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A New Orleans Restaurant Offers Creativity Between Bread Slices
At Turkey and the Wolf, standard lunchbox fare is just a launching pad for the high-flying imaginings of a merry band of inventors.
Plenty of people regularly ate sandwiches as kids. But few, if any, have spun that experience into culinary gold like Mason Hereford, whose restaurant Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans was lauded by Bon Appétit as America’s best new restaurant in 2017.
“I sure enough ate my share,” said Mr. Hereford, 31, who grew up Charlottesville, Va., before moving to New Orleans in 2008 and working his way from line cook to chef de cuisine at Coquette, a respected contemporary Southern bistro. “But it wasn’t until I came to this city of po’ boys that I began to consider the creative potential of a sandwich.”
Sandwiches are the stars at this 40-seat, no-reservation restaurant with street-front patio seating for 25 more, a former barbecue joint and a wings shop in the Irish Channel neighborhood. Inside, cinder block walls are painted sea-foam green and décor runs to thrift store whimsy. Patrons order at the counter and eat at sundry chrome dinettes off mismatched dishes (including plastic Disney plates), seasoning their food with kitschy vintage salt and pepper shakers.
But to call Turkey and the Wolf a sandwich shop is misleading. Standard lunchbox fare is just a launching pad for the high-flying imaginings of Mr. Hereford and his team, a merry band of inventors whose professional cooking chops are on view in the crowded but supremely orderly open kitchen. Over the course of two different lunches, friends and I grazed through much of the small, changing menu, which includes cocktails with enigmatic names like the bourbon-based They Grow Up Slow Fast and My Mom Blacks Out Better Than Yours, featuring pecan vodka and mulled wine.
Given the reports of lines out the door, our wait to order and sit was surprisingly short — probably thanks to a pipe-bursting freeze that had settled on the city. The collard green melt on rye wowed us with its marriage of tender, braised greens, crunchy slaw, gooey Swiss cheese and spicy pickled cherry pepper dressing. Lemony yogurt and cucumbers brightened a roti filled with deeply seasoned, slow-cooked lamb neck meat, while a crazy-looking sandwich of nicely chewy, fried bologna soared on the crisp vinegar-brined potato chips, melted American cheese and hot mustard also layered between its two thick slices of buttered-and-griddled white bread (baked by a friend of the chef).
On the “Not Sandwiches” side of the menu, which included deviled eggs garnished with fried chicken skin and an Alp-sized wedge salad, the fried potpie, plump with herb-infused, moist chicken and paired with a tarragon-buttermilk sauce, disappeared quickly.
According to Mr. Hereford, coming up with new dishes is a collaboration, and nothing appears on the menu until it’s been tinkered with and tasted up to 20 times by the kitchen staff. “We’re looking to create a fun vibe here, to be a place that doesn’t take itself too seriously,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t take our food seriously.”
Turkey and the Wolf, 739 Jackson Avenue; 504-218-7428; turkeyandthewolf.com. An average meal for two, minus drinks and tip, is about $35.
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