Mister Mao

Sophina Uong serves pani puri filled with chickpea and potato masala, pickled blueberry and fiery mint water, in a room that used to be Dick & Jenny's.2

Why go

Uong left Cambodia with her family as a toddler and learned to cook in California kitchens belonging to family and friends, pot roast one week and stewed guisados the next.2 She cooked at Waterbar, Revival Bar + Kitchen, Calavera and Absinthe Brasserie, then ran Andrew Zimmern's Lucky Cricket in Minneapolis.2 She opened this room with William Wildcat Greenwell in the building that was Dick & Jenny's.2 The kitchen buys about 80 percent of its produce fresh and local, and the cooks have input on what goes on the menu.2 The house calls itself a tropical roadhouse and unapologetically inauthentic.4 Michelin gave it a Bib Gourmand.1

Order this / avoid

Order: the pani puri. Songy calls it unlike anything else served in New Orleans, built with chickpea and potato masala, pickled blueberry, and fiery mint water.2
Order: the pork chorizo maque choux, which is the dish where the Louisiana half of the kitchen shows up.2
Order, at brunch in 2026: red coconut curry shrimp dumplings, fried chicken with pink pickled pineapples, garlic noodles. Braden-Perry's list, and the pani puri survived onto it.3
Avoid: expecting the dish you read about. Songy's warning: don't get too comfortable with anything on the menu here.2

What locals & experts say

Sophina Uong, on her own cooking: We are serving food that we've grown to love.2
Marielle Songy, OffBeat Magazine: The tuna was cooked perfectly and the chili added a nice kick of spice without overwhelming the flavors of the tuna and the greens.2
Megan Braden-Perry, The Infatuation, 23 March 2026, on where to sit: it's crucial to have brunch at the Mister Mao bar. There's lots of open kitchen magic happening.3
MICHELIN Guide: Bib Gourmand, cuisine listed as Asian, Contemporary.1

Good to know

Whose award is whose. Uong won Grill Master Napa Champion on Food Network's Chopped in 2016. That is hers, not the restaurant's. The Bib Gourmand is the restaurant's.2 1
Booking: recommended, and the restaurant books through its own site. Weekend brunch has a $54 package for two, dine in only.4
Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.

Verdict

should-visit — Michelin's own page carries a live Bib Gourmand on this room, which is the hard evidence. The softer half is Uong herself: she left Cambodia as a toddler, learned to cook pot roast and guisados in other people's California kitchens, won Chopped Grill Masters Napa in 2016, and now runs a teaching kitchen where the cooks get a say in the menu. That is a coherent reason for the food rather than a fusion label. Megan Braden-Perry ate there again in March 2026 and sends you to the bar to watch the line work, which is the freshest judgment on file. It stops short of the top rung because nobody has written a full review of the dinner service, only the brunch.