Hot Tails chef to develop new upscale restaurant on Nicholson

Chef Cody Carroll, owner of Hot Tails in New Roads, is moving forward with plans for a new restaurant in Baton Rouge that will be located on a 4-acre tract on the north side of Nicholson Drive, between Lee Drive and GSRI Avenue.

Carroll isn’t ready to disclose the name of his new eatery yet, but says it won’t be named Hot Tails and it won’t feature the same down-home dishes that made his signature restaurant so popular.

Instead, he says the Baton Rouge restaurant will offer more varied and sophisticated dishes on a more upscale menu that will focus on four distinct Louisiana food groups: Gulf seafood, game, river caught and farm raised.

“We’re going to really aim this restaurant at winning James Beard awards and things like that,” says Carroll. “We’re not known for that kind of fine dining in Baton Rouge, and we have to change that.”

The wooded parcel on which the new restaurant will be situated is under contract and the sale isn’t yet final, but Carroll says he is confident it will close in the coming weeks. The tract backs up to a wildlife conservation area, which appeals to Carroll because it will add to the ambience and setting of the restaurant.

“It’s really going to be cool,” he says. “And we’re close to so much university housing; we will have an endless supply of labor.”

Carroll hopes to open the restaurant next January. —Stephanie Riegel