Bragging about selling locally caught Louisiana seafood but actually plating up fishes from Vietnam, China or some other far-off land has been a feature of New Orleans restaurant life since the first Creole cooks fired up cast-iron pots filled with daube glacé.

That Hollygrove fish fry joint touting Des Allemands catfish? It just might be Swai or Basa, frozen, then shipped in from thousands of miles away.

The lodestar at Mr. Shrimp’s Kitchen is genuine, fresh Louisiana seafood. Owner and chef de cuisine Larry Thompson Jr routinely treks two hours round trip to Lafitte, Louisiana where he loads up a truck filled with local fish, crabs and shrimps straight off the docks and direct from the fishermen earning a living down the bayou.

It’s not far, distance-wise from the 7th Ward where Thompson grew up under the watchful eye of his grandma, the legendary cook Olantha ‘Mama Peaches’ Richardson but it may as well be the other side of the galaxy.

A cycle of community-based economy is happening through Mr. Shrimp’s hands. Buy local fish, pay local fishermen, hire and pay local workers – and finally – feed all the locals and tourists you can when they step up to the counter at Thompson’s cafe inside Riverwalk Outlet Mall on the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans.

On my first visit a little lagniappe is offered the moment I approach the counter. It’s an enormous U-10 shrimp hot out of a big boil pot riding a gas flame just a few feet away. You need to huff and puff on the thing a little bit so you don’t burn your mouth.

Oh, and it will be the freshest shrimp you ever put in your mouth in the city proper.

We may as well be at an old line French traiteur perched on the edge of Boulogne-sur-Mer harbor; no one would be the wiser.

The good chef’s proprietary boil seasoning ‘Throw It In the Pot’ hits like a freightliner. There’s not a lot of chile pepper heat but it’s a tremendous umambi bomb of pure Creole flavor. I could take down a dozen of these shrimps but at heart I’m just an old school po boy roughneck looking for his next fix.

Thompson was already a seasoned restaurant cook when his father fell ill a few years ago. Taking care of his dad drove him to refine the pedigree he had begun developing all those years ago in the 7th Ward.

When his papa passed away Chef Larry threw himself headlong into becoming a fresh seafood vendor and after innumerable twists, turns and vagaries of fortune the man can now be found every day at Riverwalk Outlet mall selling fresh fish dishes that would bring triple the price at the grand dame restaurants of New Orleans.

There are no white tablecloths at Mr. Shrimp’s but there might as well be.

Chef Larry Thompson Jr is hard at work seven days a week at his cafe in the Riverwalk mall. Somewhere up above his father Larry Sr. and his grandmother Mama Peaches are surely smiling down on his efforts to feed New Orleans

Mr. Shrimp’s Kitchen
500 Port of New Orleans Pl.
New Orleans, Louisiana
70130