When the Virgin Hotel opens in downtown New Orleans later this year, it will also debut a new restaurant with a chef who has already built a local following.
Alex Harrell has been named executive chef for the hotel and its forthcoming restaurant, called Commons Club. He’ll oversee menus for the hotel’s bar, poolside lounge and in-room service as well.
The Commons Club is the flagship restaurant at the Virgin Hotel in downtown New Orleans.
All the Virgin Hotels around the U.S. use the same name for their flagship restaurants – each is called Commons Club. But at each one, the chef takes a different tack with its menu and identity.
For Harrell, this New Orleans version of Commons Club will showcase the modern Southern culinary style he’s developed through the years.
“It will be a continuation of what I’ve doing since the Angeline days,” he said. “It will be a refined, elevated Southern style with strong Mediterranean influences.”
The Commons Club is the flagship restaurant at the Virgin Hotel in downtown New Orleans.
Harrell developed and ran the French Quarter restaurant Angeline as chef/owner from 2015 to 2018. After Angeline closed, Harrell became executive chef at the Elysian Bar, the restaurant at the Hotel Peter & Paul in Faubourg Marigny. The Elysian Bar announced last week that it had named local chef Jonathan Klaskala to take over Harrell’s post there.
We knew what we’d signed up for at the Elysian Bar. After all, I selected “church” for the seating option on the online reservation form. It b…
The Virgin Hotel is an $80 million project from Virgin-brand creator Richard Branson. The 13-story, 238-room hotel at 550 Baronne St. is slated to open in late summer.
Commons Club will unfold across a series of interconnected rooms, including a lounge and a café for coffee and morning meals. Harrell said his goal is for the restaurant to serve different roles throughout the day, such as an after-work spot for drinks and snacks and a dinner destination for people headed to downtown events and shows.
“I want it to be identified as a great New Orleans restaurant, not just a hotel restaurant,” he said.
Commons Club at the Virgin Hotel
550 Baronne St.
Projected to open late summer 2021
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