Inside Acamaya, Ana Castro’s Hotly Anticipated Mexican Mariscos Restaurant in New Orleans

On Sunday, July 7, Acamaya (3070 Dauphine Street) had only been open for two days, but one party was already making a second visit. “We’re back,” exclaimed the group as they walked in right at 5 p.m. That’s the kind of place Ana Castro’s new restaurant in New Orleans’s Bywater neighborhood is: somewhere you want to return again and again.

Acamaya is the hotly anticipated solo debut from Castro, the James Beard Award-nominated former chef of Lengua Madre, opened in partnership with her sister Lydia Castro. It’s a Mexico City-style restaurant with a menu of hot and cold Mexican mariscos, a catch-all term for seafood or shellfish that is “an entire culture of its own,” says Castro. Acamaya, in turn, is a Spanish word for a crustacean similar to a crawfish.

You won’t find crawfish on the menu here, though. You will find oysters, ceviche, aguachile, seafood cocktail, and fish tostadas alongside sopes, chochoyotes, costras, and carne asada. It’s a celebration of the sisters’ Mexican heritage — an exuberant, graceful mix of assertive and comforting flavors; of traditional Oaxacan ingredients and local products; and of ethereal interiors and sharp, geometric angles.

“This restaurant feels like a completely different version of me,” Castro tells Eater. A lot happened for her in the last year, both personally and professionally, including the closure of Lengua Madre and the end of a long-term relationship. “I feel like I’m an entirely different person,” with Acamaya, she says.

This renewed energy is reflected in an upbeat, vibrant atmosphere, backed by the sounds of Uruguayan rap or Argentine rock and friendly staff who advance the meal without overearnestness. The menu showcases tradition, like the shrimp aguachile — “it deviates almost none from a traditional aguachile,” says Castro — and nuance, like the bass ceviche, “which is completely off its rocker.” That dish combines the fresh fish with cherries, jicama, and chamoy, which Castro says “is not really used in savory applications,” but is made without sugar at Acamaya.

The hamachi tostada with pineapple and tepache is Castro’s favorite dish on the menu, a nod to tacos al pastor with a cure on the fish that she would use for the pork version. Another favorite is a deceptively simple seasonal dish, the tomato salad with chapulines, guajillo peppers, and scallions. Fresh slices of heirloom tomatoes mix with roasted cherry tomatoes and tomato pulp confit to provide three layers of flavor — sweet and caramelized, stewed and savory, and acidic and bright — “all tied together with the chapulines [grasshopper] vinaigrette.”

There are plump crab claws from Higgins Seafood in Lafitte, Louisiana, swimming in salsa verde asada with candy cane peppers; and lightly charred okra atop poppyseed sikil p’aak, a spread made from pumpkin seeds (sikil) and tomatoes (p’aak) but with the non-traditional inclusion of poppyseed. “I love how they get stuck in your teeth,” says Castro. There’s a seafood cocktail with shrimp and octopus, a shrimp costra (“cheese chicharron”); and green adobo shrimp meant to mimic the flavors of chorizo verde, eaten with the shells on. The chochoyotes are an ode to a Lengua Madre favorite, a dish that required Castro to “switch my brain off from a tasting menu,” she says. The small masa dumplings, combined with more Higgins crab, chanterelles, and a corn beurre blanc, are “comforting, familiar, and new, all at once,” Castro says.

But the star of Acamaya is a new dish for Castro, one that embodies her desire to “move on” from acclaimed Lengua Madre. It’s the arroz negro, a funky, earthy dish with mussels, squid, and huitlacoche, a fungus grown among corn crops known also as “corn smut” or Mexican truffle. She gets the huitlacoche overnighted from a purveyor out of Los Angeles because of its “shortish” life, requiring frequent trips to the airport. “I have a reverence for it. When I eat that dish, I think, this is worth it,” she says.

Castro doesn’t expect customers to know all of these ingredients, for the record. A glossary on the back of the menu is a gift, empowering the diner and relieving a bit of pressure from the dining room team. “They can still expand on the glossary, but it helps free up their time tableside,” she says, especially given the large footprint of the restaurant. “In the overarching idea of introducing more of this style of Mexican cooking, we’re not going to do it by being standoffish,” says Castro. “We’re going to do it generously.” Only terms printed on the menu are included in the glossary (chapulines, chiltepin, chochoyotes, epazote, quelites, and more), so if a dish comes off the menu, so do its ingredients from the glossary.

Acamaya’s design, too, is meant to help introduce this image of Mexico to American diners. Architecture and interior design firm Farouki Farouki and Kalimera Construction helped execute Castro’s vision for texture (like lime wash, matte black tile, and carved stone), craftsmanship, and the “expression of volume” that shows the elegance of Mexican culture, Castro says. The cups, flatware, plates, tile, tables, chairs, and light fixtures are all from Mexico City. She flew back to the U.S. with a carved stone mushroom lamp on her shoulder, and rented a U-Haul at the border to bring back the breeze wall. “This is the Mexico I want people to know,” she says.

“I feel like I’m making a statement, both with the food and the space. I love New Orleans, I want to stay here for as long as the city will have me, and I wanted to open a restaurant that it deserves,” Castro says.

Acamaya is open Thursday through Monday from 5 to 9:30 p.m., with a section of the restaurant designated for walk-ins. Castro plans to expand with weekend lunch this fall and open seven days a week early next year.