High Hat Cafe opened at the right time, just as Freret Street was revving up as a hot restaurant row.It quickly acquired a timeless feel, connecting to deep-running Southern flavor and anytime hospitality.
As people started showing up for Friday lunch, however, they found the first evidence of a big shift that has happened here.
High Hat Café has new owners, as two local hospitality pros take the reins from Chip Apperson and Adolfo Garcia.The founders this week sold the restaurant to Fredo Nogueira and Ryan Iriarte.
Their tenure began Friday; the changes they plan are nil.
“This is an important restaurant, a classic place, and it should continue — and that’s what we want to do; we don’t want to change it, we want to see it continue as it should,” said Nogueira.
Regulars learning the news in the dining room on Friday reacted with surprise, but also a degree of familiarity.
Iriarte worked at High Hat for its first 10 years as manager and creator of its bar program, before spending a few years at
Bearcat Cafe.Nogueira is executive chef for Cure Co., overseeing the Freret Street neighbors Vals and Cure and also Cane & Table in the French Quarter; that is a role he will continue, entrusting the kitchen at High Hat to its existing staff.
The move came about as Apperson found himself ready to retire.That put the future of High Hat Cafe in question, and spurred anxiety in Nogueira and Iriarte for a restaurant they love.
“It’s such an institution.
To see it go or change into something else would’ve been tragic,” said Iriarte.
A modern classic
With its broad windows, tiled floor, spinning ceiling fans and long bar, High Hat Café looks like the kind of diner you’d find facing the courthouse in a small Southern town.It feels much older than its 12 years, and it’s earned the kind of following and role in its Uptown neighborhood usually reserved for restaurants that have been around for generations.
That’s because it represents a timely re-invigoration of the type of restaurant most people want — the affordable, accessible, consistent neighborhood spot with a sense of place.
Fried catfish and po-boys are menu anchors, the Tuesday fried chicken special has its own following, dark roux gumbo; pimento cheeseburgers and blackboard specials with farmers market-fresh produce are hallmarks.The bar makes first rate cocktails.
The restaurant at 4500 Freret St.
holds down the same corner that was Bill Long’s Bakery, a fixture of the old Freret Street that became a symbol for its woes after its namesake proprietor was gunned down at the business in 1985.
As High Hat Café, it became emblematic of the historic business strip’s revival.
Friends and neighbors
Garcia and Apperson were friends from back in the days when they worked together in Manhattan.When Apperson moved to New Orleans with plans to retire, Garcia goaded him to a different path.
“I told him, ‘bro, restaurant people don’t retire, they go broke or they die, you’re done neither, so let’s do this,’” Garcia recalled.
High Hat Café opened the same day in 2011 as
the pizzeria Ancora next door, where Garcia remains a partner (he also runs the Warehouse District steakhouse La Boca).
Like the High Hat founders, Noguiera and Iriarte are longtime friends, and they worked together for Garcia at his long-gone
Latin American restaurant RioMar.
A key to taking over the restaurant, however, are the other people here.The staff is staying on.That includes manager Stacey Means and chef Kat Mann (just the third chef here in its history, after Jeremy Wolgamott and Allison Richard).
Mann said the “heart and brain” of High Hat Cafe is nostalgia.
“Southern cuisine had its trending moment, but in places like New Orleans, these dishes and dishes derived from them speak to people who grew up with them,” she said.
Today, it’s common to have a line out the door when the restaurant opens, and it stays busy through the day.
It’s a place people come weekly for specials they know by heart, and eagerly take out-of-towners to give them a taste of New Orleans cooking.
“This is the first restaurant I’ve worked where on any given shift I will know 80% of the people here,” said Means.
A long goodbye
“I’m not capable of being a part-time or absentee owner, I don’t have the personality for it, so it was time,” Apperson said of his decision to retire, at age 67.
Apperson’s personality has been a big part of High Hat Cafe, and that goes beyond the Delta influences that this Memphis native put on the menu.
Perpetually clad in shorts, no matter the weather, with his reader glasses hovering low on his nose, Apperson has been the calm, warmly welcoming presence at the door to greet people, unless of course he’s fetching a ladder to fix something high up or wiping down the specials board.
“He’s the captain of the ship,” said Noguiera.
With the deal closed, Apperson is still spending a few days helping to run the dining room.He said he’s just staying on temporarily.Those who know him well have their doubts.
“We may actually have to call the police to take him out of here,” Nogueira said.“I’m not joking.”
4500 Freret St., (504) 754-1336
Lunch and dinner Fri.-Tues.
(closed Wed., Thu.)
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