John Besh's new venture is New Orleans riverfront restaurant with sweeping views. See plan (2024)

There’s a new restaurant coming to the New Orleans riverfront from one of the city’s largest hospitality groups, as that company is trying to steer a new course.

Delacroix Fish Camp & Bar is taking shape on Spanish Plaza, between the Riverwalk Outlets mall and the Canal Street ferry terminal. It will focus on Louisiana seafood and frame sweeping views of the Mississippi River from its glass-lined dining room and large, open-air patio.

It is the latest project from BRG Hospitality. News of the new restaurant plans recently spurred that company’s co-founder John Besh to speak publicly about his role at BRG for the first time since 2017 when sexual harassment complaints saw the chef step down from operations. He remained an owner of his company but kept a low profile.

Today, Besh says he’s begun working more at his restaurants, focusing on mentoring and training chefs and managers.

“Really all I want to do is put my head down and work, and push forward with what we’ve always done, and make a difference in this little part of the world we live in here,” Besh said in an interview (see the related story here).

Delacroix plans

Delacroix will be on the downriver side of the Spanish Plaza fountain, near the ferry landing. The site was previously home to Poppy’s Crazy Lobster, a restaurant that closed in 2018. The current new structure was built in its place as a shell ready for the next project.

Work on the interior build-out is now underway, and Delacroix is slated to open in early 2025, perhaps in time for the Super Bowl.

With an oyster bar, seating inside for 125 and a patio with seating for 80 it will be a restaurant with views directly on the Mississippi River, a rare commodity in New Orleans.

Raising plaza's profile

Delacroix is part of a larger plan to raise the profile and draw of Spanish Plaza, a public concourse next to the Riverwalk Outlets mall. Earlier this year, the New Orleans City Council approved a measure allowing the operator of the Riverwalk, Houston-based RockStep Capital, to raise up to $25 million, backed by an additional 2% sales tax on Riverwalk shops, to invest in new retail, restaurant and entertainment venues at Spanish Plaza.

That effort joins other new developments around this downtown riverfront stretch, including the 2021 opening of the Four Seasons hotel, the transformation of Harrah’s Casino into Caesars now nearing completion, a major overhaul for the nearby Audubon Aquarium finished this year and a face-lift for the adjacent Canal Street ferry terminal.

Delacroix inspiration

Besh said the restaurant will be an opportunity to showcase the city’s waterfront, and also the Louisiana way with coastal flavors. The name comes from the St. Bernard Parish fishing village where Besh counts early formative experiences. While the particulars of the menu are still taking shape, he described a downhome Louisiana approach for the new restaurant.

“Delacroix is really about the authentic, rustic, Louisiana cooking that really informed me as a child, the hunting camps, the fishing camps, the shrimp boats; the best food I had in my life is from that area,” Besh said.

The Louisiana seafood focus has parallels to Borgne, the restaurant BRG ran in the Hyatt Regency Hotel (which never reopened after the pandemic shutdowns). But Besh said he wants Delacroix to give a deeper dive into regional cooking and referenced old school, long-gone New Orleans restaurants like Uglesich’s (which closed shortly before Hurricane Katrina) and Restaurant Mandich (which did not return after Katrina).

“Those are places that really hit home for me,” he said. “The idea is bringing back something that’s more rustic, full of flavor, full of history.”