Niche welcomes new menu, chef

Ause Ismail could talk for days about his old menu—which featured around 80 items—and the constant turnover in the kitchen of his three-year-old restaurant, Niche.

However, with the addition of chef, local food writer and new owner Sean Rivera, the restaurant (Map it!) is finding its way and could become a key food destination for Baton Rouge.

The menu has been significantly paired down, with no more than 25 items for lunch and dinner. Rivera has been in the kitchen since he was 15 years old and has experience at Maple Street Café in New Orleans and with Joey Daigle at Juban’s. At Niche, he is honing in on dishes that are inexpensive and taste great.

The bigger goal is ambitious for Rivera and Ismail.

“We’re basically trying to change the current landscape of the culinary scene in Baton Rouge,” Rivera says. “It’s made a severe jump from chain restaurants to nouveau, exquisite cuisine where there’s no middle ground. We want to bring it back to the basics and give people exactly what they’re asking for at an extremely reasonable price.”

You could have a small plate of eggplant cakes topped with crabmeat cream sauce, a citrus-marinated crab salad served over fresh greens and grilled asparagus, or a shrimp poboy for lunch. During dinner service, Rivera brings out more bold flavors with dishes like oysters pecan, pepper-crusted duck breast, and a center-cut pork chop served with a cane syrup bourbon glaze.

The flavors are fresh, thanks to Ismail and Rivera either growing their own herbs and vegetables or finding produce through local farmers. Whatever expectations you might have of the restaurant, the two owners are ready to knock them out of the park.

“We want to do things the right way,” Rivera says. “But we want to do things a touch differently than anyone else. We want to be the pioneers.”—Matthew Sigur