The building has a bright red fleur-de-lis crawfish painted on the side, which is about as subtle as the food inside.
Heard Dat Kitchen sits at the corner of Felicity and Magnolia streets in Central City, in a compact blue building that started as a mostly takeout window in 2015. Chef Jeffery Heard spent eight years running a catering company named after his mother before opening this place, and those years show.
He grew up cooking Creole and soul food the way his mother made it, and the menu here is built entirely around that foundation, with his own creative twists stacked on top. The restaurant is a family operation: his daughter Tia’Nesha and son Jeffrey Jr. both work the kitchen, and on busy days the line snakes outside to the picnic tables…