The High Hat Cafe
The catfish comes out of the fryer in a cornmeal coat, dressed on Leidenheimer bread, $18 with pimento mac and cheese on the side for six more.2
Why go
Chip Apperson and Adolfo Garcia opened it on Freret Street. They sold it in the summer of 2023 to Fredo Nogueira and Ryan Iriarte, and the new owners left it alone.2 It runs eleven to nine, every day, and takes no bookings.1 That is the whole proposition: a Southern lunch counter that stays open through the afternoon.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the catfish poboy, fried. Axios:
I love High Hat's just-crunchy-enough, cornmeal-coated version straight from the deep fryer.
2 - Order: the pimento mac and cheese with it, $6.2
- Avoid: the grilled catfish if the crust is the reason you came. Both preparations are on the menu.2
What locals & experts say
- Axios New Orleans, 13 May 2024:
The comforting lunchtime hustle and bustle at High Hat Cafe in New Orleans is as good as it gets,
and the column says the same of the catfish poboy.2 - Ryan Iriarte, on buying it, quoted by Ian McNulty for NOLA.com and carried by Axios:
It's such an institution. To see it go or change into something else would've been tragic.
2
Good to know
- Timing: open daily, 11am to 9pm.1
- Booking: none. The restaurant's own line:
We do not take reservations.
1 - Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.
Verdict
could-visit — One bylined column has judged this kitchen and it did so with a receipt: an $18 catfish poboy, cornmeal-coated, fried, dressed on Leidenheimer, plus $6 pimento mac and cheese. That is worth a rung on its own. The ownership question is settled and settled well, because the new owners bought it in 2023 and, on Ryan Iriarte's own account, changed nothing. What keeps it below should-visit is that one column is the entire critical record I could reach, and the Times-Picayune reporting behind the ownership story went unread, because nola.com answers our fetch route and refuses our search route.