From an early age, chef Trey Rintala always knew he wanted to cook. “I’d gone to Emeril’s book signings at Tower Records when I was 12 years old. Watching ‘Yan Can Cook’ and the chefs on PBS, those were my sports heroes,” said the Slidell native. But his road from wide-eyed child fascinated with the culinary world to working in fine dining was circuitous, to say the least. His education took him to Mississippi, where he studied anthropology and fine arts rather than cooking. The siren’s song of the kitchen proved too powerful, however, and Rintala found himself in the service world full time upon returning to New Orleans just after Hurricane Katrina. Then, after teaching himself culinary techniques in the kitchen at Whole Foods, an unexpected opportunity presented itself.
“In 2014, I wrote Kristen Essig a comment card when we went to Ste. Marie, and I asked for a job. And they said, ‘We’re actually opening up Meauxbar,’ so I was on the opening team of that, as a prep cook. And then I basically got grandfathered into working lines.” Eventually, Rintala made his way up to sous chef, working every position in the restaurant and developing a lauded brunch program. Then Katrina hit, and Rintala, like most New Orleanians, found himself personally and professionally unmoored.
With no job and few prospects, Rintala decided to go on his own, creating a “food fund” popup where he could both experiment with culinary ideas and, at the same time, help feed members of the suffering arts community in New Orleans. When Meauxbar finally reopened and offered him his position back, the chef decided that the freedom and creativity offered by operating a solo gig, and he struck out on his own. His concept, Bertie’s Intergalactic Diner, appeared at Okay Bar and the Happy Raptor Distillery before eventually finding a permanent home at Carrollton Station on Willow street.
What you can expect at Bertie’s is “bar food” only nominally. The menu sports a tuna melt, a riff on a BLT, cheese fries and pizza rolls, and so forth, but there’s wildly more going on under the hood than you’d ever expect. Take that bacon sandwich, for instance, an upscale, tropically-inspired pork belly affair with pineapple jam, toasted almonds, havarti cheese, iceberg lettuce and herbed mayo that would easily cost three times as much in a white tablecloth establishment. The fish in the “fish and chips” is smothered in pancake batter, lovingly fried and served with a homemade tartar sauce featuring charred onion powder and fresh dill that takes ten steps to make. A tuna melt sports a seared tuna steak with English pea puree, Calabrian chili cream cheese and pickled onions.
More than anything, Rintala delights in the ability to change up the menu often to keep things interesting, while consistently maintaining his fine dining chops and dedication to classical culinary techniques. “It’s like coloring outside of the lines a bit,” Rintala said. “This is like a living, breathing art project that’s edible. You can come in after a few weeks and have a completely different experience than you had weeks prior, but it feels like it’s from the same set of hands.”
Anyone who’s eaten at Bertie’s while catching some live music, open mic comedy or trivia night at Carrollton Station quickly understands that this bar food is punching well above its weight, sometimes shockingly so. Sure, the menu can sometimes be unpredictable, according to the chef’s whims and peccadillos, but consider that the price of admission for this wonderfully original, intergalactic culinary cruise. After all, who doesn’t want to take a ride on a rocket ship? Especially when that rocket has pizza rolls and toasted pound cake with Oreo cookie butter.
Berties Intergalactic Diner, at Carrolton Station, 8140 Willow St., @berties.intergalactic.diner
About the Chef
A Slidell native, chef Trey Rintala’s culinary path began in fast food as a teenager and wended its way to French fine dining before striking out on his own to develop Bertie’s, where he finds the freedom exhilarating. “There are no boundaries, and that’s what’s exciting to me,” he said. “I can just come here and cook what makes me happy and try to serve that happiness to the public. It’s like writing songs or making a painting. It’s like, ‘This is me on a plate. I want to share this with you. And I hope that we can connect over that when I see you in person next.’”
