New Orleans Restaurateurs Prepare for Spill’s Impact on Business

With the oil slick from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon accident lingering off the coast, restaurants in New Orleans are preparing for the worst as their source of famed seafood comes under threat.

Gulf shrimp, oysters, and blue crab are a staple on the menu of local restaurants, and provide an important export for Louisiana with the shrimp catch supplying over 70 percent of the total consumed in the U.S. But with their stocks vulnerable to contamination, restaurateurs are searching for alternative supplies.

At Drago’s Seafood Restaurant, owner operator Tommy Cvitanovich is no stranger to the ups and downs of the restaurant business and has dealt with shortages of supply before. But this is the first time he’s seen a crisis as significant as that threatened by the oil slick.

[Tommy Cvitanovich, Drago's Seafood Restaurant Owner]:
“You have to realize, our restaurant, 90 percent of the tables in our restaurant order oysters charbroiled oysters. So not only are we a seafood restaurant, we’re also an oyster restaurant. So obviously with this spill going on right now, we’re very concerned.”

In a week, Drago’s two locations go through truckloads of seafood as much as 500 sacks of oysters and 1,000 pounds of shrimp. It is not uncommon for one of the restaurants to serve six or seven hundred dozen (one serving) of charbroiled oysters the restaurant’s signature dish invented by Cvitanovich.

The 51-year old first-generation Croat prides himself on continuing a tradition started by his father, Drago, 41 years ago when the restaurant was first opened of using only local oysters, and sourcing as much seafood as possible from Louisiana. Sticking to these principles meant that after the devastation wrought by Hurrican Katrina, Drago’s didnt server oysters for three months. And while none of Louisiana’s seafood on the market has been contaminated by the oil spill yet, Cvitanovich warns that the entire industry, from net to table, is facing an uncertain future.

[Tommy Cvitanovich, Drago's Seafood Restaurant Owner]:
“I mean there’s no way when this thing started happening that we would ever think that it would get this bad and last this long, and we would be in this much danger of losing our seafood industry, which, you know, we’re on the verge of right now. Had no clue that it could ever get this big just shocked.”

Still, Cvitanovich, who also acts as chairman of the New Orleans Restaurant Association and next year will be chairman of the state association, remains positive that the restaurant industry will survive because of the strong culinary heritage of New Orleans and Louisiana.

[Tommy Cvitanovich, Drago's Seafood Restaurant Owner]:
“You know, they’ve got great restaurants all over the world that do not serve Louisiana seafood and they do a great job. You know, we’re great cooks here in New Orleans and in Louisiana. We can take lobsters from the Northeast; we can take mussels from Canada; we can take tuna and long-line fish imported; we can take imported shrimp, we’re going to make that stuff taste like it’s never tasted before.”

Already, Drago’s is preparing to weather the storm when Louisiana oysters become scarce. Cvitanovich has altered his signature recipe for charbroiled oysters to freshwater mussels which he imports from Canada. The new dish of charbroiled mussels has proved so good that the next time he needs to reprint his menus, Cvitanovich will scrap the traditional steamed mussels for his new dish, putting the Canadian mussels on the menu alongside the Maine lobster and the Cajun surf and turf and it’s all Louisiana-style.

Duration : 0:3:29

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