We’ll get this out of the way up front: It’s pronounced LAN-yap.
It’s a Creole word for a small gift given to a customer along with a purchase, or just any little bonus or extra gift. And in the Coliseum Building on Lake Street, Lagniappe is the lagniappe that accompanies Du Nord Craft Cocktail Room, which opened last month.
Tonight, you’ll be able to get your first look at the New Orleans-inspired restaurant, launched by Du Nord Social Spirits’ Chris and Shanelle Montana. But we got in to take a peek first.
We started the evening with a few drinks from Lagniappe’s list of classic New Orleans cocktails: a frothy Brandy Milk Punch ($13) and the Veux Carre ($16). (At this soft opening preview, food was comped; we paid for our cocktails and other beverages.) Both were indulgent and luxurious in the way of so much of the food and drink that originates in the Big Easy, and they set a proper tone for the rich, hearty dishes that were headed for our table.
As jazz music fuzzed softly throughout the room (sorry I can’t be any more specific than that; jazz is not my genre), we tore into a plate of succulent BBQ Shrimp ($15), served head-on and drenched in a gravy-like rosemary-worcestershire sauce. A pile of plush and buttery grits serves as the base, really kicking this thing into decadent territory. The shrimp arrived alongside our order of Cast Iron Jalapeño Cornbread ($8), which was convenient. When we weren’t spooning the accompanying honey butter on top—it was really more like icing, and wonderful—we could dredge the soft and crusty cornbread through the remaining BBQ sauce.
I had never had turtle soup before, but my dining companion grew up eating the version his grandfather prepared. And with respect to the family patriarch, he preferred Lagniappe’s Turtle Soup au Sherry ($8 cup/$12 bowl), which is drizzled tableside with a dash of sherry vinegar. If you’ve never had it, give this one a try—it’s like chili. You’ll like it, and the cornbread is perfect dunked in here too.
Entrees at Lagniappe include a Bone-In Pork Chop and Redfish on the Half Shell, along with Grillades and Grits and a Lagniappe Jambalaya. As we refreshed our glasses, this time opting for the Hurricane and Pimm’s Cup (both $14), we tucked into an order of Stewed Okra ($22) and Crawfish Des Allemands ($25). Though the former was the least memorable of the dishes we tried, the latter was a dish worth returning for. A bed of pillowy jasmine rice is covered in a creamy crawfish étouffée, packed with vegetables and countless meaty, curly-cued crawfish tails. Atop it all: a peppery, perfectly cooked blackened catfish filet. It’s enough to make you wanna move to Louisiana.
If you’re like, “Wait, wait, wait—where are the po’boys?” you’ll find them next door at the more casual Du Nord, where there’s also a burger and fries, though some of the Lagniappe dishes do appear on that menu, including the BBQ Shrimp, Crispy Boudin Balls, and the jalapeño cornbread.
We perused the dessert menu as the potently sweet smell of Bananas Foster ($20/person) filled the dining room—Lagniappe does the whole thing where they set it on fire tableside, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. We ultimately opted for another drink before hitting the road. I was happy to see beers from St. Paul’s MetroNOME Brewery, which was co-founded by Bill Eddins of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, as well as Bodkin, a Black-owned winery in California, not that I was surprised. As Black-owned restaurants in a Black-owned business incubator space, of course Du Nord and Lagniappe would be intentional about the names they uplift on their beer and wine lists.
The hope is that Lagniappe (and Du Nord) will be able to uplift this corner of Longfellow, too, an area that’s still rebuilding from the damage it sustained in the unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder.
Both the restaurant and cocktail lounge are located blocks from the space Du Nord originally occupied before closing in the chaos of 2020. From the front door, you can see the burnt-out shell of the Third Precinct and the vacant lot where once Minnehaha Lake Wine & Spirits sat. Maybe that will be a tough sell—$25 entrees in the shadow of that destruction—but I hope folks see Lagniappe as worth a little indulgence.
New Orleans is a gritty town too, after all—that’s part of the charm.
Lagniappe
Address: 2700 E. Lake St., Minneapolis
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 5-10 p.m.
