A custom brick and iron hearth sits in the back of Pêche Seafood Grill, and on a busy night servers carry one whole Gulf fish after another out of it.
The idea took years to reach the table. Chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski, already behind Herbsaint and Cochon, first sketched a seafood restaurant soon after Katrina as a tribute to the old fish joints that once lined Lake Pontchartrain. Parking problems and other projects kept pushing it back. Along the way, the team traveled to Uruguay to study open-fire cooking and to Spain’s Basque Country to watch grill masters work, and those trips reshaped the plan. Chef-partner Ryan Prewitt, Herbsaint’s former chef de cuisine, took the lead in the kitchen, and Pêche opened at the corner of Magazine and Julia streets in 2013.
The building brought its own history. It was a former livery, restored before the restaurant moved in, and a Wall Street Journal account of the opening reported that Jefferson Davis was embalmed upstairs after his death in New Orleans. The room today runs to high ceilings, tall windows, exposed wood beams, a thick cypress bar, and a marble-topped oyster bar in the middle of the floor. Link’s uncle, Duane Link, built the grill, modeled on the rigs the chefs saw in Uruguay.
Recognition came fast. In 2014, Pêche won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in America, and Prewitt won Best Chef: South the same night. Michelin named it a Bib Gourmand in 2025. Nicole Mills, who grew up in the Philippines and joined the opening team in 2013, has run the kitchen as chef de cuisine since 2019, and Food & Wine included her in its 2024 class of Best New Chefs.
The menu treats Louisiana seafood as familiar ground and then pushes it somewhere new. The whole grilled fish of the day, priced at market, is the dish most tables order, and it comes built for sharing. The raw bar works through Gulf oysters, a seafood salad, smoked drum, and a steak tartare with oyster aioli. Snacks include a smoked tuna dip with saltines, hushpuppies, fried bread with sea salt, and shrimp toast topped with sesame and pickles. The crab capellini with chili butter and basil has become a signature. Entrées run from baked drum with saffron to grilled tuna with okra and a hanger steak with salsa verde.
The sourcing sits close to home. The restaurant buys from a long list of regional farms, including Perilloux Farm in St. Charles Parish, River Queen Greens in Lower Coast Algiers, and Cajun Growers in Cut Off. Oysters come from growers like Bright Side Oysters in Grand Isle, which raises them in floating cages. Pastry chef Maggie Scales handles dessert, and her salted peanut pie shows up in nearly every review.
The bar holds up its end. Cocktails change often, with house drinks like a briny martini called the Mother of Pearl, and there are zero-proof options, a wine list leaning toward Spain and France, and local beers from Parish, Urban South, and Abita.
The restaurant serves lunch and dinner daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 800 Magazine Street, a short walk from the French Quarter and the Convention Center. Reservations go through Resy and are recommended, though walk-ins are welcome and the bar and oyster bar move quickly. Groups can book private events at Calcasieu, the Link Restaurant Group’s event space nearby. Call (504) 522-1744 with questions.
Bring a few friends, order a whole fish for the table, and save room for the peanut pie.
