Seeing this Jazz Fest food vendor in action led me back to their Mid-City restaurant again

Food gets top billing from me at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and I know I’m not alone. Even all these days after Trombone Shorty closed out the fest, I’m still hearing from people about their favorite dishes, and how much food adds to their overall experience.

One story that has stuck with me happened behind the scenes at the food booths, and it points to food concepts that should be better known outside of the fest, including a caterer, a Mexican pop-up from a well-known local name and a Japanese tavern built into a concert venue that continues the spirit of a lost restaurant.

Carmo, now Tempero’s

Running a food booth at Jazz Fest takes a tremendous amount of planning and diligence. It’s something that veteran vendors have distilled to a science, and to which they devote months of preparation.

Now, consider the effort to run a food booth while also helping another vendor get into Jazz Fest to represent their culture.

That’s what has happened the last few years at the Cultural Exchange Pavilion. This year, the pavilion was a vibrant celebration of Mexico, and that included Mexican food and drinks that came through collaboration.

Dana and Christina Honn ran their downtown restaurant Carmo for 15 years, and for the past three years, they’ve run the taco stand at Jazz Fest.

Carmo closed at the end of 2024, but the same crew was back at Jazz Fest under the name Tempero’s Market Kitchen, the catering and events brand the Honns created last year.

They also started the new Nikkei Izakaya, the casual kitchen inside the Broadside in Mid-City (more on this below). Both new ventures carry on some of Carmo’s dishes and very much its focus on transparent sourcing and community connection.

Introducing Ella

While managing their Jazz Fest stand, the Tempero’s crew joined forces with a new food concept called Ella to also run the Cultural Exchange Pavilion’s food booth and bar. They helped with equipment, logistics, sourcing and management — essentially leveraging their own experience at the fest so that another could take part in the celebration of Mexico.

Ella is a pop-up being developed by Yves Montero, and it’s inspired by his experience growing up in New Orleans in a family from Mexico.

His father, Hugo Montero, ran the restaurant Casa Borrega in Central City. While that restaurant closed last year, Casa Borrega continues now as a vendor at the Crescent City Farmers Market, part of the market’s newly robust street food scene.

Yves Montero sees Ella as a next-generation expression of food, and his goal after Jazz Fest is to take it on the road with stops in different cities. The Jazz Fest booth was a big step for the new concept, and working with Tempero’s made it possible.

Next up: Nikkei

A spirit of collaboration and exchange was always something I valued at Carmo, and one of the reasons I was sad to see it close last year. It started as a deli back in 2010 and stood out for its many healthy and vegan options with influences from the Pacific Rim to South America, particularly Christina’s native Brazil.

It grew both in size and scope, with a strong focus on sustainability and global connection. Its raw bar was the front line of New Orleans’ boat-to-table seafood, where chefs would highlight the underutilized diversity of the Gulf catch. This is where I learned the versatility of fish like blue runner and porgy, abundant in the Gulf but vanishingly rare on menus.

The Honns had a hand in creating Porgy’s Seafood Market (236 N. Carrollton Ave.), a fishmonger and cafe for local, sustainable and absolutely delicious seafood. And last year, they were instrumental in starting the Louisiana Shrimp Festival (aka Shrimp Aid), standing up for Louisiana’s beleaguered shrimp industry in the face of unfair trade practices.

That festival was in turn a showcase for the growing effort to identify menu labeling fraud, now getting greater attention, including undercover investigations of restaurants and festivals.

The ethos behind all of this pervades Nikkei, the Japanese-style tavern created by the Honns and their longtime collaborator Wataru Saeki.

Like at Carmo, the Nikkei menu includes changing raw dishes and marinated ceviche. There are fried snacks, silken tofu, Peruvian-Japanese fusion dishes, fried nori sheets topped with raw tuna and straight-up nigiri, and also many vegan alternatives across the menu.

A new route

Carmo closed due to the changing financials of running a large, casual restaurant in the increasingly expensive Warehouse District. It joins a refrain coming with anxiety-inducing regularity now in the hospitality industry as restaurants try to navigate higher costs.

Nikkei was drawn up as a creative flex to go a different route.

The Broadside is an extension of the Broad movie theater next door, a pandemic pivot to do business outdoors. It’s grown into a multifaceted complex of indoor and outdoor spaces today.

One part of that is a tavern, open to the public independent of whatever ticketed events might be happening, and that’s where Nikkei is based.

It’s as casual as a tavern suggests. Your order at the bar. It is gloriously fresh, creatively wrought and different from anything else in town. As Jazz Fest mellows into memories, I’m glad it’s here, a second act for a restaurant family that’s making a difference beyond their own restaurant.

Nikkei Izakaya

600 N. Broad St., (504) 450-4620

From 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday