The owners behind the popular Baton Rouge cocktail bar Pelican to Mars are spinning off an elevated comfort food restaurant called Toasted Comfort Food and Cocktails with local chef Richard Markert. Co-owner John DuPont recently told What Now New Orleans that the chef was so popular with the bar’s patrons, “it felt right to build a restaurant around him, and so that’s what we did.”
Located at 5201 Nicholson Drive and set to open at the end of January, Toasted will serve a range of Markert’s elevated comfort that includes elevated takes on gumbo, grilled cheese, and mac-and-cheese. DuPont will flex his craft cocktail expertise in a similarly comforting drink menu that focuses on boozy milkshakes made with seasonal ingredients. He said the opening menu will feature a blueberry cheesecake and a bananas foster milkshake. When asked to sum up the Toasted concept, DuPont simply said: “We’re going to have the kinds of food and beverage that you crave when you’re hungry, homesick’ or high.”
