Marcela’s Creole Cookery

**based on the cooking class only**
Came here for the four course cooking class courtesy of my bestfriend to prep me for my first trip to NOLA!
First thoughts upon stepping through the front doors. It was warm, dimly lit, intimate table setting, and I loved the brick walls mixed with colors, photos, and all things New Orleans on the walls! Oh and the dollars on the ceiling! What a cool story this establishment must have!
Anywho, we were greeted right away and were guided to the back of the restaurant were the cooking set up was! Anthony, (I think the owner) the cooking guide was welcoming, friendly, funny, and genuine. He explained a few of the drink specials; a NOLA original, the hurricane, a bottle of Malbec for deal$, and sodas and teas.
The cooking course was more like a cooking show and everyone participates. Not what I was expecting but it ran smoothly! On the menu were a few New Orleanian classics; shrimp gumbo, garlic shrimp crostini, shrimp étouffée, and bread pudding with whiskey sauce.
Can’t lie, the food we prepared together we’re ALL so good!!! I loved the small group setting and Anthony was entertaining :) fun times!

Participated in a 4 course Creole Cooking Class, led by Anthony (husband of Marcela)
Cooking instruction was informative and entertaining. The food was amazingly authentic. Shrimp Gumbo, Creole Garlic Shrimp Crostini, Shrimp Etoufee and Peach Cobbler prepared with our assistance in front of the class group. Very friendly and intimate experience. You should partake!
We will return to sample more of the menu and Marcela and Anthony’s hospitality.

This is a really cool place with delicious food. It’s family run and the owner perfectly represents the taste of the south through his cooking and his style. I have only been here 2 times but both times had a very good time and enjoyed the food. This is a good place to take a date.

A little hole in the wall in Pioneer Square. Wait staff is charming, albeit rather slow. Food can be amazing or just okay. I’ve had the jambalaya and etouffe. Cajun fries are addictive. The food could use a bit more spice and less salt.

This is a review of the cooking class. I read the review from «chi s» of the class and even though many points I could relate to I think some people need to lighten up a little bit. Not everyone will be able to cook since there is only one small table and two hot plates, so people take turns doing various jobs — yes, that means one job may be serving the food. Some of the dishes’ prep time takes far longer than the class time, so a previously prepared dish may be served, but it should be a replica of what the class had been working on — not a big deal. Anthony is a colorful guy, but he’s quirky and harmless. The cajun spice package that Anthony sells is good stuff, but if you don’t want to buy it then don’t! All the food we ate was delicious. I’d recommend this cooking class, especially since I’ve done it twice with my daughter. Oh yeah, buy a bottle of wine and share it since the cost is very reasonable.

Nice little hole in the wall restaurant in the Pioneer Square area of Seattle.
I had their Creole Sampler with red beans and rice rather than the Crawfish Pie. They were very amenable to substitutions to make their customers happy.
My sampler consisted of Jambalaya, Red Beans and Rice and Shrimp Gumbo. All of the food was well prepared, with generous portions. Dishes were flavorful while being light on heat (spiciness) which can easily be rectified at the table.
Overall, a very enjoyable meal. I will be back.

Took their ‘cooking class’ with Amazon Local voucher, $ 49 for a party of two (they will bill you tax + forced gratuity on top of it, so more like $ 70 total). They say $ 110 full value. I’m glad I didn’t pay the full price.
This isn’t really a cooking class– it was very strange. In fact I didn’t cook anything, but was asked to serve tables. You will be seated with a dozen other people at the corner of the restaurant. There are two small tabletop burners set up in the middle. On your table is a menu of four courses — three shrimp dishes and a dessert. A chef walks in and asks for volunteers to do a few cooking tasks. The volunteers go over to the burner table and dump in the pre-​cut ingredients into a pot/​pan as the chef instructs and stir for a while. The rest of us just watch.
Out of four dishes, we actually only cooked two in the class. The chef explained how to make Shrimp Gumbo, and the completed version was brought out straight from their kitchen. We prepared the bread pudding in the casserole, and they brought out the baked version from the kitchen. We ate it while the unbaked one we just made was still sitting right there. No idea what they did to it after we left.
Food was flavorful, but everything was very very buttery, salty, and shrimpy. Three of the four items are made of basically the same ingredients and I got tired of the taste by the end of the 3^rd dish. My tongue was numb and my head was aching from so much salt. The most useful thing I picked up was how to make the butter roux. Apparently if you master the roux, you basically master three Creole shrimp dishes. I will substitute half the butter with unsalted one when I make it at home.
The chef was drinking wine during the entire class and abruptly started talking about the most random stuff– like how he doesn’t care about Unilocal reviews. He had weird attitude toward women, not very pleasant… I don’t need help wearing my apron, leave me alone. He spends too much time advertising his seasoning mix and it was very annoying. I am paying for a cooking class, not for his ad time.
If you happen to find a voucher on Groupon or Amazon Local, never had Creole food, and trying to come up with something to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I would say yeah this might be an interesting way to occupy time. But never pay the full price, it would not be worth your $$. Also, bring a huge water bottle with you. You will dry out from all that salt otherwise.

Awesome customer service with Andrew! Food is originally flown in from Louisiana to get that nitty gritty, real-​life Creole taste. Wish I could give it a 5 star because the boudin sausage wasn’t served with creole mustard, just crackers :(otherwise, great experience!

New Orleans foods, supposed to be authentic, but I cannot tell. I started with the Hurricane and was way too sweet for me. The chef usually features a special and they are supposed to be the best. I tried that and quite enjoyed it.
The fried alligator was disappointingly bland and flavorless.

I was actually really surprised by how busy this place was. I think even the staff was surprised because they had no idea how to handle us, and we had a reservation for 8pm. The food took about an hour to get to our table and we received no acknowledgement that the food was on it’s way or any apology for the wait.
The food was amazing, especially my red snapper special. We have had their gumbo, jambalaya, and whiskey bread pudding because we had taken the creole cooking class there before and knew it was good. The owner is a bit eccentric and while trying to strike a conversation with you, he often makes motions/​signals to his waitstaff as to where to go, what to do, etc… so that’s a bit awkward. He even did that while teaching his cooking class!
I really enjoyed the décor (though a bit chaotic) and the brick interior, but you could expect that from a Pioneer Square establishment. It’s a very different kind of dining experience here!

This place is so good! They have fried alligator! The restaurant doesn’t have ranch but the gator was really really good with the provided sauces.
The sampler was amazing! The owner and staff are super friendly and really made my visit enjoyable.

*Review for Cooking Class Only*
Great experience. Anthony was a fun guy and it was such a fun experience. Me and my fiancé had an amazing time there!

I had the Catfish and Crawfish and it was delicious! I just moved to Seattle from TN and I’ve been looking for something a lil bit more southern and this is it ! Seattle is famous for «fish and chips» and everywhere has «COD», but It’s hard to find a place with good «Southern» style catfish ! I’m lucky I found this spot ! They fly a lot of their food straight in from Who Dat Nation ! Also, I guess it helps that I’m a Saints fan! Last but not least have a hurricane and end your night right!

Wait staff is horrible too slow the hurricane taste like water down liquor very crowded

This was my first time trying Creole food and it was amazing! I had the sampler with Crawfish pie, jumbalya, and shrimp gumbo. Also tried the fried alligator appetizer, which was good, but the fried crawfish was better. Also shared a peach cobbler for dessert and it was amazing. Service and ambience were also excellent, and it’s located right by Pioneer Square, so great to go before sporting events. Although they didn’t open until 5 pm when I was there on a Friday. I had a couple Hurricane’s to drink, which were good, but I want to go back to try the local New Orleans beer. I can’t remember the name of the brewery, but they had an amber and porter (others too, but those are what interest me).
Amended to add that they appear to be closed for dinner on Mondays :(

I can’t think of any other Creole restaurants in the area, but now I’m not too worried because this one is excellent!
The lunch sampler was a lot of food so we opted to save for leftovers so we could try the bread pudding… the pudding itself was only ok but the whiskey sauce definitely made up for it! YUM!

Having grown up (in Canada mind you) around creole and NoLa cooking, I had high hopes for Marcela’s — however, I left underwhelmed.
The prices are reasonable and the service friendly. The food was mere average to me and not exceptional.
I think that it may have been an expectations gap as I had read great things about Marcela’s and made it out to be something different.
That being said, I really did enjoy the crawfish pie, it was great, and my experience was limited to a lunch (sample and half a po-​boy).
I will definitely return for dinner and update my review upon my next visit to Seattle.

Hard. The service is casual and friendly; it’s hard to ding them.
But the food is average, and the value for what you pay for is well below that.
For dinner, my husband had the blackened fish special with broccoli and 3 dry potatoes. It was $ 30 and the fish fillet (not a whole fish) was flat, dry, and chewy. As a creole place, they should know how to blacken a fish without making fish jerky out of it :/​
The BBQ shrimp appetizer was good; well-​seasoned and swimming in a crazy amount of butter. But it was served with a grocery baguette: soft, too big, and no texture.
The salad was iceberg lettuce with hunks of carrots. Like what you get at a neighborhood Italian restaurant that doesn’t value a good salad but will fill you up with endless amounts of bread and pasta.
I got the French Quarter combo, a dinner that has 3 components (I subbed out gumbo and got étouffée instead). The étouffée was average at best (I think I like Popeye’s better? Let that sink in for a moment.) The jambalaya wasn’t hot and I will say when I sent it back to get heated, the flavor did improve, if marginally. The crawfish pie was small, flat, and tasted like salty stuffing. The height of it was equivalent to a tart versus a main dish pie slice.
I’m sorry, there’s not a lot to say about this place. I had a beer, my husband had a soda plus the above, and our total with tip was $ 100. I wish I had the same food experience and felt the value was on par like others, but sadly will have to say pass on this program.
Now I’m mad about the $ 100. Sigh.

We were gifted a «groupon type» voucher for the cooking class but failed to sign up before the expiration date and the class was full. We were allowed to use the purchased value towards a meal– I think that’s the law– right?
My husband took the lead and called and made reservations, I’m pregnant so a late dinner in Seattle would not due, I like to be asleep by 9:30 not just getting home so an early dinner it was for us. They are probably attached to «reservations» because it’s a small joint but literally the majority of the time we were there– it was us and a table of 3.
They don’t have AC and the interior is odd. As my husband and I discussed, it kind of seems like the place that would be on restaurant impossible. The food was okay, nothing mind-​blowing to brag worthy. I wanted the chefs seafood pasta– $ 28 dollars but was told they didn’t have it that night. Instead I got this other seafood pasta thing and my husband got the sampler. He loved 1 of the 3 items. The salad that came with his was sad and pathetic– everything looked slightly old and pre-​cut. My pasta dish was okay, spaghetti with prawns, crawfish and another shrimpy thing. There were a handful of tiny crawfish, two large shrimpy’s and a few other pieces in a heavy cream sauce. it was okay.
I also had a crab cake and he wanted the alligator. The crab cake was very mushy and lacked visible crab, the Alligator was chewy to the point that I spit mine out…
Service, considering there were two servers and two tables was bad, I shouldn’t have to ask for water twice. I am looking pregnant these days and we didn’t order drinks– water was our drink– that means that you should refill it. They seemed more interested in alcoholic drinks.
I never quite felt comfortable in there and we won’t be back. Our total check was 60 $ with tip and had I actually had to pay that price, this review would be more scathing. Parking was right now door and cost $ 6– even though we had to go all the way to 8^th floor for non-​reserved parking.
We won’t be back.

What a gem Marcela’s Creole Cookery is.
The moment you step in, you are treated like family. Overall amazing service. Just a couple of examples, the owner makes a point to check in with every table, and the waiters always wear a smile.
If you love creole food… this is the mother-​load. The perfect blend of spices brings their shrimp dishes and gumbo to the top of creole food standards.
Bottom line: Order shrimp, spice blends will keep you coming back.