Bucatini & Burlesque in the 7th Ward
Andrew Principe and Bella Blue in the dining room of Pulcinella
November 2025Dinner and a show and home by 10? Pulcinella! celebrates a year of serving up Sicilian comfort food – and offering sassy burlesque and drag shows for dessert, right upstairs at the Original Nite Cap cabaret.
– by Kim Ranjbar
photos by Ellis Anderson unless otherwise attributed
This column is underwritten in part by Matthew Peck Gallery
In historic Italian theatre, Pulcinella was a stock character who personifies the “everyman.” His traits shift wildly—rich or poor, wise or foolish—but his mannerisms are always outsized, his excess constant, and he inevitably champions the underdog, whether he means to or not.
This character seemed like the ideal icon for restaurant co-owners Bella Blue, Andrew Principe and JD Solomon.
“We found this antique Christmas card with Pulcinella sitting at the table with a big glass of wine and a huge plate of spaghetti,” explains Blue. “He’s like this big robust character who is a bit of an embodiment of New Orleans in terms of excessive celebration and over-indulgence.”
One of the many renderings of Pulcinella that hang on the walls of the restaurant
In 2021, dancer Bella Blue was performing Friday night burlesque shows at the popular Palm&Pine restaurant on Rampart Street. where she met one of the owners, Andrew Principe. The two began dating the next year and were married in 2023.
When the couple traveled to Charleston to feature Palm&Pine at the Food and Wine fest, they visited a “wine, cheese, charcuterie, chocolate and coffee bar,” according to Andrew, who says they both loved the concept.
They began toying with the idea of a business where Principe could focus on Italian wines, charcuterie and small plates and Blue could both teach dance and burlesque and perform.
“Then the building we’re currently in came to light,” Blue says. “For me, the big draw was that there was a whole second floor that was a fully built-out cabaret space.”
“It was like a lightning bolt hit us both,” says Andrew.
The two-story building at 1300 St. Bernard has a storied past. Signage for The Original Nite Cap had been discovered during past renovations at and had driven the a pre-pandemic inspiration to reinvigorate the old music club. And for the past six years, the ground floor of the building was home to Chef Matt Ribachonek’s the Green Room/Kukhnya, a Slavic “soul-food” restaurant – but it closed in the spring of 2024.
The building’s potential expanded their original concept. They looped in partner JD Solomon and in the fall of 2024, the Original Nite Cap reopened upstairs with Pulcinella! on the ground floor. Now they’re celebrating their first successful year there.
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Born and raised in Belle Chasse, Blue has been dancing since she was a toddler. Continuously in motion, Blue studied classical ballet and modern dance techniques at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and later went on to teach.
Shortly after the levee failures in 2005, Blue was introduced to burlesque and after auditioning for Trixie Minx's burlesque troupe Fleur de Tease, she made her debut as Jazzabella Blue in 2007. In the years that followed, Blue went on to explore exotic dance, establish her own troupe — The Foxglove Revue — found the New Orleans School of Burlesque (which she closed during the pandemic), and produced, directed and performed in shows and festivals across the country.
At The Original Nite Cap, Blue offers a monthly calendar loaded with events from Whiskey & Rhinestones Speakeasy burlesque starring Bella Blue herself to Tears & Tassles, a stylish cabaret guaranteed to get in your feels. In addition to karaoke and live music from Davis Rogan, the upstairs dance space also plays host to Blue’s pole and movement classes, helping dancers pull their own sets together and “supporting those who were interested in having a better relationship with movement and their own bodies.”
Bella Blue performing in the Original Nite Cap, photo courtesy the Andrew Principe
Eager to tell the story of the original Original Nite Cap, Blue reached out to the Historic New Orleans Collection, Preservation Resource Center and Orleans Parish assessors office to dig up as much information as she could.
“I don’t have any written verification. I don’t have pictures, I got nothin’,” laughs Blue. “Not for lack of trying.”
Her only window into the past comes from an oral history -- people from the neighborhood visiting, sharing memories of their parents frequenting The Original Nite Cap in its heyday during the late 60s and 70s when the nightclub was on the first floor and the owner lived upstairs.
The original sign is enshrined in the club
“In doing research about The Original Nite Cap, all you get is all the history about the Uptown club The Nite Cap, which is all about Big Chief [Alfred] Doucette.”
There was no connection between the two clubs, but Blue and her partners invited Doucette to The Original Nite Cap’s grand opening as a way to honor the broader musical and cultural lineage. “It’s obviously an important part of New Orleans history in general,” Blue explains.
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While Blue reigns upstairs at The Original Nite Cap, downstairs is the domain of co-owner Andrew Principe and Pulcinella’s executive chef Matty Hayes. Although Principe was born in New York and Hayes in New Orleans, they discovered common ground through their shared Sicilian heritage.
Both Principe and Hayes were fascinated by Loyola University associate history professor Justin Nystrom’s Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture.
“Part of the story of the restaurant is that we talked about how important New Orleans and, frankly, New York were in terms of Sicilian immigration and how that’s really shaped American food,” says Principe excitedly.
“Sicilians who immigrated to New Orleans were the original restaurateurs – they opened the original oyster bars, and they brought in lemons that put a stamp on the evolution of the cocktail.”
“Had my family immigrated later, I probably would've been born here. If Chef Matt Hayes' family immigrated sooner, we could’ve been neighbors in the Bronx,” says Principe.
While planning the menu at Pucinella!, Principe and Hayes shared memories of family meals and recipes, delighted to discover the similarities and differences in ingredients and preparations.
“It kind of characterizes what we’re trying to do with our food, simultaneously trying to be approachable, but also exemplifying what it might be like to eat dinner with a first-generation or second-generation Italian family at home.”
The stark charcoal, two-story building juts out on the corner of Marais Street and St. Bernard Avenue, but inside the dining room is a riot of color. Jewel tones of midnight blue, burgundy and gold evoke a Venetian carnival-like atmosphere.
A perfect example is one of the restaurant’s signature appetizers, the Oyster Artichoke Soup. A dish which has become a menu mainstay, the soup is made with crispy-fried P&J Oysters, creamy, nutty artichoke, basil oil and fennel.
“We sometimes get comments asking why we serve it with oyster crackers, and the answer is because that’s how Chef Matty’s grandmother did it.”
P&J Fried Oyster & Artichoke Soup with oyster crackers
The Meatball is another collaborative effort – a softball-sized primi served in a mini-cast iron pan made with beef and pork, the Chef's own Sunday gravy, whipped ricotta and their house made focaccia.
“There was debate as to whether it should be a single large ball or multiple smaller balls,” explains Principe. “We tested it out and the big ball was a real crowd-pleaser and it kind of stuck.”
The Meatball with house made focaccia
All of the pasta at Pulcinella! is either sourced from local purveyors like St. Claude’s build-your-own pasta bar Arabella Casa Di Pasta, or made in-house. Their seafood cannelloni made with Louisiana blue crab and Gulf shrimp has earned a permanent spot. And their version of the classic Bucatini all'Amatriciana with Benton's bacon replacing the usual guanciale and shameless heaps of pecorino is well on its way to earning its own standing.
Just recently, the restaurant introduced its first lasagna night, a dish only available on Thursdays due to the fact that Hayes will only make one large pan of this ten-layer, pork sausage and beef brisket wonder. “It’s spinach-topped to give that red, green, and white, just like the Italian flag,” laughs Principe.
Seafood Cannelloni with Louisiana blue crab and Gulf shrimp
Radiatore with roasted pumpkin and fried sage
The 7th Ward restaurant is also lucky to have Beverage Director Kimberly Patton Bragg behind the stick, a nationally recognized bartender from New York who came to New Orleans over 16 years ago. “She’s been so helpful, bringing all of her experience, including booking bands and such, experience she gained working at Three Muses. She’s been a real asset to us.”
The cocktail menu at Pulcinella! is short but sweet, offering equal billing for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. The Maschera Rossa with Lyre's Amaretti and Croatian cherry juice is as sippable as the Bel Signore with toasted hazelnut bourbon and orange-rosemary demerara, just without the heady punch.
While Principe spends his days as a healthcare consultant, his evenings are devoted to managing Pulcinella’s wine program. He became a wine enthusiast during his studies at Cornell University and after graduating, spent his evenings moonlighting as a wine seller for the Massachusetts-based Martignetti Companies.
“[Martignetti] has one of the largest Italian portfolios in the world. After doing that for five years, I got a pretty good education on Italian wines, about as good as you can get without dropping a fortune in a sommelier program,” laughs Principe.
Although the restaurant features a burlesque brunch starring Bella Blue every Saturday, they’re still navigating the balance of traffic the restaurant and cabaret.
“We recently rolled out the whole dinner and a show and we’re really trying to see how we can build on that concept,” says Principe. “Bella likes to say we’re probably one of the only places in town offering dinner and a show – and you can still be in bed by 10pm.”
Pulcinella! + The Original Nite Cap
1300 St. Bernard Ave.
504-221-1560
