Roux Creole Cuisine brings a taste of New Orleans to Laguna Beach

Roux Creole Cuisine opened less than two weeks ago in Laguna Beach and it has already drawn repeat customers.

On Wednesday, Laguna residents Jim and Dorothy Broersma made their second visit to Roux since it opened Aug. 22 at 860 Glenneyre St., the space Cafe Zoolu occupied for 24 years before Michael and Toni Leech, the husband-and-wife owners, decided to retire and close the restaurant in May 2016.

The Broersmas said they were impressed with the catfish and salmon entrees they had on their first visit.

“We have been here [in Laguna Beach] for 20 years and tried every restaurant,” Dorothy said. “There is nothing like this in town.”

Michael Byrne, co-owner of The Saloon bar in Laguna, thought along similar lines as Dorothy in that Laguna could use a dose of hearty, Creole dishes like shrimp and grits and stuffed crab based on recipes steeped in a family’s New Orleans roots.

Chef Norm Theard was just the business partner Byrne sought as the two renovated the 1939 cottage to create an atmosphere akin to walking into a good friend’s house for dinner.

Photos of Theard’s family and New Orleans’ landmarks adorn the walls, including one portrait of Theard’s mother, Yvonne, for whom the eponymous dish “shrimp Yvonne” is named.

Theard spent many hours watching and helping his mother cook while growing up in Houston. His parents were born and raised in New Orleans, among a multi-generational line of family members who migrated to the city beginning in the 1800s.

In an interview at Roux, Theard said his great-great grandmother, who grew up in Haiti, used Creole staples such as crawfish, oysters and okra and was later hired to cook for a New Orleans family.

“Our food has a little more finesse than Cajun,” Theard said of Creole cuisine, which relies on myriad seasonings such as onion and garlic powders and cayenne pepper, and includes a lot of seafood.

For “shrimp Yvonne,” shell-on shrimp are sauteed and served with a garlic- and thyme-infused sauce made with seafood stock and thickened with roux, an emulsion of butter and flour that forms the base of several classic French sauces.

Theard serves bread on the side to sop up the sauce.

“It encapsulates a lot of the flavors my mom used to cook with,” Theard said of the shrimp dish.

Theard brings more than 20 years of experience in the food business. He began as an oyster shucker in college, progressed to line cook, and eventually earned a job as executive chef of Sheraton Hotels & Resorts in Culver City.

He opened Creole Chef restaurant in Los Angeles in 2005, months before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The onslaught of post-Katrina news coverage helped put Creole Chef on the map and it stayed in business for five years, Theard said.

Theard was running a catering company last year when his sister, Christine Theard, suggested he speak with Byrne, a Laguna Beach resident.

Christine is Byrne’s cardiologist. Byrne told her he wanted to open a Creole restaurant in Laguna and knew the Leeches were eyeing retirement, the Daily Pilot reported.

“She touted [Theard] to be an incredible Creole chef,” Byrne said during an interview at Roux. “I said, ‘Cool.’ ”

The two men spoke on the phone a couple of times and then met in person for dinner at Zoolu.

“I originally thought of doing consulting,” Theard said. “I was going to offer any advice I could.

“After we met, I saw the potential vibe in here.”

The restaurant can seat 39 customers and takes reservations. Theard does not have to go too far to get to work.

He is currently living in an apartment above the restaurant.

Diners can eat at the bar, watching sous chef Tyler Nix prepare dishes such as seafood gumbo, sauteed catfish topped with chunks of lump crab meat with a browned-butter sauce, or a garlic salad.

For the salad, the cook lays sauteed eggplant slices on a bed of spinach, which is tossed with a garlic dressing. A melted slice of Brie cheese tops the salad, which is served with pickled corn and whole, roasted garlic cloves.

“Usually you don’t see Brie on a salad,” Dorothy Broersma said. “It is kind of unique.”

Byrne said he hopes Roux becomes a reliable, neighborhood place that people walk to from nearby residential areas.

“This has been a 10-year dream for me,” Byrne said.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce