Pascal's Manale, the 113-year-old Uptown restaurant known for inventing New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp, has renovated parts of its dining spaces and introduced new and updated dishes on Napoleon Avenue. The work follows ownership changes: Ray Brandt, an auto dealership magnate, bought it from the DeFelice family in 2019, and Dickie Brennan & Co. acquired it in 2023.
The overhaul included expanding and revamping the Manning Room, a dining space dedicated to Archie Manning and his family.
One of the most striking additions is a new wine cellar visible from the dining rooms. The restaurant has also expanded its wine selection, now weighted mostly toward Italian bottles, the same report notes.
A New Chef Reworking Old Roots
Chef Michael Sichel is leading the kitchen.
The menu pairs Pascal's Manale's longtime dishes with newer offerings.
Pascal's Manale opened in 1913 as a neighborhood corner grocery store and bar at Napoleon Avenue and Dryades Street, founded by Sicilian immigrant Frank Manale, and was later described as a bar, sandwich shop and restaurant, according to Where Y'at Magazine. Pascal Radosta took over the restaurant in 1937 and renamed it, folding his own name into Manale's, and its current address is 1838 Napoleon Ave.
The Dish That Built a New Orleans Legend
The restaurant's most famous contribution to New Orleans cuisine dates to 1954, when chef Pascal Radosta is said to have recreated a butter-and-pepper shrimp dish described by regular customer Jimmy Sutro. The Chicago detail is local lore, and the resulting peppery butter sauce became the template for New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp, a dish that later spread across menus throughout the Crescent City, per the same Where Y'at Magazine account. That signature barbecue shrimp remains on the menu today.
New and updated dishes now include an eggplant Napoleon filled with seafood stuffing and finished with lemon butter sauce and shrimp, a crab cake finished with crispy red onions and basil oil, and a fried oyster salad built on chopped kale, capers and pecorino, dressed with a Creole mustard vinaigrette. The kitchen also turns out nduja fra diavolo served with spaghetti and a veal bolognese made with fresh radiatori pasta. Oysters piccata is served with fresh pasta from the Brennan group's Commissary production kitchen.
The Marble Bar and Its Showman
Through all the changes, the restaurant's stand-up marble oyster bar remains, still staffed by Thomas “Uptown T” Stewart, Pascal's Manale's longtime oyster shucker. Stewart has manned the standing-only counter for decades, with performance-oriented patter at the marble-top bar, according to Where Y'at New Orleans. The restaurant also serves off-bottom oysters grown around Grand Isle alongside traditional Louisiana oysters.
Some public oyster areas have decreased in productivity amid coastal and environmental changes.
Some of the new decor has a second life of its own. Pascal's Manale acquired banquette seating from the former Palace Café, Dickie Brennan & Co.'s landmark Canal Street restaurant that closed on July 7, 2025, after 34 years, following a court ruling tied to its 35-year lease, according to WWL-TV.
Part of a Bigger Brennan Footprint
The renovation fits into a broader pattern of investment and change across New Orleans restaurants. Elsewhere, Hoodline previously reported on the group's holdings.
Pascal's Manale is located along Napoleon Avenue in Uptown New Orleans.
The restaurant currently serves dinner seven days a week. With the renovations and new dishes in place, Pascal's Manale enters its next era balancing more than a century of neighborhood history with the new ownership group's broader ambitions across the city.
