Michael Gulotta named his Old Metairie restaurant after his great-grandmother Gaetana, whom the family called Tana, and the Sicilian dishes she made famous at home anchor the menu at Tana.
Gulotta grew up in New Orleans in a Sicilian family and studied culinary arts at Nicholls State University. He cooked in northern Italy, including the Liguria region along the Italian Riviera, and in southern Germany before coming home after Hurricane Katrina. He then spent seven years as chef de cuisine at Restaurant August. He opened MoPho in 2013 and Maypop in 2016, both known for pairing Southeast Asian cooking with Louisiana ingredients.
Tana started years earlier as a pop-up at Treo, a Tulane Avenue gallery and cocktail bar that later closed. Gulotta shelved the idea and brought it back on a much larger scale with business partner Jeff Bybee, a fellow Brother Martin High School graduate who had worked beside him for two decades. The restaurant opened at 2919 Metairie Road in December 2023. When Gulotta closed MoPho and Maypop in May 2025, he said he would focus his energy here…