The chefs and owners of Carmo, Dana Honn and Christina do Carmo Honn, announced this week they are closing their popular tropical restaurant at the end of 2024 after 15 years in the Warehouse District. But for these longtime leaders of climate-conscious cooking in New Orleans, the end of Carmo marks the beginning of a new chapter involving three separate projects that prioritize sustainability.
Carmo’s last night will be December 21, Honn says, calling the closing “a little bit in the stars.” Since the onset of the pandemic, trends in the dining industry including increasing the cost of food, labor, and utilities have coincided with an even bigger factor: rent increases prompted by citywide insurance costs and property tax rate hikes.
“We haven’t really been profitable since COVID, so we’ve been examining how to transition for the last few years. We can’t change the size of our building, our location, or the number of employees, so we have to change course altogether,” says Honn. That new course includes three separate but related ventures: Nikkei, a Creole izakaya opening soon in the Broadside in Mid-City; Eatwell Kitchen, a newly opened fast-casual restaurant in Metairie; and Tempero’s Market Kitchen, a pop-up and events catering business that will revive several Carmo favorites.
Nikkei is a partnership between the Honns and chef Wataru Saeki, who has led the raw bar at Carmo for the last 10 years. Saeki’s expertise, in part, helped inspire Honn to feature the cuisine of Japanese immigrants who “took their culture around the world” and in turn created new ones, specifically in countries like Peru and Brazil — countries whose cuisine Carmo celebrates (Nikkei is the word for the descendants of Japanese immigrants living around the world). Honn says the menu at Nikkei is a mix of traditional Japanese dishes like chashu pork, karaage, bukkake udon, and Okinawa somen champul, as well as Japanese diaspora dishes. Those include kakiage, a version of shrimp tempura found in Japan but also as popular street food in Liberdade, São Paulo, Brazil; and pastel de feira, a street dish of Japanese-Brazilian origin.
“You find pastel carts all over Brazil,” says Honn. “But I’m not sure how well-known it is that Japanese immigrants created it.”
Honn says that ceviche, as it’s known in Peru today, is a Japanese diaspora creation: “In pre-Incan times, the Moche used the fermented juice from the local banana passionfruit to cook the fish. When the Japanese got to Peru, they said, ‘You’re cooking the shit out of that fish! Let’s cook it a little bit more raw.’” Ceviche, as well as tiradito and other daily raw bar specials, will be served at Nikkei. Helpfully, there are references on the menu about which dishes are popular in South American countries as well as Japan.
One common thread throughout the menu is “localizing” the dishes through the Honns’ use of Gulf seafood and local produce. After all, it’s what they’re known for. In a report from Eater and Civil Eats, author Grey Moran wrote about Carmo’s sustainability efforts: “Building the knowledge and relationships necessary for ethical, regenerative sourcing has been a lifelong project for [Carmo’s] restaurant’s co-owners and chefs. They’ve forged relationships with Gulf Coast shrimpers and Indigenous tribes in the Amazon to support traditional, ecological food systems.”
Honn says that when he and Christina originally started Carmo, “there were not that many local producers to work with.” Fifteen years later, he says, there are many more, and locality will be a focus of the operations at Nikkei. Honn expects Nikkei to open the third week of November, with opening hours from 4 to 10 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. It seats about 25 inside and another 20 outside. “It’s a pretty small footprint, but the menu is designed for that kitchen,” Honn says.
In addition to Nikkei, Honn is also running the kitchen at Eatwell, a recently opened spot at Causeway and I-10 in Metairie that Honn says was conceived of as a cafe based around charging stations for electric vehicles (those are being installed). The idea is fresh fast food, or “slow food, fast,” says Honn. That’s not a new conception, Honn says, but the difference will be that the food is not made to order, but rather prepared daily and sold until it runs out. “It’s based around this idea that you find in Sicily and Southern Italy,” says Honn. “They make the sandwiches first thing in the morning, and they’re there until they sell out. In order to do that you cannot use substandard ingredients.” The menu includes sandwiches, salads, and quick bites like potato and cheese fritters and white bean hummus. Eatwell is open Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Finally, Tempero’s Market Kitchen is “the concept that takes Carmo forward,” says Honn. It’s been popping up at the Broadside, will show up at events, and is available for catering. “When we told customers about the end of Carmo, people started asking where can I get such and such dish.” With Tempero’s, Honn is serving some Carmo favorites like the fermented tea leaf salad, Sri Lankan deviled shrimp, and acrajé, Brazilian black-eyed pea and shrimp fritters. That includes Carmo’s gumbo, a roux-less gumbo based on the “pre-roux” gumbos of New Orleans that “is actually the gumbo served for the majority of New Orleans history,” Honn says, and a New Orleans curry, which also has a little known history in the city. “These dishes represent the underrepresented, locally but also globally,” Honn says.
It’s an ambitious new chapter — three new chapters, really. “Things get busy during times of transition, but I feel like at the end of this path there’s something better for our team members, something more sustainable,” he says. He recognizes his fellow chefs committed to working with local harvesters and suppliers — Susan Spicer of Bayona and Rosedale, Ryan Prewitt at Pêche, and Mike Nelson at GW Fins, to name a few: “We have so many chefs here that walk the walk,” he says. “I don’t think it’s quite that good everywhere. I’m just glad to be a part of it.”
None of it would be possible without the producers, says Honn, who he is increasingly concerned about. Dock prices are historically low, creating an unviable situation for the fishers and shrimpers who have spent their lives in the profession. Honn was an organizer for the recent Louisiana Shrimp Festival and Shrimp Aid held at the Broadside. “I feel like it’s such a dire situation for all our fishers but especially our shrimpers,” says Honn. “People have to understand what would happen without them. It’s our time to fight for them.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
