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OffBeat Magazine
Dining Out: Alma Café
AUGUST 25, 2021by: MARIELLE SONGY0 COMMENTS
Walking into Alma Café, the Honduran restaurant that has become a breakfast and lunch hub in the Bywater, you immediately understand Chef Melissa Araujo’s vision and roots. The mix of family and culture is evident in the portraits of her family on the walls, the menu boasting Honduran delights, and the coffee coming from a Honduran farm. Alma translates to “soul” in English, and Araujo’s soul is on full display here.
Chef Melissa Araujo of Alma Café
Araujo was born in La Ceiba, Atlántida, Honduras, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She moved to New Orleans with her family when she was 16. She was always drawn to restaurant work and got her start as a dishwasher and line cook. Araujo worked her way through the ranks and, after a brief stint in law school, she decided to pursue her passion for cooking.
After spending time in Milan, Italy, gaining experience in kitchens and perfecting culinary artistry, she returned to New Orleans and worked at Restaurant R’evolution, Domenica, and Mondo. At Doris Metropolitan, she worked as sous chef. In 2010 and 2015, she was on the team that won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South.
After owning her own catering company, Saveur Catering, Araujo decided to open her restaurant.
“We opened during the pandemic, which was interesting,” Araujo said. “We promoted the restaurant for two months before we opened and we offered table and delivery service. We’ve been successful ever since.”
Like other restaurants, Alma has been dealing with public-health regulations that have been in place throughout the pandemic. From masks to limited seating and spaced tables, Araujo admits it’s been difficult keeping up with the constant changes and receiving financial relief.
“As a business owner, it’s been frustrating,” she said. “We feel as if our industry has been overlooked. Small businesses struggle to get relief while the bigger businesses apply and have no problems getting funding.”
Despite the challenges, Alma Café has been a welcome addition to the neighborhood and Araujo is happy to be here.
“We listen to the neighbors and their concerns,” she said. “We want to keep a good relationship with them. We are a neighborhood joint, and without them we can’t survive.”
The farm-to-table menu here is all about breakfast and lunch, although Araujo hopes they can expand to dinner in the future. She said that it’s important to her to use small, local farmers and vendors. She gets a weekly shipment from Yum Yum Greens, an urban farm in Nebraska, and also uses food from farmers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Alma Breakfast
All-day breakfast includes highlights such as the Alma Breakfast: two eggs, refried beans, sweet plantains, avocado, queso fresco, and homemade crema; Louisa Toast: Louisiana lump blue crab, soft scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and herbs served on white rustic bread with chive cream cheese; Breakfast Tacos: three homemade corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, roasted poblano, pepper jack cheese, crispy potatoes, and avocado served with salsa; and Corned Beef Hash: Homemade corned beef hash, home potatoes served with two sunny-side-up eggs.
The lunch menu is sure to delight with Enchiladas Hondureñas: two enchiladas made with local Louisiana ground beef, green cabbage, sliced boiled egg, homemade red sauce, and queso cotija; Carne Asada: Louisiana-raised Wagyu ribeye, torched cherry tomatoes and encurtido served with four homemade corn tortillas; and Camarones a la Diabla: grilled local Louisiana jumbo shrimp topped with Calabrian chile butter and Japanese panko breadcrumbs.
In addition to the food, Araujo prides herself on the Honduran coffee that she serves. It comes from a farm-to-cup producer in Honduras that Araujo said is the highest quality coffee she could find. The coffee company, Alma Coffee, shares a name with the café but is a different business. You can enjoy this delicious Honduran coffee at the café, and even take some home. Alma sells their coffee by the bag.
“If you’re all about coffee, the coffee will hit,” she said. “It’s on the high-end scale. New Orleans is a coffee city and I wanted the coffee here to be top quality.”
From her farm-to-table menu to her mostly female staff, Araujo is building a sustainable restaurant that is not only good for her soul but the soul of others.
This is evident when you walk in and see a mural of Mayan moon goddess Ixchel on the wall. Holding a rabbit and a cup of coffee, Ixchel has been important to Araujo, especially over the past year.
She explained, “2020 was a tough personal year for me, and bringing Ixchel to life was a savior.”
Most importantly, Araujo wants everyone who comes here to know that this café is very much a part of her and Alma lives into its name. “I’m baring my soul to the people who come here,” she said. “This place is a part of me; it’s who I am.”
Alma Café: 800 Louisa St., 504-381-5877.
Viva Nala
Chef Melissa Araujo’s Alma
By Ana García
The city of New Orleans is world-renowned for its delicious cuisine. Thanks to the fact that this city enjoys a very diverse cultural influence, a modern Honduran restaurant like Alma Cafe can exist.”
Melissa is the ninth daughter of an Italian/Honduran couple. At 16, she began working in the kitchen, washing dishes. It was always essential for her father that their children received a college education, so Melissa entered college to study law. After a while, she suspended her studies and began working in different restaurants in the city. “I did not choose this profession; the profession picked me,” said Chef Araujo about finding her passion for cooking.
Upon entering her restaurant Alma Cafe, a portrait of her parents and a striking mural of the Mayan goddess Ixchel, goddess of the moon, love, and fertility, catches your attention. The personal touches throughout the restaurant give it a cozy feel.
Alma, the word for soul in Spanish, was the name Araujo gave the restaurant because it represents her essence. “Alma is not a name; it is not a person, it is my spirit, it is my soul, it is who forms Melissa,” says the chef, adding that “the photos of this restaurant are my family, the recipes are my family.”
The successful chef highlights that the goal of Alma Café is to show that Honduran culture has much to offer, and that is why she tells the story of her country through her family’s recipes.
Araujo is proud of her heritage, and she is also proud of Alma having an all-female kitchen team. Her sister, Ana Araujo, is in charge of keeping the traditional recipes in the kitchen, and her general manager, Ashleigh Oquelí, runs a smooth operation under the chef’s absolute trust.
Alma Café offers delicious breakfasts and lunches. One of the most requested dishes is the Alma Breakfast, a dish consisting of ripe plantain slices, refried beans, eggs, cream, avocado, and fresh, homemade cheese.
The baleada is Araujo’s recommended dish. Alma’s baleada is the chef’s modern adaptation of the quintessential Honduran staple and her grandmother’s recipe. The baleada consists of a tortilla hand-made to order, refried beans, scrambled eggs, homemade cream, and fresh cheese. For garnish, Araujo uses locally-grown microgreens to add flavor and freshness to the dish. Customers can customize the baleada by adding avocado or their preferred protein. Apart from the delicious natural aguas frescas, flavored fruit waters with no added sugar, Alma offers imported 100% Honduran coffee of the highest quality.
According to Araujo, this modern Honduran restaurant aims to “take the traditional and raise it a foot or two higher, and start putting Honduran gastronomy on the map.” For this reason, one of the chef’s goals is also to open the doors of Alma to serve as a launching platform for future Honduran chefs. Araujo understands that this profession is full of sacrifices, and it is not easy to get to where she is. Her advice to aspiring chefs: “Never listen to someone who tells you that you will not be able to make it; you can do it. You need to know your capacity, and nobody can tell you what your capacity is.”
Alma Café is currently open seven days a week from 8 am to 3 pm at 800 Louisa Street in New Orleans. In the fall, Araujo plans to expand the service hours to include dinner so that customers can indulge in delicious wines while they continue to enjoy her excellent cuisine.
Chef Melissa Araujo was born in La Ceiba, Honduras and raised both there and in New Orleans. With family involved in the restaurant business in Honduras, cooking was a natural evolution for her, and in addition to six years in Milan, Italy, she earned a great deal of experience in fine-dining restaurants here, including stints at now-closed Mondo, R’evolution, Doris Metropolitan, Domenica and Shaya.
She opened Alma at 800 Louisa St. in August to serve the food of her native country. It may not have been the ideal time to start any business, let alone a restaurant, but given her experience and the quality of the food she’s putting out, Alma will undoubtedly be around for years.
Araujo makes her own tortillas, but that’s just the start: Alma’s kitchen turns out everything from yogurt, Honduran-style crema, mayonnaise, biscuits and what she calls “Honduran crack” sauce that adorns the “Cric Cric” sliders in house.
If you are familiar with Mexican food, you’ll find a lot of the menu at Alma recognizable; huevos rancheros, breakfast tacos and migas are all options, but the real stars are the Honduran dishes like “Moros y Christianos” (rice and beans cooked with coconut milk and herbs) and a variety of guisos (stews) with main ingredients such as brisket, pork, grilled shrimp or lengua (tongue).
Then there are dishes that aren’t necessarily linked to a specific cuisine, but which reflect Araujo’s skill and experience, like the Louisa toast, which features lump crabmeat, soft scrambled eggs, mushrooms and herbs on a piece of rustic bread. The “Dirty Allison” is one of several “bowl” options; it’s fried chicken with tasso-mushroom gravy over dirty rice with pickled red onions and chimichurri sauce. The Ana shrimp dip comes with local shrimp in a “secret” mayonnaise-based sauce.
New Orleans has a large Honduran community and in the last few years a number of restaurants serving the country’s cuisine have opened. This is a good trend made better with the debut of Alma.
Superchef, Supermodel
Super chef Anne Burrell teams up with supermodel Gigi Hadid to give Bobby Flay a real taste of the spotlight. They're hoping international chefs Melissa Araujo and Max Robbins can blind Bobby with their brilliance and cat-walk out with a win.
Gigi Hadid is ditching the runway for the kitchen in the latest installment of Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay.
For those unfamiliar with the show's format, two celebrity guests stop by each week, each one recruiting the talents of a chef who will compete against the other chef in an attempt to go up against Flay.
This time around, Hadid and Burrell are the celebs hoping their picks of international chefs Melissa Araujo and Max Robbins have what it takes to beat Flay at his own game. The episode, aptly titled "Super Chef, Super Model," will include plenty of ribbing from Hadid and Burrell, as teased in the exclusive clip above.
In an exclusive first look at the all-new Sunday, June 21 episode, Hadid joins chef Anne Burrell as they try to thwart the titular Bobby Flay in this fun competition series.
chef melissa Araujo was featur on chopped foodnetwork
We Got the Cover of Gambit
For Melissa Araujo, food always has held a nostalgic and transportive power — the aroma of beef and onions sizzling slowly on the stove usually does the trick. One moment, she'll be sitting in a brightly lit Kenner restaurant, and an instant after the smell hits her she's right back at her childhood home in La Ceiba, Honduras, watching her mother slicing onions and pounding steaks for her favorite dish, bistec encebollado.
For Araujo, who was born in Honduras but grew up in New Orleans, the savory beef dish smothered with caramelized onions is more than just a memory — it's a calling. The chef and owner of Saveur Catering, a farm-to-table catering company, has worked at restaurants all over the city, but it's at her Honduran-themed pop-up, Alma, where Araujo educates diners about the dishes of her homeland.
At Alma, Araujo hosts events that include pop-ups and multi-course chef's dinners where she prepares traditional Honduran dishes with the finesse of a tenured chef. That might include her version of bistec encebollado, fresh ceviches and a tres leches cake.
"There's a misunderstanding of what Honduran cuisine is, and it's not that simple," Araujo says. "To really get Honduran cuisine is to understand the way we were colonized, from small Mayan tribes, to the Spanish, to the African slaves who populated the coast, and even the English who colonized (neighboring) Belize."
The result is a diverse, multifaceted cuisine that's as varied as the Central American country itself, from the corn — and masa-heavy dishes of the mountainous highlands to seafood and the coconut-rich soups of the north coast and Bay Islands.
New Orleans is home to an increasing number of Honduran restaurants, the result of a boom in the city's Central American population over the past decade. Since 2000, the percentage of Hispanics in the city increased from 3.1 percent to 5.6 percent. Nowhere was that as evident as in Jefferson Parish, where Hispanics now represent 14.2 percent of the total population, according to The Data Center, a New Orleans-based data analysis group. At 34 percent of that total, Hondurans are the most populous Hispanic group in the metro area, according to the Data Center.
Though the most recent wave of Hondurans immigrated to the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures, New Orleans traditionally has been an attractive hub for immigrants from that country.
Mayra Pineda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Louisiana and a native Honduran, says the current population is the result of at least three generations of Hondurans, beginning with workers who arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s with companies like Standard Fruit & Steamship Co. and United Fruit Company, both of which had headquarters in New Orleans.
"[The first wave of Hondurans] started establishing ties here and having kids. That's the second generation," Pineda says, adding that Hondurans came to New Orleans for a variety of reasons in the following years. The later wave was more "need-based," she says, with immigrants arriving to pursue the American dream and a better job, or fleeing a country that throughout the years has seen an increasingly volatile political atmosphere rife with corruption and violence.
Repairing damages from Hurricane Katrina created a new demand for workers, and as part of the rebuilding effort, the city saw another large group of immigrants from Central and South America move to the city to take construction jobs in the years following the storm. Restaurants catering to those workers were quick to follow.
Marlen Nunez remembers the days after the storm, when construction workers would line up at dawn outside her tiny Honduran restaurant Beraca, which is tucked away on Arnoult Road in Metairie.
"Sometimes there would be fights outside, people trying to get in before the others," Nunez recalls. "Back then, we had 20 people working at the restaurant and we were so busy we could still hardly keep up."
Now, more than a decade later, Nunez's restaurant still serves as a hub for Hondurans seeking familiar and comforting cuisine. A small window opens into the kitchen, where women stretch dough for tortillas. In the dining room, families gather at tables over giant plates of pescado frito, a fried whole fish (often tilapia or redfish) served with rice and refried beans, salad, sweet plantains and a shower of pickled jalapenos, carrots and onions.
It's one of several places Araujo frequents when she's feeling homesick. Her other go-to, La Cocinita, sits on a nondescript stretch of Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner, sandwiched between an electronics store and a tattoo parlor in a strip mall.
At La Cocinita, brothers Ricardo and Raul Ortiz run the show, carrying giant plates of crispy-fried pollo con tajadas, chicken plated atop fried green plantains and tucked under a mountain of pickled cabbage and queso fresco.
Like the ubiquitous pickled vegetable mix — a bright, tangy mix made with an apple cider vinegar brine — most dishes at many of the Honduran mainstays are accompanied by an addictively creamy, light pink sauce (which Araujo playfully calls "crack sauce"). Similar to Thousand Island dressing, but thinner, it's made with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and herbs and complements just about everything.
St. Charles Magazine
On July 9, from 6-9 p.m., chef Melissa Araujo of Alma will serve a five course dinner of her native Honduran cuisine at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. The evening will begin with cocktails from 6-7 p.m., and each course will be paired with wine. Born in La Ceiba, Atlatidad, a small beach town on the Atlantic coast of Honduras, Araujo pays tribute to her grandmother’s cooking through her life’s work.
“I had no choice but to fall in love with food. I grew up with a family, and food was the center of everything. My mother Angeolina Araujo is Sicilian-Italian, and my father, Oscar Araujo, is Honduras-Maya with Portuguese. I was a locavore by birthright, and my early immersion in fresh, local, seasonal ingredients has informed and influenced my culinary philosophy. I love to re-create the story people share with me with the food I cook.”
The meal will include a Tomato Celebration of four varietals of tomatoes, egg yolk, Manchego, fresh herbs and olive oil; a Ceviche Atlántico with sea bass, red onions, chile habanero, teardrop tomatoes and lime; a Traditional Honduras Arroz con pollo; Camarones al Ajo-roasted Gulf shrimp with tomatoes, shallots, garlic and sherry vinaigrette; and Arroz con Leche.
The cost is $75 per person. Twenty percent of all proceeds are being put aside to establish a fund for the education and care of impoverished children in Honduras. Tickets may be purchased atAlmaNola.squarespace.com.
Travel + Leisure Magazine
I've Been Visiting New Orleans for 20 Years. Here Are My Favorite Neighborhoods, Restaurants, Bars, and Music Venues
Though best known for Mardi Gras and its rollicking French Quarter, New Orleans now has a new polish, with boutique hotels and globally minded bars and restaurants.
By
Published on July 8, 2023
New Orleans is always a good idea, I told myself, even as I landed in the Southern port city on a particularly sultry mid-June day. Inside the gleaming new Louis Armstrong International Airport, I was greeted by a few unmistakable geographical reminders: a Café Du Monde counter frying its signature powdered-sugar-dusted beignets, an outpost of Bar Sazerac slinging its namesake drink, and a spirited four-piece brass band playing by baggage claim. Settling into my Uber, I asked the driver to crank up WWOZ, a station owned by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. “Take It to the Streets,” a horn-heavy track by a group of Treme musicians named the Rebirth Brass Band, ushered me into town.
I first visited New Orleans roughly 20 years ago, when I was in college and could slurp down Pat O’Brien’s sugar-laced Hurricanes with gusto. In my mid 20s, I returned as an enthusiastic Jazz Fest attendee. In my early 30s, I finally made it inside Galatoire’s — the famed jacket-required institution where tuxedoed waiters serve shrimp rémoulade to society ladies — and Preservation Hall, a family-run venue for jazz performances. In recent years, I’d heard that the Big Easy had evolved beyond the familiar trappings of the French Quarter and embarked on a sophisticated new chapter that my 40-something self would find deeply appealing.
Like New York City, New Orleans has a deep and distinct sense of place — as it should at the ripe old age of 304. “The city is one very long poem,” Bob Dylan wrote in his autobiography, perhaps nodding to the romance of its cast-iron balconies, hidden courtyards, and crumbling cemeteries. Or maybe he was thinking about the petunia-scented air and fabled voodoo culture. New Orleans remains full of French, Spanish, British, Caribbean, Sicilian, and African influences, many of which can be experienced through its elaborate street parades and a bona-fide musical heritage: rhythm and blues, bounce, funk, and jazz.
The spectrum of cultures can be felt just as strongly in the food and drink. The 1,400-plus restaurants run the gamut from iconic steak houses (Charlie’s, Crescent City Steaks) to Vietnamese stalwarts (Tan Dinh and Dong Phuong) to Creole (Dooky Chase’s) and Cajun mainstays (Cochon). But in the years since Hurricane Katrina, the offerings have become even more eclectic.
In 2020, after a successful pop-up run, chef Melissa Araujo opened the 75-seat Alma on the Bywater’s west side. An ode to her Honduran family’s cooking, the spot is known for its toast with Louisiana lump blue crab, migas with a dash of salsa macha, and direct-trade coffee from Honduras. “People want to eat and drink different things and are going into our local neighborhoods to find it,” said Araujo, who grew up in the city. “The old culinary gods are dying, and the new gods are alive.”
Eater New Orleans
Chef Melissa Araujo’s Upcoming Bywater Cafe Will Take Diners on a Tour of Honduras
The menu at Alma, opening in the former Paloma Cafe space this fall, will move around Honduras every three months
by Clair Lorell Jul 30, 2020, 4:38pm CDT
Five years after launching food pop-up Alma as an ode to her Honduran heritage and grandmother’s kitchen, chef Melissa Araujo will open her first restaurant in New Orleans’s Bywater neighborhood. Alma, meaning “soul” in Spanish, is set to open this fall in the former Louisa Street home of Paloma Cafe, Cafe Henri, and Booty’s Street Food.
The restaurant will start out by focusing on breakfast and lunch, opening at 7 a.m. with a full coffee bar, grab-and-go pastries, and sit-down breakfast. Araujo plans to offer dishes ranging from light to hearty, including modern takes on the classic Honduran breakfast and classic American breakfast. Lunch will be a mix of small plates (like chili verde ceviche); sandwiches (maybe a concha with beef, onions, mushrooms, and cheese); and entrees like guiso de puerco, a pork stew.
The menu will initially be set in the coastal area of Honduras where she was born, La Ceiba. From there, the plan is to move around the country every three months, introducing a different menu with each move. “I want to concentrate in regions,” Araujo told Eater. “A lot of people will be very surprised about what Honduran food actually is, its range.” After six months of breakfast and lunch service and “learning what my customers want and like,” Araujo plans to introduce tapas-style dinner service and cocktails.
Born in Honduras and raised in New Orleans, Araujo cooked in the kitchens of high-end spots like Doris Metropolitan and Restaurant R’evolution before leaving town to work in Italy. After returning, Araujo launched pop-up Alma, getting her start in former Central City food hub Roux Carre (also home to Chef Tunde Wey’s pop-up Saartj for a time). Araujo wanted the opportunity to test out her idea, which was to educate diners about Honduran cuisine by focusing on dishes associated with each region. It worked.
Eventually she split with her original business partner and put Alma on the back burner, focusing on her catering business, Saveur Catering (a “Certified Louisiana Farm to Table” catering company). Two years later, says Araujo, “I’m ready to bring her back,”
When Araujo visited Paloma Cafe for breakfast a few years ago, she knew the space was perfect for her. That cafe, owned by Birmingham-based coffee company Revelator, closed at the end of last year. Since solidifying her lease for Alma there, she has made it a point to introduce herself to the neighborhood, saying she knows she has to be “a part of” it to succeed. She will have comment cards for customers, eager for feedback on everything imaginable so the restaurant is best poised for long-term success.
“I want to start this way to get a sense of what the Bywater wants. I want them to feel like they’re home, to know who I am.” Araujo hopes to open Alma by September 2.
Nola by Mouth Intreview
Pop-up Alma shares recipe for corn waffle BLTs
A couple of weeks ago, I met the farm-to-table chef Melissa Araujo, who was working with a group of volunteer chefs to feed flood victims in the Baton Rouge area. My mouth literally started watering when Araujo described the corn waffle BLTs and other meals she's planning for Alma, her pop-up that feature her own Honduran cuisine infused with Cajun/Creole twists that she absorbed working in some of New Orleans' best restaurants.
She shared the waffle recipe, below. And this week I had a chance to taste her shrimp and grits made with Creole barbecue sauce (made by cooking down 2 cups Crystal hot sauce with 4 cups Worcestershire sauce with aromatics and herbs), fig and burrata appetizers and, most spectacularly, deviled eggs made with smoked trout.
Alma is moving on Saturday, Sept. 3, to a regular gig at the French Truck Café location, 4536 Dryades St., from 5 to 9 p.m.
St. Charles Magazine
On July 9, from 6-9 p.m., chef Melissa Araujo of Alma will serve a five course dinner of her native Honduran cuisine at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. The evening will begin with cocktails from 6-7 p.m., and each course will be paired with wine. Born in La Ceiba, Atlatidad, a small beach town on the Atlantic coast of Honduras, Araujo pays tribute to her grandmother’s cooking through her life’s work.
“I had no choice but to fall in love with food. I grew up with a family, and food was the center of everything. My mother Angeolina Araujo is Sicilian-Italian, and my father, Oscar Araujo, is Honduras-Maya with Portuguese. I was a locavore by birthright, and my early immersion in fresh, local, seasonal ingredients has informed and influenced my culinary philosophy. I love to re-create the story people share with me with the food I cook.”
The meal will include a Tomato Celebration of four varietals of tomatoes, egg yolk, Manchego, fresh herbs and olive oil; a Ceviche Atlántico with sea bass, red onions, chile habanero, teardrop tomatoes and lime; a Traditional Honduras Arroz con pollo; Camarones al Ajo-roasted Gulf shrimp with tomatoes, shallots, garlic and sherry vinaigrette; and Arroz con Leche.
The cost is $75 per person. Twenty percent of all proceeds are being put aside to establish a fund for the education and care of impoverished children in Honduras. Tickets may be purchased atAlmaNola.squarespace.com.
3-Course Interview: Melissa Araujo on Honduran cuisine in New Orleans
The owner of Saveur Catering runs the Honduran pop-up Alma
Chef Melissa Araujo has cooked all over the world, including at New Orleans restaurants Mondo, Restaurant R'evolution and Doris Metropolitan. Araujo is now the owner and executive chef of the boutique catering company Saveur Catering (www.saveurcatering.com). Last year, she launched the pop-up Alma (www.almanola.com), featuring the food of her native Honduras. Her next event is a five-course meal with wine pairings on July 9 at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. Araujo spoke with Gambit about Honduran cuisine and why it's hard to find in New Orleans.
Where did the idea for Alma come from?
Araujo: I've been cooking since I was 18 and I haven't looked back. I worked in New Orleans since 2011 and I worked in Mexico for fours years, and 10 years in Italy.
I started my (catering) company in 2013 and that gave me the opportunity to do some work on the side, and like every chef in the city, I hustled. I kept my fine-dining career going until the catering business could pay the bills by itself, and that took about two years. I had a lot of friends that kept on asking me when I was going to cook Honduran cuisine. I would tell them, "That's labor intensive," but they kept pushing me. My ex-girlfriend was the one who pushed me to explore more of my heritage.
Food for me is memory. I was spoiled growing up. My grandmother was an amazing cook and my mother was also an amazing cook. Every time I would go eat at a Honduran restaurant in the city, I'd end up sending the food back. (Most Honduran restaurants) don't specialize in one cuisine; they're all mixed together — Honduran, Mexican and so on. They're not focused on the quality ... and it's not a good representation of the cuisine.
(In Honduras) I used to go with my mother and my grandmother to the fishermen's market and we could get anything and it was cheap. I didn't have the memories growing up of going to a supermarket; it was all local and fresh. Everything came directly from the local fisherman, the local farmer.
One of the things I also wanted to do was to cook the way I was taught from my mother and my grandmother. I thought, "This is very personal to me. I want to do it right."
Why is Honduran food underrepresented in New Orleans?
A: Louisiana is very similar to Honduras — Honduras was also conquered by the Spanish. Honduran cuisine is a lot like Creole (cuisine); it's a mixture between Spanish and the native tribes of Honduras, and there's an abundance of seafood. It depends on where you go, but if you go to the coast, by La Ceiba, where my father is from, you'll get amazing seafood.
The (Honduran) population has mixed in well here. ... But Hondurans are very private and they keep their culture confined to their house. If you really want Honduran food you have to go to (someone's) house. It has not made as big of an impact as some of the other cultures have on New Orleans cuisine.
The biggest thing I've found in New Orleans is that (diners) don't think Honduran cuisine can be fine dining. Of course it can; it's all about the cook's perspective.
How do you balance running a catering company and a pop-up?
A: It is a lot of work. I'm literally sleeping about three or four hours a day. It's a lifestyle, but you get used to it. When you become a cook, you come to this profession because you have a lot of passion for it and because you're a workaholic. It's not because of the money. You sacrifice a lot of things. You have to be well-organized. I organize as much as I can in advance. I'm not perfect, but I try to look for people who are as passionate and good at what they do. I try to find people who share the same vision that I do, and that helps.
I'm with Chef...
INTERVIEWS & MORE WITH SOME OF THE WORLD'S CHEFS
Hello. I am Erica Stacy & I'm with Chef Melissa Araujo, executive chef/sole owner of Saveur Catering LLC & executive chef/co-owner of Alma - Traditional Honduran Cuisine.
Today I am interviewing her regarding her experiences in the business & any other interesting tidbits that come up along the way. Lets get to it.
How long have you been cooking?
I've been cooking for about 20 years. I started when I was 18 to get extra money & after that it was natural for me to keep going.
Who or what inspired you to become a chef?
I guess life in itself. I grew up with very strong women. My grandmother was native Indian/Mayan and she owned a lot of land in Honduras. She worked that land - both farming & raising animals. She was very adamant about us knowing our heritage & where we came from.
My mother was also a very passionate woman with a strong Sicilian background.
Between the two - everything was cooked daily at home. Nothing was frozen. It was drilled into me to cook locally sourced goods since I was a kid. I didn't have a choice. I went to school to become a lawyer but my passion was cooking & always has been. It's natural in my family.
Yeah, I feel that us restaurant people try to stray, but we always navigate back to the industry. It's what we enjoy doing versus a way to make money.
Yes, I say we are gluttons for punishment because we are! You know, it's a tough industry. We get our asses kicked by all the "mise en place" (*Explained below.) Then, we get out asses kicked by cooking for people & then you still have to clean everything up. We can't just pick up our knives & go home - we have to clean all the equipment!
Right, there's nothing easy about it. If you weren't a chef, what would you be doing right now? What did you want to be when you grew up?
Actually, I had the dream of being an architect! I was always drawing houses & building things. I was very passionate about both that & art. Unfortunately, my father thought that was a waste of time. He basically beat that out of me. His family had always been lawyers & doctors. So, I went to school to become a lawyer but I did not like it - I never took the bar & I kept cooking. So, here we are.
What was the first restaurant you worked in? What were you doing?
When I was 16 I started working at Centro Americana here in New Orleans, which is still a working restaurant over in Metairie. My best friend's sister owned it at the time with her ex husband. He still owns it to this day. I was a waiter.
(**To which I said "Wow, front of the house." Explained below.)
Yeah, I did not like it. I am not good with people. I do not know how to sell products to people. I do not have the patience for the substitutions, the "please take this out & put this in." If you're coming to eat at a restaurant, eat the food the chef is cooking. Don't make up your own food. If you want no butter, do that at your own house.
Do you eat well when you're not at work?
HELL NO! We are the worst people ever when it comes to eating. People like to think we eat this amazing food but we don't!
What do you typically eat?
I eat... Usually whatever I have left over in my refrigerator. That's basically it. This weekend I cooked Sopa de Marriscos, which is a seafood soup from Honduras & I did a key lime lemon meringue pie. That is only because I was stuck at home from with rain & flooding (***more information below.) My girlfriend wanted me to make her favorite (Honduran) food. So, we've been eating that for the last two days. (Seen below)
What is the favorite dish you've ever made? What sticks out in your mind as the thing you were most proud to put out?
I think every dish I put out I'm very proud on. I was told once you're only as good as your last dish. I try to put a little bit of me into everything I do. I do surprise myself sometimes though. I hadn't made the soup I made on Saturday in over ten years but I had all the ingredients, I remembered how to do it the right way & it came out amazing.
Nice. What is favorite/least favorite ingredient to work with?
So far I haven't encountered anything. When a chef doesn't know an ingredient specifically, in this profession, you have to keep educating yourself. There's always someone younger - someone more hungry than you - & it's a profession where the day you stop learning is the day you stop being a chef.
I personally love buying anything I can find. Anything weird that I can find. Especially the little gems - The minority stores. The Hong Kong Market. The Arabic Stores. I like to cook everything.
Is the increased interest in celebrity chefs good or bad for the industry?
I think it's good. It's a double edged sword. It's good for your business. People see you on TV, automatically, it doesn't matter - they want to get food from you. Which is great for your business. They see you do well on TV so they assume you have the talent. So, you get that recognition. It's a double edged sword because a not-so-good chef could get the opportunity to go on TV to make a dish. Then they get a ton of work, but then they can't actually deliver. That's the bad part.
Also, I think when you make the decision to be a celebrity chef you basically have to be willing to sell your soul. You have no privacy after that. Of course, that's one of the only ways (in this profession) to make a beautiful income. You know, you become rich from it. It's good & bad. As a 'regular joe' nobody knows me, no one knows who I am. I have to hustle harder, but I have my privacy.
What are the most essential items you have in you kitchen? What can you not work without?
Kosher salt, cumin, garlic, shallots, honey, herb. Good quality ingredients. Fresh. I buy a lot of local honey from Farmer's Market throughout Louisiana.
Who do you look up to in the industry?
Younger Melissa would say Thomas Keller & Michael White. Melissa now.. I look into myself.
A little more casual now. Do you have any pet peeves in the kitchen?
I hate a messy cook. I hate a person that has a huge mess. I hate it.
What do you do to unwind after work?
Well, in my 20's is was drinking.
(To which I asked laughed & asked "What was your favorite drink?")
Rum & coke. If I really wanted to get hammered it was long island iced tea. It would just take a couple of them. Now that I'm in my 30's it's going home. Spending time with my dogs & my girlfriend.
Do you have most memorable kitchen disaster?
Umm.. I have several actually. One time when I was a line cook at Revolution when I thought we only had 100 people on the books****. My executive sous chef then tells me there's 400 an hour & a half before service starts. I just start scrambling & cooking extra shit. She (the sous) was like "Well, I didn't think you would pull it off, but you did." So it was almost a disaster, a near disaster, but I'm the type of chef that I will not go down. I will fight to the tooth. There's no quitting. I might be down but I'm fighting as hard as possible to come out on top.
Have you ever pulled a prank on a co-worker? Or had one pulled on you?
I had one pulled on me for my birthday. Basically, I was working with a friend after coming back from Italy. I was the saucier at Mr. Ed's & the executive chef's was a friend on mine - we went to high school together. My birthday came up, I had to work AND I ended up with a cream pie in my face
(To which I asked "Before or after service?")
Before service actually, so I sticky all night.
If you were to die tomorrow, what would your last meal be?
Pescado Frito - Basically, a Honduran dish of red snapper fried in coconut oil. It's served with fried sweet plantains, a pickled salad, rice, beans... It's heaven.
Is there anything exciting happening with your business?
It's slow but the busy season will be starting in the middle of September. Alma has something coming up on Sept 16th. We've going to be in the Southern Museum of Food & Beverage. September 16th is the Honduran Independence Day. So, we will be doing a demo on cooking seafood stew. We are also involve with the Garifuna Community Foundation, which is the descendants of the African slaves that were brought to Honduras from the Caribbean. They will dressed from head to toe in costume & will explain the immigration, how it happened, to Honduras. Chef Amy Sims & I will be teaming up & roasting a whole hog (To which I said "Nice, always good. Always a crowd pleaser.") Yeah, it's always a crowd pleaser. This time we are going to be doing it a little different. We are going to do it Honduran style. So, my banana tree is going to be chopped up. I'm going to use banana leaves, pineapple, herbs, kosher salt, cumin. We're going to do it the old fashioned way, Honduran style.