A dozen years ago Doris Metropolitan (620 Chartres St.) brought a very different kind of steakhouse to New Orleans, opening its first U.S. location in the French Quarter with high style and a Mediterranean accent.
Soon, its founder and president, Doris Rebi Chia, and a new business partner will bring a different restaurant Uptown, transforming a Magazine Street spot into a playground for meat lovers, with contemporary design, music and art all part of the concept.
Doris Metropolitan Studio is taking shape at 4734 Magazine St., and is slated to open in early September.
The restaurant at 4734 Magazine St. will soon open as Doris Metropolitan Studio.(Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The address until recently was home to Son of a Bun Burger Bar, and the restaurant Misa before that. Both of those restaurants were run by Tal Sharon also has Tal’s Hummus (4800 Magazine St.) just across the street.
Tal’s Hummus, at 4800 Magazine St., is a casual restaurant for Israeli street food. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Rebi Chia and Sharon teamed up for the new Doris Metropolitan Studio as a separate collaborative project, though the new restaurant shares some of the French Quarter steakhouse’s D.N.A. in the choice of meats and stylish setting.
“It’s a studio for the art of cuisine, for the art of music, for performance,” Rebi Chia said.
Wine racks line the dining room walls at Doris Metropolitan restaurant in New Orleans. (Photo by Elsa Hahne)
Elsa Hahne
Steak and burgers will be central but it’s neither a steakhouse nor your typical burger joint. Picture a butcher shop fused with a restaurant, with its own in-house bakery, a snug bar and an open patio facing the street.
A charcoal-fired grill is the centerpiece of the open kitchen, where there’s a butcher case with different cuts of beef and house-made sausage.
The restaurant at 4734 Magazine St. will soon open as Doris Metropolitan Studio.(Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
You’ll be able to pick a prime cut burger or customize your own from the available meats (perhaps entrecôte, or tenderloin or brisket) ground to order and cooked on the charcoal. The restaurant will have “burger kits,” with buns and toppings, for grilling at home.
There will be changing specialty steaks, perhaps a Wagyu cowboy cut or a strip loin, and there will be small plates, including a specialty taking cues from a sushi bar, with slices of specialty steak lightly grilled and paired with sushi rice and other accoutrements.
A butcher shop counter is next to the bar at Doris Metropolitan restaurant in the French Quarter. (Photo by Dinah Rogers, NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune)
DINAH ROGERS
The new restaurant will be a showcase for visiting artists and musicians and plans to have late night DJ sessions on its schedule.
Doris Metropolitan Studio will have private dining room, and also a chef’s table overlooking the open kitchen. The restaurant will serve lunch and dinner, with weekend brunch.
Doris Metropolitan serves steaks and a menu with modern Mediterranean flavors in the French Quarter.
Advocate staff photo by Ian McNulty
The two partners in the new restaurant are both Israeli expats who have been friends for many years. Doris Metropolitan’s first location is in San Jose, Costa Rica. Sharon once ran a beachside restaurant in that country, where the two met.
Later, a vacation to New Orleans inspired Rebi Chia to expand in New Orleans, opening at Chartres Street in 2013. Sharon worked there in the early days as baker and later a chef, before opening Tal’s Hummus in 2016. The Doris Metropolitan brand has since expanded with a Houston steakhouse too.
Doris Metropolitan Studio
4734 Magazine St., projected opening early September
Dining and Cooking