Answering the Call

Answering The Call

Chef Jeff Strikes the right tone with Heard Dat Kitchen

BY: JADA F. SMITH

Chef Jeffery Heard Sr. is the owner of Heard Dat Kitchen

It hasn’t even been five years since Chef Jeffrey Heard Sr. left his job as a banquet manager to open Heard Dat Kitchen, but already it’s become one of the most popular chicken joints on the New Orleans food scene. Locals who live near the Felicity Street location have embraced it for it’s unique offerings that remain authentic to traditional New Orleans cuisine. Tourists have flocked to it after a glowing write-up in the Times-Picayune. Foodies from an array of backgrounds have fallen in love.

When organizers for the New Orleans Fried Chicken Festival noticed that Heard Dat Kitchen, which won the festival’s fried chicken contest in 2017, hadn’t signed up to vend in the 2018 festival, they called up Heard personally to ask him to attend.

“They called looking for us to see why we weren’t participating,”

Tia’Nesha Heard-Dorest, Chef Jeffrey’s daughter and personal assistant, said. “It’s meant to be if they’re calling you.”

The whirlwind rise that Heard Dat has experienced over the past few years could be dizzying for others, but the Heards have embraced it with a steady hand, pacing themselves before each next step. Less than one year after Ann Maloney of the Times- Picayune described it as “a modest take-out restaurant with just four tables, three on the sidewalk in front, and a pick-up window where orders are served in Styrofoam boxes,” Heard Dat is opening a remodeled sub-compartment to make room for a much bigger crowd. The addition could potentially help to take the endeavor from “a modest takeout restaurant” to the New Orleans chicken behemoth it is primed to become.

Heard Dat Kitchen serves classic New Orleans dishes.

Heard Dat Kitchen has been family owned and operated since 2015. The restaurant adds vibrant flavors to traditional New Orleans cuisine.

And just in time for Black Restaurant Week.

The newly opened space seats up to 40 guests, “which is a huge thing for us,” Tia said. The theme is best described as barnyard-chic, with lots of wood accents and framed sayings espousing the joy of good food. Expressions like “let’s cook!”, “let’s eat!” and “food makes me happy.”

All of the new interior designing was done by Tia’s sister-in-law, who runs an event planning business called Nyce Events. In addition to consistently good cuisine and hospitality, relying on family seems to be another part to the restaurant’s success. Jeffrey Heard Sr. runs the kitchen with his son, Jeffrey Heard Jr. -- who is also the brains behind many of the creative names on the menu. Tia handles events and serves as a de-facto personal assistant, her 16-year-old sister waits tables and handles the register, and their mom does all the “pot” foods. The red beans, the mustard greens, the smothered cabbage.

Dat Superdome is the most popular dish on the menu

The most popular dish on the menu is one called Dat Superdome, which is composed of blackened catfish fillet topped with mashed potatoes under a tower of fried onion rings. The dish is finished off with a corn in lobster and fennel cream sauce. It was born from Chef Jeffrey just playing around with a lobster bisque soup that he thought would make for a good sauce on top of something. His son, Jeffrey Jr., gave it the name Superdome because of its 3D composition on the plate.

“Everybody says it looks just like the pictures,” Tia said. “It’s not like McDonald’s where the bread will be sliding off in person.”

In addition to their recent remodel, the business is also expanding its catering wing, Audre Mae Catering, with private upscale dinner parties coming up in the fall. But you can still plan to find Heard Dat right there in the neighborhood off Claiborne Ave.

“This is where God placed us,” she said. “You have to start somewhere and make the best of where you are.”

HEARD DAT KITCHEN

2520 Felicity St.

New Orleans, LA 70113

HOURS:

Monday: 11AM–7PM

Tuesday: 11AM–7PM

Wednesday: 11AM–7PM

Thursday: 11AM–7PM

Friday: 11AM–7PM

Saturday: 11AM–7PM

Sunday: Closed