La Petite Grocery has lengthy been certainly one of Uptown New Orleans‘ most beloved bistros mixing French method with Southern soul. Now, as Co-Proprietor Mia Devillier places it, the Journal Avenue staple is including a close-by Italian cousin to the household.
The group behind the acclaimed La Petite Grocery — Mia Devillier, chef Justin Devillier and enterprise associate Joel Dondis — is making ready to open Daughter’s Neighborhood Italian this fall within the historic former Upperline Restaurant house at 1413 Upperline St.

Building is already underway, with the group focusing on a late September opening.

“La Petite Grocery and Daughter’s are distinct ideas, however each are deeply private and rooted in our household heritage. La Petite is the French cousin and Daughter’s is the Italian cousin,” mentioned Mia Devillier, Co-Proprietor and Director of Operations of the Devillier Hospitality Group. “We felt there was a niche between the beloved old-school pink sauce establishments and the newer, extra trendy Italian ideas. Daughter’s will reside someplace between these two worlds.”

The restaurant’s identify honors the couple’s daughters, together with the daughter of enterprise associate, Joel Dondis. Mia Devillier mentioned the identify displays the center of the idea: gathering across the desk to share good meals and create significant recollections.

“The guiding philosophy, ‘Household is our motto,’ means each visitor is welcomed like household, and each element is dealt with with care,” mentioned Mia Devillier. “I’m a third-generation Italian American, and in recent times, my household has frolicked reconnecting with our Italian relations. This restaurant is a continuation of that journey — a option to honor and share that historical past via meals and hospitality.”

She added: “We wish it to be a neighborhood restaurant the place folks typically collect, whether or not that’s a bowl of pasta on a Tuesday night time, Sunday brunch, drinks on the bar, or a particular dinner within the personal eating room.”

James Beard Award–successful chef Justin Devillier will lead the kitchen. His menu will emphasize elevated method and high-quality elements, drawing from each Italian custom and New Orleans affect, and can characteristic a mixture of acquainted Italian-American classics.

“We’re mixing the heat of Italian American red-sauce traditions with the requirements, high quality, and creativity that we’re identified for,” mentioned Justin Devillier. “These are dishes folks know and love however executed with the identical care and refinement we’ve delivered to La Petite Grocery over the previous 20 years.”

For the Devilliers and Dondis, the venture can also be carefully tied to the historical past of the constructing itself. Mia Devillier mentioned the group had been followers of Upperline for years, and their analysis into the positioning revealed that the property additionally had an Italian restaurant historical past courting again to the Thirties, earlier than Upperline turned certainly one of New Orleans’ most beloved eating establishments throughout a number of many years underneath restaurateur and former proprietor JoAnn Clevenger.

“As soon as we began researching the constructing and realized it had an Italian historical past courting again to the Thirties, it felt like a pure match for the idea we had already been interested by,” mentioned Mia Devillier. “In a method, it seems like we’re not beginning one thing new — we’re reviving one thing that was already a part of the constructing’s story.”

Mia Devillier mentioned the idea itself started to take form when the group initially seemed on the property in 2022. “We walked in and thought, ‘This may be an unbelievable Italian pink sauce joint.’ However the timing was simply not proper, so with the house nonetheless being obtainable, we revisited, and the timing lastly felt proper. The celebs aligned,” she mentioned.

Daughter’s will probably be an approximate 100-seat restaurant that may embody a devoted bar program that includes Italian-inspired cocktails and curated wines, in addition to a number of personal eating areas, together with a second-floor eating room that accommodates as much as 40 seated visitors or 60 for reception-style occasions. The restaurant is scheduled to be open for dinner service nightly, weekday lunches, and Sunday brunch.

The restaurant is at present present process an entire restoration and buildout, with Studiowest serving as architect and inside designer and Arch Builders as normal contractor. The Devilliers intend to honor the constructing’s wealthy historical past whereas creating a brand new id that serves the Uptown neighborhood for generations to come back.

“Our largest problem — and in addition our largest alternative — is honoring the historical past of the constructing with out making an attempt to recreate what was there earlier than,” she mentioned. “We’re not making an attempt to reopen Upperline. We’re opening Daughter’s in a constructing that has its personal story, and it’s our job to offer it a brand new chapter that feels worthy of what got here earlier than it.”

The longstanding structure will stay, together with the principle entrance on Upperline, the bar in the identical place, and the kitchen in the identical place. The group can also be restoring hardwood flooring, terrazzo flooring within the entrance bar room, and different integral historic components. The inside can even deliberately shift in really feel as diners transfer via the constructing. The entrance bar room might have a darker, moodier, den-like really feel with wealthy colours, whereas the palette will soften towards the Pitt Avenue aspect and the again eating room. The second flooring will probably be used as a devoted personal occasion house.

“Although we’re opening a brand new restaurant in a constructing with a storied previous, we would like it to really feel acquainted from the very first go to,” she mentioned. “We wish it to be heat, genuinely welcoming, and a spot folks need to go typically — a spot that feels prefer it has been there endlessly.”

The opening additionally represents what Mia Devillier described as a deliberate subsequent step for the group behind La Petite Grocery. “This represents considerate development. It’s not growth for growth’s sake — it’s including an idea that fills an actual want and that we’re genuinely obsessed with.”