Chef Luke Hidalgo
The owner of Hambone loves life on the Northshore
Luke Hidalgo had no intention of becoming a chef. The thirty-three-year-old Baton Rouge native was a biology student at LSU when a fork in the road became an actual fork. He took a job at the now-shuttered Galatoire’s Bistro to pay the bills, and his life changed.
“I fell head over heels in love with the industry,” recalled the chef, who co-owns Hambone restaurant in Old Mandeville with his wife Marci, who hails from Denham Springs. Hidalgo’s natural aptitude propelled him quickly up the line and in short order he was a sous chef. The New Orleans connection was the next natural step. After the storm, he worked at the Galatoire’s on Bourbon until he landed in the prestigious Commander’s Palace kitchen, where he worked for seven years.
[Read this: Our thirty must-dos in South Louisiana and Mississippi include Friday lunch at Galatoire's.]
It’s also where he met his wife. Although they’d been at LSU at the same time, their paths had never crossed. That changed when they met at Commander’s, where she worked as a server. The pair married in 2014 and now have a three-year-old son, Hank. Hidalgo’s tenure at Commander’s working with chef Tory McPhail proved pivotal. “I really cut my teeth there,” he said. “As a chef without any formal training, the mentoring I had during that time was invaluable.” Besides working closely with McPhail, Hidalgo spent a lot of time with Brennan family matriarch Ella Brennan when she was alive. “She was a force, that’s for sure,” he said.
A self-described child of the Food Network, Hidalgo was always a good eater, a collector of cookbooks, and a watchful sidekick to his dad and grandfather in the kitchen. “My dad was a dentist by trade, but he was an amazing cook,” he recalled. “More than just being an accomplished pitmaster, he took on the scary stuff too, like making pasta from scratch.”
Shifting from city to country
Hidalgo was thriving professionally at Commander’s and had no intention of budging. But then as it tends to do, life threw him and his wife a curveball. The couple’s painstakingly renovated home in Pigeon Town in the city’s Riverbend area was burglarized at Christmastime while Marci and baby Hank were at home. “That really forced our hand,” said the chef. “As executive sous chef, I thought I was on track to spend my career at Commander’s. We immediately started looking for a home on the Northshore, and I was planning to commute.”
Recalling that it was a scary leap of faith to leave the city they both loved, as well as his wife’s established real estate career, Hidalgo said the decision felt right as soon as it was made. “We checked out lots of the little towns in St. Tammany, but Old Mandeville really found us. The [nearness] to nature and the ability to play resonated with us immediately. As a chef, the proximity to the farmers and producers that I’d known for years in places like Folsom and Ponchatoula was just fantastic.”
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A place of their own
Although Hidalgo did make the commute for a while, traveling the causeway after working a twelve-hour day was scary, to say the least. “We made the decision that commuting wasn’t sustainable: another tough decision for sure.” Through happenstance he found a position at Palmettos, a busy white tablecloth restaurant and wedding venue in Slidell, his first executive chef job. “It was another amazing learning experience. I learned so much from [managing partner] Duffel Ramirez.”
During the year Hidalgo worked in Slidell, he and Marci both took notice of a circa-1940 red-roofed cottage on Mandeville’s Girod Street—just three blocks from their home and walking distance to the lake. Formerly the Ugly Duckling Café, the storybook space sat on the market for months until they pulled the trigger on the lease and Marci closed the deal. The pair opened the 80-seat Hambone in January 2018. It was an immediate success, with word of mouth and glowing reviews drawing crowds to the small-town Southern comfort eatery where a creative chef’s spark raises every dish to lofty heights. Not fussed over, not precious, just real downhome cuisine with the kind of attention to detail that takes knowhow and chops to execute.
“We felt there was a niche for us,” recalled Hidalgo. “We wanted to open a place that young couples like us—with high-energy kids—could come and eat good food and relax.” When it comes to what he calls “naked food” like pizza, pancakes, and fried chicken, Hidalgo delivers dishes that evoke home cooking with a bit of polish—the chicken is brined, for instance. and emerges from the kitchen fried in five pieces, with a biscuit and housemade pickles. Just right. Another bonus for families: Kids eat free Wednesday through Friday and can enjoy a fenced outdoor play area perfect for roaming while Mom and Dad chill.
Hidalgo’s oysters Marci call on the flavors of the French Quarter, chargrilled with a hint of Herbsaint and nibs of caramelized fennel, mushrooms, and bacon to contrast with the oyster’s briny center, all served on a bed of smoky pecan wood embers. The chef’s fried boudin looks more like petits fours, a geometric char of Cajun sausage topped with silky hand-pulled mozzarella and a dollop of bourbon peach jam. His dark and silky seafood gumbo, first served at Hank’s first birthday party, is plated with a generous spoon of potato salad. “Play around enough and accidents happen in the kitchen,” said the chef. “I’ve been lucky going with my instincts.” Shrimp and stone ground grits are enhanced by garlic confit and the addition of sautéed collards and pickled cauliflower atop a bacon dashi broth. Country fried steak is a normally tough cut rendered fork tender by sixty hours of sous vide cooking—think a fried steak as juicy as pot roast and flash-fried to a perfect, pink medium-rare.
Hidalgo literally has a lot on his plate: a young growing family, a chef-driven restaurant, and support for his wife’s move back into real estate. “We are growing, but I’m in no hurry to expand. Right now, the main objective is to continue Hambone the way it is, to give Marci back the space away from here to develop her real estate business, and to enjoy where we live. After all, that’s why we moved here.”