Chef Paul Artigues has never been one to shy away from the challenges. At The Green Goddess, which he founded with Chris DeBarr in 2009 and of which he became head chef and owner in 2012, his kitchen was starkly different from the expansive Grande Dame French Quarter restaurants that surrounded him. “It was all electric, so we were using electric stoves and everything, which limits what you’re really able to put out. There was no air conditioning and no ventilation, so if we were really busy, the whole place filled with smoke. It was really tough sometimes.”
Undaunted, Artigues and his small crew still managed to impress with his globe-trotting, elevated fare for more than a decade, with dishes ranging widely in their inspiration, from classic Creole to Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, and wholly novel concoctions. Then, nature intervened. The COVID pandemic and Hurricane Ida provided a double punch combo from which “The Goddess” proved unable to recover. But rather than stay down for the count, Artigues decided that fate had a personal message for him instead.
“That was the biggest sign in the world saying, ‘You’ve got to get out of here,’” Artigues said. “It was always in the back of my mind, finding a new, bigger place. I think we made a good menu in that spot, but we were really limited. We weren’t making what we really wanted to make. We were making what we could make.”
So, in January 2022, Artigues and his wife Olivia opened Breakaway’s R&B in the Marigny. While the bigger, more modern space came with a greater sense of freedom, the chef wouldn’t view it as an opportunity to make it Green Goddess 2.0. “I think we were a little ambitious with what we were trying to do with that spot, and I think this place, we’re kind of doing the opposite.”
The menu at Breakaway’s, named after the famous Irma Thomas song, is both a gentle nod to the vegan and vegetarian fare beloved at Green Goddess, but also a callback to dishes Artigues grew up loving during his New Orleans childhood. Po-boys at Breakaways feature not only a long-braised, classic beef daube – a dish inspired by Sunday night dinners at his aunt’s house – but also gargantuan Gulf shrimp. Combine the two for an over-the-top surf-and-turf sandwich that’ll make you sweat with pleasure.
Breakaway’s menu caters equally to vegans and carnivores. The beef daube and hearty chicken and andouille gumbo sit happily next to red bean falafel, and smoked chicken over creamy pasta has no qualms living next to fried tofu po-boys and vegan yaka-mein.
When it came to the cocktail program, the Artigues knew they wanted to feature sno-balls. “My wife came up with the name ‘Sno-BLITZ,. Total homage to Hansen’s Sno-Bliz. These get you blitzed, that’s the only difference.” The boozy sno-ball options include everything from vodka and nectar cream, Vietnamese coffee with whiskey and condensed milk, and a pair of sno-balls employing green or red absinthe.
Most of all Chef Artigues longed to create a space and a menu that embraced the comfort and community of their new Marigny home. “We’re really trying to have an old New Orleans bar that I’d like to sit in,” he said. “A place that I probably have sat in before that’s probably not here anymore. I figured, bringing that to this neighborhood, people would really enjoy it.”
One year into their Marigny residency, it’s become decidedly clear: People already do.
About the Chef
A native New Orleanian, Paul Artigues worked as a journeyman cook in a variety of local kitchens before opening The Green Goddess, where his love for dishing up eclectic, worldly comfort dishes served as a delightfully unique option for French Quarter diners. And if he just happens to look familiar, there’s a reason for that. When he’s not in the kitchen, you might have seen him behind the drum kit for bands like Die Rotzz and, for decades, with Guitar “Lightning” Lee, not to mention a small role on HBO’s “Treme.” Whether it’s rhythm and blues or a restaurant and bar, Artigues surely knows his way
around a little R&B, and it shows.