Compère Lapin in New Orleans' Warehouse District is hosting a one-night-only three-course tasting dinner on Tuesday, October 13, pairing James Beard Award-winning chef Nina Compton with visiting Australian chef Amber Doig of The Butler in Sydney's Potts Point. The collaborative menu, starting at 5:30 p.m., will put the two chefs' creations side by side while spotlighting Ōra King salmon, the premium New Zealand Chinook variety both chefs represent as official brand ambassadors.
According to New Orleans Magazine, tickets run $125 per person, not including tax and gratuity, with an optional beverage pairing available for an additional $35 per person. Seating is limited at the restaurant, located inside the Old No. 77 Hotel at 535 Tchoupitoulas St., and guests are urged to book ahead through OpenTable, with more details available at comperelapin.com.
The pairing is no accident. Both chefs belong to the Ōra King Ambassador Program, which maintains an international network of chefs who showcase sustainable seafood practices and collaborate on fine-dining events worldwide, according to Ōra King. Compton represents North America for the brand while Doig represents Australia, and the New Orleans dinner marks a rare chance to see their styles served at the same table.
What's on the Menu
The first course features a conch and cassava croquette alongside Ōra King salmon tartare with pickled pineapple sauce, plus cured Ōra King salmon prepared with coconut aguachile, sumac, kawakawa, curry leaf and wild scampi caviar. The second course pairs geera-spiced Ōra King salmon with pumpkin purée against a Wagyu rump cap dressed with horopito, salsa negra, wattleseed togarashi, green rice and crispy cassava. Dessert closes the night with soursop and citrus alongside a coconut pavlova finished with lemon, caramelized white chocolate, mascarpone and passionfruit.
Two Very Different Culinary Journeys
Compton's path to New Orleans ran through a national television spotlight. The Saint Lucia-born chef competed as a finalist and won fan favorite on Season 11 of Bravo's Top Chef: New Orleans in 2014, then permanently relocated to the city to open Compère Lapin at the Old No. 77 Hotel in 2015, according to New Orleans Tourism. The restaurant's name translates to Brother Rabbit, drawn from a Creole and Caribbean folklore trickster figure that reflects Compton's Saint Lucian childhood intertwined with Louisiana heritage, per the same source.
Her work at Compère Lapin earned her the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: South in May 2018, a distinction AP News describes as among the highest individual culinary honors in the country. Compton's father, the late Sir John George Melvin Compton, served three terms as Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, a heritage she explored further in her debut cookbook, Kwéyòl / Creole: Recipes, Stories and Tings from a St. Lucian's Chef Journey, published in April 2025, as noted by the Southern Smoke Foundation. Her cooking blends Saint Lucian recipes with classic French and Italian techniques honed during her time in Miami and New Orleans.
Doig's résumé runs through Mexico City flavors by way of New York. Before taking charge at The Butler, she spent time starting in 2015 working under chef Alex Stupak at his Empellón restaurant group studying regional Mexican cuisine, according to The Butler Sydney. The Christchurch, New Zealand-born chef, who has Māori Iwi ties to Waikato/Tainui and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, moved to Sydney at age 17 to pursue her culinary apprenticeship before being appointed head chef at The Butler in Potts Point in July 2017, per hospitality Magazine. Her regular menu there fuses Latin American techniques with Australian and New Zealand ingredients, a blend that shows up in the Wagyu and wattleseed dish she's bringing to New Orleans.
Why Ōra King Salmon
The fish anchoring the menu isn't ordinary salmon. Ōra King is a proprietary, selectively bred strain of King, or Chinook, salmon raised by the New Zealand King Salmon Company in the deep inlets of the Marlborough Sounds, with a breeding program spanning more than two decades and nine generations, according to SEATOPIA. Often called the Wagyu of the Sea in fine-dining circles, it's prized for its high natural oil content, marble-like texture and umami profile, and it represents a small fraction of global salmon supply compared to farmed Atlantic salmon.
New Orleans' appetite for the ingredient has been building. Chef Donald Link's restaurant group put Ōra King on the menu at the newly relocated Chemin à la Mer inside the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans last month, Hoodline previously reported, around the time that restaurant reopened as a French brasserie in late September. The Compère Lapin dinner adds another data point to the growing presence of the high-end, sustainably farmed fish across the city's fine-dining scene.
For now, the focus is on a single night at a single table. With Compère Lapin's seating capacity limited, advance reservations through OpenTable are essential for anyone hoping to sample both chefs' takes on the same premium salmon side by side.
