Louisiana recently lost three longtime restaurants with more than 150 combined years of history. The latest goodbyes include a 30-year Baton Rouge favorite, an award-winning New Orleans restaurant and an ambitious concept created by Emeril Lagasse and his son.
Portobello’s Grill in Baton Rouge
Portobello’s Grill served its final brunch Sunday, July 26, ending nearly 30 years in the Baton Rouge area. The owners announced the closure of the George O’Neal Road restaurant the following morning.
Kiva Guidroz opened the first Portobello’s in 1996 after growing up around two of the city’s prominent Italian restaurants. Chef Peter Sclafani, who had been consulting for the company, bought a 50% stake with his wife in 2020 and joined Guidroz as co-owner, and the new team revamped the brand’s identity, dining rooms and menus.
Portobello’s occupied a comfortable space between a casual neighborhood restaurant and a formal special-occasion destination. Its menu combined Louisiana flavors with Italian-American food, including pasta, steaks, seafood, salads and weekend brunch dishes.
The restaurant became a dependable setting for birthdays, business meals, first dates and family celebrations. Ownership acknowledged that history in its farewell, thanking everyone who had made Portobello’s part of a regular routine.
The company had already been contracting. Last year, the Portobello’s in the Bocage Village Shopping Center on Old Hammond Highway paused regular dine-in service to become a dedicated catering and private-event venue, leaving George O’Neal Road as the last full-service location.
No detailed financial reason was publicly given for the closure. The owners described it as a difficult decision that was theirs alone.
Portobello’s gift cards will be accepted at sister restaurant SoLou, part of the same Making Raving Fans Hospitality Group, and several employees are expected to join the SoLou team. That preserves some familiar faces, but it does not replace a restaurant Baton Rouge customers visited for three decades.
Gris-Gris in New Orleans
Gris-Gris closed at the end of July, seven-plus years after opening on Magazine Street.
Chef Eric Cook and his wife, Robyn, opened the Lower Garden District restaurant in 2018 at the corner of Magazine and Josephine streets. It quickly earned local and national recognition for contemporary Southern cooking that remained firmly connected to New Orleans.
Customers came for gumbo, shrimp and grits, chicken and dumplings, brunch and the restaurant’s memorable fried oyster BLT. A second-floor wraparound balcony overlooking Magazine Street added to the experience.
Gris-Gris collected numerous honors, but awards could not overcome the math. Announcing the closure on July 6, the Cooks called it a well thought out business decision that left their hearts broken. Cook said the restaurant never got back to its pre-pandemic level of business, and pointed to costs he could not control, added taxes, intermittent street closures and tourism marketing focused on downtown restaurants. Raising prices, he noted, only works for so long.
The owners turned the restaurant’s final weeks into a celebration, running a throwback menu with original dishes and prices and inviting customers to “dance at the funeral.”
Cook continues operating Saint John in the French Quarter, but Gris-Gris had its own neighborhood identity. Its closure removed one of Magazine Street’s most recognizable modern Louisiana restaurants, and left a prominent corner vacant on a strip already working through rising rents.
34 Restaurant & Bar in New Orleans
34 Restaurant & Bar closed January 31 after only 15 months at 714 Baronne St. in downtown New Orleans.
Emeril Lagasse and his son, E.J., opened the restaurant in October 2024 as a tribute to their Portuguese heritage and Emeril’s late mother, Hilda. Its name referred to the two generations of Lagasse chefs: Emeril J. Lagasse III and Emeril J. Lagasse IV.
The menu included paella, piri-piri chicken, caldo verde, bacalhau, the Prego Portuguese steak sandwich and pastéis de nata. An elaborate jamón bar, ornate Portuguese tilework and a green-hued dining room made the restaurant one of the city’s most visually ambitious openings.
34 was recommended in the inaugural Michelin Guide for the American South—without receiving a star—and earned Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence during its short run.
The Emeril Group blamed the high cost of operating in the current environment. Employees were offered opportunities at the company’s other restaurants, and the Lagasses hinted that their exploration of Portuguese food may eventually continue elsewhere, promising this would not be the last caldo verde they shared with New Orleans. Emeril’s, Meril and Emeril’s Kitchen all remain open in the city.
Portobello’s, Gris-Gris and 34 lasted for dramatically different amounts of time. One survived three decades, one became a celebrated neighborhood fixture for the better part of a decade and one burned brightly for barely more than a year.
All three demonstrate the same uncomfortable reality: A restaurant can be popular, critically respected and personally meaningful—and still disappear.
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