want less mingling can book a private two-top or four-top instead. The menu changes with the season and with what fishermen and farmers bring in, so nobody orders. Recent diners have singled out marinated crab claws, pickled shrimp, sweet potato biscuits, and a gumbo served alongside potato salad, the way plenty of south Louisiana families eat it.
Pricing is straightforward. The communal supper and the private-table supper both cost $135 per person plus tax and service charge. The communal table takes parties of up to six. Larger groups move to a private table with a $1,200 base for up to eight guests, $150 for each extra person, and a cap of 12 at $1,800.
Anyone without a reservation still has a way in. The Mosquito Bar serves natural wines, craft cocktails, and an à la carte menu from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. It has four seats at the counter plus an outdoor patio for walk-ins, and a bowl of Martin’s duck and andouille gumbo is often available there without booking the full supper. Those seats fill up, so arrive early.
Before you make that reservation though, you should know that reservations are non-refundable no matter the situation. Shellfish shows up on every menu too, and the kitchen can’t work around a shellfish allergy. Other restrictions can be accommodated with advance notice, but the kitchen won’t substitute dishes. The restaurant asks every guest to read its policies before reserving.
Service runs Wednesday through Sunday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Reservations open 30 days ahead at 12:01 a.m. Central, counted by actual days, so the release date does not always line up with the calendar date. The restaurant also takes an annual summer break in August. There is no phone line, and questions go to reservations@mosquitosupperclub.com. Check the website for the current booking link, since both Resy and Tock pages are live.
