Mosca's
| Mosca's | |
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Mosca's in 2009
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| Restaurant information | |
| Established | 1946 |
| Food type | Louisiana Creole Italian cuisine |
| Street address | 4137 U.S. Highway 90 West |
| City | Avondale |
| State | Louisiana |
| Postal code/ZIP | 70094 |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 29°54′40″N 90°13′45″W / 29.911227°N 90.229290°W |
| Website | Official Site |
Mosca's is a Louisiana Creole Italian restaurant in Avondale, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Operated by the same family since it opened in 1946, it has long been regarded as one of New Orleans' best restaurants, known for dishes such as Oysters Mosca, crab salad, and Chicken a la Grande.
Provino Mosca, an Italian immigrant, and his wife Lisa, had a restaurant in Chicago Heights, Illinois before they moved to New Orleans in 1946, after their daughter, Mary, married a Louisiana oysterman, Vincent Marconi. They opened Mosca's in Avondale, a remote area on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, in a building owned by New Orleans crime family boss Carlos Marcello, who became a regular customer of the restaurant. Marcello's son still owns the restaurant building. (It is also sometimes reported that Provino Mosca had been a chef for Al Capone in Chicago, but the family says this is untrue.)
Provino died in 1962. Lisa (by then known as "Mama Mosca"), two of their children, Johnny and Mary, and Mary's husband Vincent took over the restaurant. "Mama Mosca" died in 1979 and Vincent died in 2004. The restaurant was damaged in Hurricane Katrina but reopened in 2006, repaired and with a larger, air-conditioned kitchen, but otherwise mostly unchanged. Johnny mostly retired after the hurricane, but Johnny's wife Mary Jo Angelotti, who took over as chef after Mary retired, continues to operate the restaurant with other family members, including Johnny (until his death in 2011) and Mary Jo's daughter Lisa.
Mosca's received an America's Classics award from the James Beard Foundation in 1999.
Mosca's is known for its out-of-the-way location, a seventeen mile drive on U.S. Highway 90 from the Crescent City Connection bridge, and its ramshackle exterior, as well as for its distinctive Italian Creole food.
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