Clesi's Restaurant / New Orleans, LA
One of the best experiences that I had in New Orleans was through my tastebuds.
Tasting some of that famous Louisiana cajun food was at the top of my list, and I continued my foodie experience at Clesi's Restaurant & Catering on Bienville Street.
Crawfish have always been an important part of the menu in the bayous of Louisiana, beginning with Native Americans who would catch crawfish using reeds baited with deer meat. The Acadians (French colonists from Nova Scotia) arrived in 1755 with a familiarity of living by the water and a taste for seafood, so they quickly traded in their love of lobster for the abundance of these smaller local crustaceans.
According to local legend, when the Acadians were expelled from their homelands in Canada, the lobsters accompanied them into exile. By the time the lobsters reached Louisiana, the journey had taken such a toll on them that they had shrunk down to the size of the crawfish.
As the Acadians settled into the area and adapted their culture, they focused on living rurally as farmers and fisherman and became known as Cajuns. And this new Cajun lifestyle had a love for spicy food.
The crawfish boil has become a popular Cajun tradition during crawfish season (typically February through June, although this year it came as early as January). Locals gather outdoors around newspaper-covered tables where they peel-n-eat as they socialize with family and friends.
This is a tradition that James Clesi, his brother, Carlo Clesi and sister, Sonya DiCarlo are very familiar with. They are the owners of Clesi's Restaurant & Catering.
The man behind the family's recipe, James Clesi is known as "The Renegade Master Boiler" by local critics and nationally-syndicated food networks. While attending school in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, he started cooking crawfish. A meticulous perfectionist, James Clesi worked on his recipe until he got it just right and then he stuck to it.
When he arrived back in New Orleans, James Clesi cooked some crawfish for family and friends and the word began to spread. Soon after, he was being asked by businesses and bars around town to set up pop-up locations to sell his crawfish. As the popularity of his crawfish boils grew, James Clesi teamed up with his family to open Clesi's Catering providing on-site crawfish boils for bachelor and bachelorette parties, wedding rehearsal dinners, Airbnb events, destination weddings or events, and local tailgate parties. It was an opportunity for the three siblings to explore something new and exciting together. After three years, the catering business was booming with a constantly growing customer load who enjoyed their comfort food and family style service.
Eventually, locals were asking "When's the restaurant coming?" Clesi's prides itself on being a grassroots business, so when the community asked for a restaurant, that's exactly what Clesi's gave them. On September 18, 2018, Clesi's Restaurant officially opened to the public at 4323 Bienville Street.
Clesi's crawfish come from local farmers who grow crawfish in rice ponds. In a year alone, between the restaurant and the catering business, Clesi's goes through approximately 60,000 lbs of crawfish.
When I arrived at Clesi's, I met with catering operations manager, Melissa LeBlanc, who was prepared to give me a behind-the-scenes experience of what both their restaurant and their catering business have to offer when it comes to a crawfish boil.
Staff member, Josh Izdepski was in charge of tonight's crawfish boil in the outdoor cooking area, and he was just emptying out the day's shipment of live crawfish to begin the cleaning and purging process. Washing and sorting through the crawfish by hand, Izdepski and his team pulled out any crawfish that didn't meet the quality standards and then dumped the live crawfish into a stockpot of boiling seasoned water.
Izdepski allowed the crawfish to cook for around 5 minutes and then left them to simmer.
"The longer they soak, the spicier they get," explained Melissa LeBlanc. She rated the spiciness of Clesi's crawfish as an 8 on the spicy scale. "I wanna cry when I eat crawfish," LeBlanc said with a smile, explaining that she loves that feeling when she can taste the heat and her eyes water a bit. She also explained the importance of washing your hands after eating the crawfish since the last thing anyone wants is seasoning in their eyes or anywhere else that's sensitive.
Around 30 minutes after being dropped into the boiling stockpot, their shells were a bold and vibrant red, and the crawfish were ready to be served. Mix in some corn and potatoes, and the crawfish boil was complete.
As we moved inside, Melissa served me a taste of some of Clesi's favorite menu items.
I started out with an appetizer of Jambalaya Cheese Fries, which is a Clesi's take on a popular appetizer. A platter of cheese-covered french fries with a load of spicy jambalaya on top. It was certainly spicy, but still delicious. If you like food with a kick, this appetizer is for you.
Next was the Fried Seafood Platter, which included fried shrimp, oysters and catfish with a side of jambalaya.
The finale was the crawfish boil --- 3 lbs of peel-n-eat cajun crawfish with potatoes and corn. Just to clarify, the average customer eats 6 lbs of crawfish in one sitting. As I started making my way through the crawfish, it was easy to understand how someone could devour that much crawfish at one time.
I should also add that Clesi's doesn't hold back with their cajun flavor. The crawfish were spicy, especially to someone like me who wasn't used to cajun seasoning, but it grew on me and having a glass of water nearby certainly helped.
If you're traveling to New Orleans, Clesi's Restaurant is absolutely worth a visit. I recommend the crawfish boil (if it's in season), but something tells me, you can't go wrong with anything on the menu.
If you're local to New Orleans, Clesi's should be a weekly spot for dinner and definitely your go-to for catering. I heard some discussion that Clesi's is going to be a hotspot for crawfish, catfish, and jambalaya on Endymion, so put it on your calendar.
I conquered my fear of cajun food being too hot and spicy for me to handle, and I found that Clesi's cajun seafood left me craving more.
Tasting some of that famous Louisiana cajun food was at the top of my list, and I continued my foodie experience at Clesi's Restaurant & Catering on Bienville Street.
According to local legend, when the Acadians were expelled from their homelands in Canada, the lobsters accompanied them into exile. By the time the lobsters reached Louisiana, the journey had taken such a toll on them that they had shrunk down to the size of the crawfish.
As the Acadians settled into the area and adapted their culture, they focused on living rurally as farmers and fisherman and became known as Cajuns. And this new Cajun lifestyle had a love for spicy food.
The crawfish boil has become a popular Cajun tradition during crawfish season (typically February through June, although this year it came as early as January). Locals gather outdoors around newspaper-covered tables where they peel-n-eat as they socialize with family and friends.
This is a tradition that James Clesi, his brother, Carlo Clesi and sister, Sonya DiCarlo are very familiar with. They are the owners of Clesi's Restaurant & Catering.
The man behind the family's recipe, James Clesi is known as "The Renegade Master Boiler" by local critics and nationally-syndicated food networks. While attending school in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, he started cooking crawfish. A meticulous perfectionist, James Clesi worked on his recipe until he got it just right and then he stuck to it.
When he arrived back in New Orleans, James Clesi cooked some crawfish for family and friends and the word began to spread. Soon after, he was being asked by businesses and bars around town to set up pop-up locations to sell his crawfish. As the popularity of his crawfish boils grew, James Clesi teamed up with his family to open Clesi's Catering providing on-site crawfish boils for bachelor and bachelorette parties, wedding rehearsal dinners, Airbnb events, destination weddings or events, and local tailgate parties. It was an opportunity for the three siblings to explore something new and exciting together. After three years, the catering business was booming with a constantly growing customer load who enjoyed their comfort food and family style service.
Eventually, locals were asking "When's the restaurant coming?" Clesi's prides itself on being a grassroots business, so when the community asked for a restaurant, that's exactly what Clesi's gave them. On September 18, 2018, Clesi's Restaurant officially opened to the public at 4323 Bienville Street.
Clesi's crawfish come from local farmers who grow crawfish in rice ponds. In a year alone, between the restaurant and the catering business, Clesi's goes through approximately 60,000 lbs of crawfish.
When I arrived at Clesi's, I met with catering operations manager, Melissa LeBlanc, who was prepared to give me a behind-the-scenes experience of what both their restaurant and their catering business have to offer when it comes to a crawfish boil.
Staff member, Josh Izdepski was in charge of tonight's crawfish boil in the outdoor cooking area, and he was just emptying out the day's shipment of live crawfish to begin the cleaning and purging process. Washing and sorting through the crawfish by hand, Izdepski and his team pulled out any crawfish that didn't meet the quality standards and then dumped the live crawfish into a stockpot of boiling seasoned water.
Izdepski allowed the crawfish to cook for around 5 minutes and then left them to simmer.
"The longer they soak, the spicier they get," explained Melissa LeBlanc. She rated the spiciness of Clesi's crawfish as an 8 on the spicy scale. "I wanna cry when I eat crawfish," LeBlanc said with a smile, explaining that she loves that feeling when she can taste the heat and her eyes water a bit. She also explained the importance of washing your hands after eating the crawfish since the last thing anyone wants is seasoning in their eyes or anywhere else that's sensitive.
Around 30 minutes after being dropped into the boiling stockpot, their shells were a bold and vibrant red, and the crawfish were ready to be served. Mix in some corn and potatoes, and the crawfish boil was complete.
As we moved inside, Melissa served me a taste of some of Clesi's favorite menu items.
I started out with an appetizer of Jambalaya Cheese Fries, which is a Clesi's take on a popular appetizer. A platter of cheese-covered french fries with a load of spicy jambalaya on top. It was certainly spicy, but still delicious. If you like food with a kick, this appetizer is for you.
Next was the Fried Seafood Platter, which included fried shrimp, oysters and catfish with a side of jambalaya.
The finale was the crawfish boil --- 3 lbs of peel-n-eat cajun crawfish with potatoes and corn. Just to clarify, the average customer eats 6 lbs of crawfish in one sitting. As I started making my way through the crawfish, it was easy to understand how someone could devour that much crawfish at one time.
I should also add that Clesi's doesn't hold back with their cajun flavor. The crawfish were spicy, especially to someone like me who wasn't used to cajun seasoning, but it grew on me and having a glass of water nearby certainly helped.
If you're traveling to New Orleans, Clesi's Restaurant is absolutely worth a visit. I recommend the crawfish boil (if it's in season), but something tells me, you can't go wrong with anything on the menu.
If you're local to New Orleans, Clesi's should be a weekly spot for dinner and definitely your go-to for catering. I heard some discussion that Clesi's is going to be a hotspot for crawfish, catfish, and jambalaya on Endymion, so put it on your calendar.
I conquered my fear of cajun food being too hot and spicy for me to handle, and I found that Clesi's cajun seafood left me craving more.
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