Walking into Alma Café, the Honduran restaurant that has become a breakfast and lunch hub in the Bywater, you immediately understand Chef Melissa Araujo’s vision and roots. The mix of family and culture is evident in the portraits of her family on the walls, the menu boasting Honduran delights, and the coffee coming from a Honduran farm. Alma translates to “soul” in English, and Araujo’s soul is on full display here.
Chef Melissa Araujo of Alma Café
Araujo was born in La Ceiba, Atlántida, Honduras, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She moved to New Orleans with her family when she was 16. She was always drawn to restaurant work and got her start as a dishwasher and line cook. Araujo worked her way through the ranks and, after a brief stint in law school, she decided to pursue her passion for cooking.
After spending time in Milan, Italy, gaining experience in kitchens and perfecting culinary artistry, she returned to New Orleans and worked at Restaurant R’evolution, Domenica, and Mondo. At Doris Metropolitan, she worked as sous chef. In 2010 and 2015, she was on the team that won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South.
After owning her own catering company, Saveur Catering, Araujo decided to open her restaurant.
“We opened during the pandemic, which was interesting,” Araujo said. “We promoted the restaurant for two months before we opened and we offered table and delivery service. We’ve been successful ever since.”
Like other restaurants, Alma has been dealing with public-health regulations that have been in place throughout the pandemic. From masks to limited seating and spaced tables, Araujo admits it’s been difficult keeping up with the constant changes and receiving financial relief.
“As a business owner, it’s been frustrating,” she said. “We feel as if our industry has been overlooked. Small businesses struggle to get relief while the bigger businesses apply and have no problems getting funding.”
Despite the challenges, Alma Café has been a welcome addition to the neighborhood and Araujo is happy to be here.
“We listen to the neighbors and their concerns,” she said. “We want to keep a good relationship with them. We are a neighborhood joint, and without them we can’t survive.”
The farm-to-table menu here is all about breakfast and lunch, although Araujo hopes they can expand to dinner in the future. She said that it’s important to her to use small, local farmers and vendors. She gets a weekly shipment from Yum Yum Greens, an urban farm in Nebraska, and also uses food from farmers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Alma Breakfast
All-day breakfast includes highlights such as the Alma Breakfast: two eggs, refried beans, sweet plantains, avocado, queso fresco, and homemade crema; Louisa Toast: Louisiana lump blue crab, soft scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and herbs served on white rustic bread with chive cream cheese; Breakfast Tacos: three homemade corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, roasted poblano, pepper jack cheese, crispy potatoes, and avocado served with salsa; and Corned Beef Hash: Homemade corned beef hash, home potatoes served with two sunny-side-up eggs.
The lunch menu is sure to delight with Enchiladas Hondureñas: two enchiladas made with local Louisiana ground beef, green cabbage, sliced boiled egg, homemade red sauce, and queso cotija; Carne Asada: Louisiana-raised Wagyu ribeye, torched cherry tomatoes and encurtido served with four homemade corn tortillas; and Camarones a la Diabla: grilled local Louisiana jumbo shrimp topped with Calabrian chile butter and Japanese panko breadcrumbs.
In addition to the food, Araujo prides herself on the Honduran coffee that she serves. It comes from a farm-to-cup producer in Honduras that Araujo said is the highest quality coffee she could find. The coffee company, Alma Coffee, shares a name with the café but is a different business. You can enjoy this delicious Honduran coffee at the café, and even take some home. Alma sells their coffee by the bag.
“If you’re all about coffee, the coffee will hit,” she said. “It’s on the high-end scale. New Orleans is a coffee city and I wanted the coffee here to be top quality.”
From her farm-to-table menu to her mostly female staff, Araujo is building a sustainable restaurant that is not only good for her soul but the soul of others.
This is evident when you walk in and see a mural of Mayan moon goddess Ixchel on the wall. Holding a rabbit and a cup of coffee, Ixchel has been important to Araujo, especially over the past year.
She explained, “2020 was a tough personal year for me, and bringing Ixchel to life was a savior.”
Most importantly, Araujo wants everyone who comes here to know that this café is very much a part of her and Alma lives into its name. “I’m baring my soul to the people who come here,” she said. “This place is a part of me; it’s who I am.”
Alma Café: 800 Louisa St., 504-381-5877. Hours: Closed on Tuesday. Monday and Wednesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.; plus Wednesday through Friday, 4 p.m. through 7 p.m.
