Willie Mae’s Venice adds catfish and shrimp as it continues to give LA the flavors of New Orleans.
Willie Mae’s, an iconic New Orleans restaurant that debuted in Los Angeles last year, is known for what many believe is the country’s best fried chicken — juicy and properly spicy with a distinct shattering crunch. But there’s a lot more to this restaurant than just chicken.
For example, wife-and-husband proprietors Kerry Seaton-Stewart (granddaughter of the late Willie Mae Seaton, who launched Willie Mae’s in New Orleans in 1957) and Mike Stewart also serve some terrific gumbo (with chicken, andouille sausage, shrimp and crab) as well as vegan butter beans that are almost miraculously creamy. And Willie Mae’s Venice, the Los Angeles restaurant the couple opened on Lincoln Boulevard last December after debuting a West LA ghost kitchen a couple months earlier, just added two other New Orleans favorites as summer specials: fried shrimp and fried catfish. Both the plump, lightly battered shrimp and the meaty, flaky catfish are excellent. Like everything at Willie Mae’s, it’s all about the flavors of New Orleans and a dose of Southern hospitality.
Meanwhile, Kerry Seaton-Stewart and Mike Stewart are working to reopen their flagship Willie Mae’s Scotch House in New Orleans. That legendary restaurant was heavily damaged by a two-alarm fire in April. The owners have since met with architects and know that getting the restaurant back open could be a long and arduous process. But they’re up to the challenge. And they’re used to the challenge.
Seaton-Stewart rebuilt her New Orleans restaurant after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (only months after Willie Mae’s Scotch House received a James Beard Award for America’s Classic Restaurant in the Southern Region). Willie Mae’s Scotch House reopened in 2007 with Seaton-Stewart at the helm.
And like so many other restaurateurs, surviving the Covid-19 pandemic has fortified Seaton-Stewart and her husband for future battles in an increasingly challenging hospitality industry. They changed their plans in Los Angeles and opened a ghost kitchen for pickup and delivery orders before unveiling a brick-and-mortar restaurant. That move happened as the Willie Mae’s team waited for final city approvals in Venice.
The ghost kitchen “was meant to come after opening our full- service restaurant in Venice,” Stewart said in a statement at that time. “But as we have all learned over the past two years, it’s important to be able to adapt.”
The couple now split their time between New Orleans and Los Angeles, where they also have a Willie Mae’s sandwich at HiHo Cheeseburger. Mike Stewart was in the kitchen at Willie Mae’s Venice on Tuesday. He stepped out for a moment to say hello. When asked about his New Orleans restaurant, he says he and his wife are committed to rebuilding their existing location instead of finding another address. He says they might park a food truck outside and sell their fried chicken there while they wait to reopen the restaurant. They’re also thinking about ways to update and modernize their storied flagship.
“We’re going to come back new and improved,” Stewart says. “That’s the goal.”