OysterNight: A Great Success for Diners, Restaurants & Coast

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A couple walk into a New Orleans restaurant, sit at the raw bar, eat a dozen oysters while chatting with the shucker/off-bottom oyster farmer, and then move to a table where they enjoy a delicious meal featuring Louisiana oysters. 

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So what did they do? They joined thousands of fellow diners and more than 80 participating restaurants in celebrating the “Protein that Built New Orleans” with the second “OysterNight” and helped restore the coast. 

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Chefs Brigade’s OysterNight proved to be an unmitigated success not just for the restaurants and their patrons, but also for coastal restoration. The inaugural OysterNight brought in more than 7,000 pounds of oyster shells, but the second OysterNight, September 18, netted nearly five tons, around 9,750 pounds. All of the shells have been collected by Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL) and will be used for building oyster reefs. 

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“Chefs Brigade has proudly partnered with CRCL on their oyster shell recycling program for many years,” says Chefs Brigade Founder and Executive Director Troy Gilbert. “They collect discarded oyster shells from Louisiana restaurants, clean them and bag them for restoring coastal areas and developed living shorelines.”

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Since the program’s inception, CRCL, with more than 6,000 volunteers, has collected 16 million pounds of oyster shells, and created 8,600 feet of living shoreline. During Super Bowl Week, Chefs Brigade teamed up with volunteers from CRCL, NFL Green and Force Blue, using a record 59 tons of oyster shells to create an oyster reef in Leeville, Lafourche Parish.

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Part of the upsurge in shells collected, nearly 2,000 pounds, from the latest OysterNight is attributed to Grand Isle Jewels, a brand umbrella for the many off-bottom oyster farmers in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Off-bottom describes oysters raised in floating cages instead of on the seafloor. Unlike wild oysters, which are gathered by dredging natural reefs, off-bottom oysters are carefully farmed and nurtured by hand. The Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission (JEDCO) in partnership with Grand Isle’s off-bottom oyster farmers launched the new brand earlier this year.

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To kick off OysterNight, JEDCO held a party at Deanie’s with WWL 870’s Newell Normand hosting his daily radio show at the restaurant. It served as the debut for the Grand Isle Jewels and JEDCO announced it had entered into a cooperative endeavor agreement (CEA) with the Grand Isle Port Commission to construct the first oyster processing facility on the island. Construction began in October and is expected to take three months. 

‍Grand Isle Jewels were also at a number of Chef Brigade partner restaurants, including Sala Nola. Kirk Curole set up an raw oyster bar and featured his Bayside Oysters. Sala Nola owner, Joe Riccobono, who is also a Chefs Brigade board member and a JEDCO board member, says that he had been interested in doing a pop up raw oyster bar for a while and OysterNight provided the opportunity.

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“We had a really good turnout and since then people have been asking about it,” says Riccobono. “It makes sense to do this again, and I expect us to do this with Kirk and some of the other oyster farmers on an ongoing basis.”

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There were also plenty of traditional dredged oysters available throughout the day and night at participating restaurants. A number of eateries featured different takes such as Saffron’s Wild Gulf Oyster Trinity Special: Oysters, Curry Leaf, Caramelized Onions & Naan and GW Fins’ Fried Wild Gulf Oyster Banh Mi with a Vietnamese Glaze on Toasted Brioche. 

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Drago’s in the Hilton New Orleans Riverside and the original Drago’s in Metairie were both busy with many diners coming for their famed chargrilled oysters and dishes such as the Shuckee Duckee - Twice-Fried Duck Leg Quarter, Wild Gulf Oysters & Cream Sauce Over Angel Hair Pasta. Owner Tommy Cvitanovich is looking forward to the next OysterNight, because he sees the event not just as a celebration, but also as a way to bring more awareness to sustainable practices and coastal restoration. 

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“Of course we experienced an uptick in sales,” says Cvitanovich. “And the recycling portion of OysterNight is critically important in two ways: regrowing oysters and oyster reefs, and helping restore the coast in a natural way.”

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