Willie Mae's NOLA is serving up perfect fried chicken
Why it matters: The menu includes the restaurant's beloved fried chicken recipe.
The big picture: Willie Mae's Scotch House has been serving the city since 1957, but Hurricane Katrina forced a two-year closure that started in 2005.
Then, a fire devastated the family-owned restaurant again in 2023. Rebuilding that location is ongoing, The Times-Picayune reports.
In the meantime, the Seaton family opened Willie Mae's NOLA on Baronne Street in the modern, bright space vacated by NOLA Caye.
Between the lines: The new location isn't the first time Willie Mae's has been downtown.
The family previously ran a stand inside the Pythian Market, but that closed when the food hall shut down.
The menu has other options, but it focuses on the family's famous fried chicken.
You can get it as a platter with a quarter chicken and one or three sides, on a salad or on a chicken sandwich. Platters also come with a cornbread muffin.
What I ordered: I got the quarter chicken with three sides ($24), including cabbage, mac and cheese and sweet potato fries.
Much to my eternal dismay, the restaurant was out of fried okra that day, but the fries helped to slake my craving for them.
The chicken was perfect as ever, with the slightly-spicy batter that fries a deep, crunchy, salty golden.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Why ‘Rez Dogs' creator Sterlin Harjo made a love letter to Tulsa and its contradictions
Sterlin Harjo perfected the 'art of the hang' with the co-creation of his first television series, 'Reservation Dogs.' The FX drama followed a group of Indigenous teens living on a fictional Oklahoma reservation, turning their everyday routine into high art — and is one of the best television shows of the 2020s. Now, Harjo, 45, is tackling another type of genre: crime. His forthcoming series 'The Lowdown,' premiering Sept. 23 with two episodes on FX, follows self-proclaimed 'truthstorian' Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) on a mission to unearth buried truths about Tulsa's problematic history while exposing present-day corruption. He's a disheveled figure who drives around town in a tattered van and lives above the rare bookstore that he also happens to own. But when his latest exposé for a local publication calls into question a prominent Tulsa family, his investigation takes him on a dangerous road from the city's seedy underbelly to its highest corridors of power. ''Rez Dogs' was my love letter to rural Oklahoma and where I grew up. 'The Lowdown' is my love letter to Tulsa, where I currently live,' says Harjo, who produces, writes and directs on the new series. 'You see the beauty and the darkness. You see everything.' The eight-episode drama, best described as Tulsa noir, also stars Oklahoma expats Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tracy Letts as well as Keith David. Appearances by 'Rez Dog' alumni include Kaniehtiio Horn (a.k.a. the Deer Lady). Harjo, who is a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and is of Muscogee descent, spoke with The Times about his love for Oklahoma, the challenges of following a celebrated show like 'Reservation Dogs' and how 'The Lowdown' is loosely based on his own experience working with a guerrilla journalist. 'Rez Dogs' was such an exceptional series that garnered critical acclaim across all four seasons. With 'The Lowdown,' was it hard to not compete with that previous success? I didn't think about it. My experience in this industry has been people telling me that whatever the thing is that I want to make can't be made, and me thinking, I'm going to make it anyway, then forging ahead. Then it finds an audience, and people enjoy it. I had pitched 'Rez Dogs' a few different times, and it was always soft pitches because I was nervous of being laughed out of the room. No one was interested. But having the confidence of my friend ['Rez Dogs' co-creator and writer] Taika Waititi and FX … they were open to the way that we told the story. I think they were kind of blown away. So they made it. They never said no. But I've had many 'no's and many eye rolls. Hawke plays Lee Raybon in 'The Lowdown,' a figure who is obsessed with getting to the bottom of things, to the point where he neglects many other aspects of his life. What inspired the creation of that character? The story is fictional, but the character was inspired by someone I worked with named Lee Roy Chapman at This Land Press magazine. He was very much a soldier for truth and I would ride shotgun and make these videos about the underground, unknown histories of Tulsa. The series was called 'Tulsa Public Secrets.' We were this startup, full of piss and vinegar, trying to tell the truth and write about our community and make documentaries about our community. It was about a pent-up need for truth in this city. That push to tell the truth and find truth and tell our story and create a narrative around us. It gave us and the city an identity, something to hold on to. 'The Lowdown' unfolds at a really brisk pace, yet it also has the kick-back vibe of 'Rez Dogs.' There's the art of the hang, where the genre is people hanging out. Look at 'Rez Dogs' or 'Dazed and Confused.' There's an art to hanging and being with characters, and it feels OK to just sit there with them. I think 'The Lowdown' has a good balance of that, where you could just hang with [Raybon] on his block. But there's also this unfolding story so things never get boring. Did the making of 'The Lowdown' and 'Rez Dogs' overlap? No, but it was toward the end of 'Rez Dogs' that I dusted a script off that was like 10 years old. It was a feature [film], but I thought I would love to do a crime show, so I just made it into an hourlong pilot, and it became 'The Lowdown.' Ethan Hawke starred in the last season of 'Rez Dogs.' Is that how you two connected? I had a mutual friend who introduced us because Ethan had written a graphic novel about the Apache Wars and Geronimo. It was originally a script that he couldn't get made in Hollywood because it was told from the Native side of things. Out of frustration, he made it into a graphic novel. I read it and was interested in adapting it for a show. I met up with Ethan, and I pitched my idea of the adaptation and he loved it. We spoke the same language. So we started writing together and our friendship came out of that. And then 'Rez Dogs' came out, and he wrote me to say that he really loved it. He said, 'If you ever have anything for me …' Of course I'll write something [for him]! So he became Elora's dad. 'The Lowdown' was shot on location in Tulsa and you used much of the same crew from 'Rez Dogs.' But I also hear your own family was involved, as well as some 'Rez Dogs' alums. The crew and I know how to work together at this point. It's like a big family. And my [actual] family was there. My brother was doing locations. My kids came on set. We're shooting on some of my land. My dad was hired to brush-hog it. My mom's an extra. There's a couple of 'Rez Dogs' cameos. You'll see Willie Jack [Paulina Alexis] in the opening. Graham Greene's in it. But I don't know how much I'm supposed to say yet. I better not say … You started out as an indie filmmaker. Can you talk a little about that journey to series TV? I've always felt like an outsider. I'm a small-town Native kid from rural Oklahoma. I never felt like I had a foot in this industry. I was an independent filmmaker forever. I sometimes felt like everything was against me, like there's no money, and I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it felt like the industry at large didn't care about the work I was doing. Before 'Rez Dogs,' I never worked in TV and I never worked for anyone else doing films. I only had the education I got with the Sundance Directors Lab, which is the most freedom any filmmaker is ever going to have. Then I was lucky enough to make films that were so low-budget. It meant the stakes weren't high because no one saw them. So if they hated them, I wasn't destroyed. Your films and previous series were rooted in Indigenous viewpoints and experiences. Those cultures have been so misrepresented across all aspects of American entertainment. What gave you the confidence to keep pitching those stories? I attribute that to not having anything to lose. 'Rez Dogs' came at this time when I thought I was going to have to move on. I was at the end of my career road, where I was about to start a nonprofit or find the next chapter of what to do. I had been the freelance filmmaker for a long time and it just got hard to pay bills. With 'Rez Dogs,' it was like, I could try to play it safe right now or I could swing for the fences. I had seen opportunities come and go, but I have this shot and this one at-bat. I need to just go for it. Luckily, FX is a place that allowed me to do that. And I did it. Luckily, I'd been making independent films for years and figured out my voice, so it wasn't hard to ground 'Rez Dogs' in my voice. Were there outside influences that also helped you get there? 'Atlanta' and 'Louie.' Those cracked my mind open to what TV could be and allowed me in. Because to tell an Indigenous story about a community, I had to go to different places. If I was just focused on the kids [in 'Rez Dogs'], it would be one thing and that's it. I needed to expand. And so [it was] taking some of what 'Atlanta' did but having this relay, like passing the baton off to different segments of the [Indigenous] community. I was also inspired by 'The Wire.' And 'Rez Dogs' was a story that I always wanted to tell. Taika [who is of Maori descent] and I would end up talking about how similar they were from both of our homes, and if you could just kind of capture what it felt like to hear your aunts and uncles telling stories and lying and exaggerating and talking about mythology and superstitions. If you could capture all that, as Indigenous people, that's what we wanted and craved. The key to that was making it about this community, but it was a bit of a Trojan horse. It's about these teenagers that are dealing with life and that's a subject that everyone knows. So you start with that, and then expand out once you have people on your side. The motto you mentioned — 'Nothing to lose' — can you still use it now that you've had some success, and if so, why does it still work for you? I think it has to do with people close to me dying when I was young. It's a big community, a big family, and I was always at a funeral. I've been a pallbearer like 15 times or something. It gave me the sense that you can't be afraid to put stuff out there. I've always had a way of diving off a cliff. It's like, if everything fails after this, I'm OK with it. If everything dries up, that's cool. At least I gave it a shot. This is going to sound hippie-dippie, but I think the energy that it takes to dive off a cliff and just go for it is an act in itself that creates energy. Something good will come out of it. So as long as you're moving forward, something comes out of it.
Axios
2 hours ago
- Axios
He fled Katrina, then built a 1,000-voice choir in Ohio
A local community choir that has united thousands of strangers through arts, education and volunteerism likely wouldn't exist if Hurricane Katrina hadn't struck 20 years ago. Driving the news: Harmony Project founder David Brown was living in New Orleans' French Quarter at the time. After being displaced, he eventually laid roots in Columbus, which he knew from attending Capital University. The big picture: New Orleans lost half its population overnight during Katrina, and since then, many researchers and journalists have tried to pinpoint where the displaced people ended up. Axios Local reporters across the U.S. are highlighting some of their stories ahead of the storm's anniversary on Aug. 29. Zoom in: Brown, a Louisiana native who had most recently directed choirs in New York City, realized a lifelong dream by moving to New Orleans in 2005. Just three months later, the levees broke and destroyed that dream. He escaped north when flooding began, letting two Minnesota tourists jump into his car along the way. He lost nearly everything. Flashback: Brown took refuge at his sister's place, and eventually started volunteering at a convention center that housed survivors in Ruston, Louisiana. As he processed the trauma, inspiration struck. "I saw people who I knew didn't agree on things, from different backgrounds … all there side-by-side. It didn't matter, because they were working together," Brown recalled. Between the lines: He later moved to Columbus and started the community choir in Columbus in 2009, per a friend's recommendation, because it's a melting pot of all walks of life. After experiencing 9/11 while in New York and Katrina's devastation, the Midwest also felt like a safe place to settle — with no hurricanes, he tells Axios. How it works: The harmony doesn't end when Harmony Project singers walk off the stage. Participants come together through service projects, including bringing the arts into area schools and prisons. Most have no professional musical training. It was once a grassroots group organized via flyers, but has grown into a nonprofit of over 1,000 singers that recently filled the Schottenstein Center and inspired a CBS special with John Legend. What's next: Brown and his sons visit New Orleans every year, and he says he'd love to bring a Harmony Project to the city someday. The bottom line:"I think the more we can listen to each other's stories," he says, "maybe the more those stories can chip away at the veneers we create to protect us."
Axios
2 hours ago
- Axios
20 years later, Katrina transplant has spread New Orleans jazz in Charlotte
Twenty years ago, Lonnie Davis evacuated New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina, not knowing she would never return home. Why it matters: Though Davis' arrival in Charlotte wasn't something she'd planned, the longtime New Orleanian has made a lasting impact on the city's culture. To cope with missing home, she formed the JazzArts organization, bringing a piece of Louisiana to Charlotte and transforming the jazz scene in a New South city that had previously lacked one. Zoom out: It's estimated that more than 1.2 million people evacuated ahead of Katrina. Axios Local reporters across the U.S. are highlighting some of their stories. Flashback: Davis was about five months pregnant and working at a Canal Street hotel when Katrina began heading toward her city. Many of her coworkers were clocking out early as they watched the storm's trajectory and made evacuation decisions. Davis made the call, too. But not without a quick detour. She stopped to join in a second line, parading with hundreds in the streets. "It was very windy, and there were colorful feathers and brass bands and just people everywhere," Davis remembers. "In the back of my mind, I was like — if this storm hits the city, this could be gone and this could be lost forever." She took in the moment, then drove home, boarded up her newly purchased house, packed up her family and headed toward Houston. It wasn't until the next morning, when they turned on the hotel TV, that she realized life would never be the same. A helicopter broadcast showed how high the water rose on the rollercoasters at Jazzland, the amusement park next to Davis' mother's house. When the shot panned to her mom's neighborhood, she couldn't see a car in the driveway. Davis and her family spent two weeks in Houston, then headed to Virginia, where Davis' sister lived. They stayed in a cohousing community, and Davis gave birth to her second daughter in Roanoke that January. A year later, the family realized they needed to find their new "place." Davis heard Charlotte had an international language school, where her oldest daughter could continue her French studies. "We, one day, took a ride to explore Charlotte. Liked what we saw," Davis said. "On our second visit, we were moving our stuff." And they figured, it's a big city. It must have a thriving jazz scene. But it didn't. They realized quickly the great jazz artists were overlooked and disconnected, Davis said. And the youth weren't learning the art, either. "I immediately looked around and said, 'Wow, these kids are missing out,'" she said. "'They have no idea what the possibilities are.'" Davis fell in love with music at a young age. Picking up the flute in the fifth grade, playing by ear came naturally to her. "I thought everyone could do it," she said. "I learned any song that I wanted to learn — cartoons, movie soundtracks, whatever I heard." Jazz was central to her schooling. She attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and studied under the renowned musician Ellis Marsalis. When she settled in Charlotte, she started working at Community School of Arts (now Arts+), gaining an understanding of the nonprofit world. She developed the vision for JazzArts and launched it in 2009. The big picture: More than 15 years later, JazzArts is still the only jazz nonprofit organization in the region. Their mission is to unite the community by supporting local musicians and bringing the world's best players to Charlotte. But what Davis is most proud of is the educational programs. Over the past 15 years, JazzArts has educated over 50,000 students. "They're my inspiration," she said. "The only reason that this organization exists is because I was one of those students, and the music changed my life." Young musicians also ensure the genre lives on. What's next: Davis has ambitions for JazzArts, like opening a center and organizing a jazz festival.
