West End: New Orleans' (other) Forgotten Waterfront

Chefs Brigade’s Executive Director, Troy Gilbert, has long been a patron of the restaurants of West End and Bucktown, and as a maritime journalist and historian, he has researched and written exhaustively on this historic and storied waterfront dining and recreational neighborhood.

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With his long ties and connections to the West End restaurants, it shouldn’t be surprising that a few of them participated in the FEMA Meal Assistance Program, and through Chefs Brigade’s partnership with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana’s oyster shell recycling program – the shells of any raw or charbroiled oyster consumed at the thirteen restaurants within West End and Bucktown are recycled courtesy of Chefs Brigade.

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“West End is such an unheralded dining destination, and it is literally the only true waterfront dining in the entire city of New Orleans,” Gilbert says. “These restaurants with countless raw bars and the freshest daily catch stand on the shoulders of the legends who went before – Bruning’s, Fitzgerald’s, Sid-Mar’s – the entire neighborhood is a hidden jewel for this city.”

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With developers eyes turning back to West End, Gilbert recently delved into the history of this expansive maritime and dining neighborhood for the Preservation Resource Center’s publication, Preservation in Print. He argues that any future development must respect the nearly 200-year history of the neighborhood, and help sustain and grow the dining, hospitality and recreational aspects of West End and Bucktown.

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Read it here. 

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