Eric Marshall, left, and Shaun Champagne
Provided photo by Katherine Kimball
Eric Marshall and Shaun Champagne both came to New Orleans for school and both worked in pizza parlors, which led to culinary careers. Marshall is from Houston and has worked at Domenica and Mid City Pizza. Champagne is from New Iberia and worked at Mid City Pizza, Compere Lapin, Avo and elsewhere. Together, they launched Hi-Tide Pizza, which offers pizzas, crudo and some appetizers. Hi-Tide is at Henry’s Uptown Bar on Sundays and Mondays, will be at Miel Brewery and Taproom on Tuesday, Jan. 13, and is filling its calendar for upcoming dates. For more information, visit hitidepc.com or @hi_tide_pizza on Instagram.
Gambit: How did you get into making pizza?
Shaun Champagne: Originally, one of my first cooking jobs here was at Lazaro’s, attached to Banks Street Bar. It was a pizza place that ended up becoming Mid City Pizza. I was working there and learning everything I could. I worked at other restaurants as well, but I always went back to Mid City Pizza.
I worked at Compere Lapin for a long time. I started out at garde manger and worked at a bunch of stations. I worked at the raw bar for the longest amount of time.
Eric Marshall: I came to New Orleans for graduate school. To get a scholarship, I had to live here and be a resident. So I got a job at Domenica, and I worked there for a few months.
When Mid City Pizza moved across the street, I started making pizza there, and Shaun was a manager there. I taught for six years and worked at a bunch of pizza places, like Echo when that was going on. I worked at Zee’s and St. Pizza as well.
Gambit: How did you start your pop-up?
M: We both have kids and were looking to make something happen. We were looking to do something with pizza. We were brainstorming and thought of the pan pizza idea because it’s pretty mobile. But the pans are really expensive. We didn’t have the money to buy them until I won a bet on a golf tournament. It covered like 18 pans.
With Shaun’s raw bar experience, we were doing something different. That’s how we came up with what Hi-Tide does.
C: We always wanted to try our hand. We worked at so many restaurants, and you always wonder, “If it was me, I might want to try it like this.”
M: We are grateful to Nick (Lama) over at Avo. When we started, Shaun was the chef de cuisine at Avo.
C: Avo was closed on Sundays and Mondays so we got the pizza pans and did some testing. We really didn’t have a place to go. We didn’t have an oven, so we needed a kitchen. I brought it up and Nick said, “Why don’t you do it here?” Luckily the weather was nice. We’d just open the door to the kitchen and sell directly out of the kitchen. It was pretty cool.
M: Now we have a mobile oven, and we can go anywhere. It’s a gas oven with a pizza stone. It’s all you need.
Gambit: What’s on your menu?
M: It’s a pan pizza, and the pans are Detroit style. They’re Lloyd Pans. They’re really good.
With our heavier pizzas, we can put certain ingredients that work better on a pan pizza. They’re kind of unmanageable on a New York slice.
C: We used to do a patatas bravas pizza, where we had a salsa roja and salt-roasted potatoes.
The caviar pizza idea was just for fun. It was like, what else can we throw on these pizzas that no one else does? I love caviar. I was like, if we can find a way to sell some caviar pizzas, we can make some money and have some caviar to take home.
That was one of the pizzas that blew up and took off. We were aiming for three or four of them, but then we sold out in the first couple hours. So it was like, OK, let’s do more.
People were making TikTok reels and videos about it, and it started getting us a lot of traction on Instagram and things like that. When people tried that and liked it, they were willing to try other things. So we were like, let’s get some lobster and try that on a pizza.
M: Other things started as one thing and morphed into something else. We have a Pizza Parlor, which is guanciale with vodka sauce and confit garlic. That’s one of more classic pizzas. But it started as a cheese-less amatriciana vodka pizza.
The Bacon Parm, which has an onion sauce on the bottom — caramelized onions that we puree — it comes with this Parmesan cream that Shaun makes that people have really been liking.
We have a strong rotation of five pizzas that people always want to see.
C: The OG Tuna was our first crudo. It’s officially a tartare dressed with za’atar seasoning, lemon juice, mint and toum, which is like a garlic mayo.
Another popular crudo was the Broken Coconut. That was more of a sashimi sliced crudo with lime zest and sea salt and mango relish, and if kumquats are in season, I put kumquat wheels on there. Sometimes I do it with salmon roe or trout roe on top. It’s got coconut milk seasoned with fish sauce, lime juice and zest, and chili oils and herb oils. It’s a gorgeous plate.
Dining and Cooking