There’s red sauce downstairs, while upstairs in the lounge the acts sometimes go a bit blue. You’re drinking affordable Italian wine with dinner and then maybe a nice cocktail above as the burlesque show gets cooking.
This is the new Italian restaurant Pulcinella!, and its sister concept, the Original Nite Cap, holding down one corner of St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans.
There’s an old school essence to Italian supper and a show that I love, and also a high coziness factor all around. But the restaurant is not the red-checkered tablecloth type, nor is the lounge about Rat Pack-style crooners.
Were it older, you’d be looking around for dusty clusters of plastic grapes and Chianti bottle candleholders. But Pulcinella! feels simultaneously homey and more modern; it’s an old-school template enlivened with younger energy.
The restaurant and club combo is the dream come true for co-founder Bella Blue, the local burlesque performer. It all has a spirit of inclusive welcome and it’s drawn a clientele that feels as diverse as any place in the city.
Start with a cocktail, and this is a bar where zero proof drinks get equal billing. Now get the meatball and the oyster artichoke soup. Get two spoons because you’re sharing all this, and there’s more to come.
Pair up the bucatini in red gravy with the smoked pork steak. Eat your fill and you’ll still probably have enough leftovers for a second meal from the fridge.
You can tell there's a chef’s hand at play though this isn't overly-showy Italian food. After all, the show is upstairs.
You’ll go outside to find a separate entrance and a steep staircase up to the Original Nite Cap, which is the resurrection of a bar of the same name from the 1960s. The schedule of shows includes comedy and live music, DJs, karaoke, choir singing (seriously) and of course burlesque.
The interplay of the upstairs/downstairs action makes this place feel like more than a restaurant and more than a bar. It feels like the classic dinner and a show combo, with a timely modern New Orleans makeover.
