Customers who visit the Southern Food and Beverage Museum can have a taste of culture from different regions of the South.
Located inside the New Orleans museum at 1504 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, Purloo Southern Cuisine was started by chef Ryan Hughes. The project took about two years to complete, and during the wait, Hughes experimented with pop-ups where he would set up small gatherings in the museum to test his concept.
“Every Friday I would do a different southern regional theme,” Hughes said.
He featured between six and eight different courses each time and did about 144 separate screenings.
He said his inspiration for the restaurant stemmed from his experience working in Southern-style restaurants.
Hughes is from Ohio and gained his culinary start as a French-trained pastry chef in Cincinnati. After that, he went to culinary school in Charleston, South Carolina, which he cites as one of his biggest Southern influences.
While in school, he remained a pastry chef and worked for chef Louis Osteen.
“He taught me not only a lot about Southern food but also just different ways of doing things in the South,” Hughes said.
While in Charleston, Hughes met chef Emeril Lagasse and his staff, who gave him the idea to relocate to New Orleans.
Hughes’ first experience in New Orleans was completing an externship at Brennan’s Restaurant. Working there, Hughes came to love the city and chose to stay after his externship ended.
Upon entering the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, visitors will notice there is no wall separating the museum from the restaurant. There’s only a see-through curtain, making the space feel open and inviting.
“I like the idea of having a restaurant with an open concept inside the museum,” Hughes said.
The kitchen is also on complete display for customers to watch the process of how their dishes are made from start to finish.
Hughes partnered with the museum after he worked with them to design a new space for a restaurant and realized it would be mutually beneficial to locate there.
Purloo’s menu features dishes of small plates and entrées, including green tomato chutney, cauliflower giardiniera, grilled hanger steak and paneed rabbit. It’s a balanced mixture of low-country inspired food as well as classic Southern dishes.
Currently, the menu is set until the staff and customers become familiar with it. Hughes said he wants to venture into opening for lunch in March.
Once this is accomplished, he will offer specials in collaboration with the museum, where each month will focus on a different Southern state.
In addition to savoring the variety of dishes offered, customers can engage in an educational conversation about Hughes’s cuisine.
“People who sit at the bar can talk with me about the food, where it comes from and how we make it,” Hughes said.
Apart from the culinary aspect of the restaurant, it is a mecca for wine, cocktails and beer.
The free-standing bar present in Purloo is the oldest one in Louisiana. It’s the original bar from Bruning’s Restaurant dating back to the 1840s. After being submerged by several hurricanes, it was donated to the museum, restored and placed for use in Purloo.
The name Purloo comes from a group of Gullah women Hughes met while working for the Belmond Charleston Place Hotel. Purloo was a shrimp and rice dish that was the predecessor of jambalaya.
After considering Purloo as a restaurant name, Hughes decided it best embodied his goals for the restaurant.
Mixologist Mark Schettler hails from Chicago, where he worked for a few years before moving to New Orleans to do craft cocktails.
Schettler’s craft began at Apolline Restaurant in New Orleans, where he took a job to revive the bar program.
He began a program which allowed customers to participate in “drink fittings,” where they could reserve a bar stool and he would design a flavor profile and create a customized cocktail for them.
The customer could name the drink, and the recipe would be held for them to come back and order in the future.
Schettler is now creating new cocktails and drinks for customers at Purloo.
“Eventually this offer came along, and I did not want to turn it down,” Schettler said.
In addition to his growing success as a bartender, he also serves as the vice president of the New Orleans chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild.
As far as future plans are concerned, Hughes plans to eventually open for lunch, and begin offering specials and host collaborative events and parties with the museum.
You can reach Ashlyn Rollins on Twitter @ash_r96.

Gallery • 12 Photos

Charles Champagne

States display their famous cuisine items Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans.