Fresh local seafood! Back in our original location on the Bay St. Louis beachfront, where the Blue Marlin Bar upstairs is available for your private party!
Trapani’s Eatery owner Tony Trapani has lived in the Bay all of his life, and has no plans to ever leave. In fact, when Katrina destroyed their restaurant in 2005, he and Jolynne Trapani never considered not rebuilding the business they had started in 1994. “I love it here,” he says. “Whenever I go somewhere else, I can’t wait to come back.”
After the storm, the restaurant relocated to a spot on Highway 90 for six years while the Trapanis built a hurricane-resistant structure on the lot where the business had previously stood. When Trapani’s reopened at 116 North Beach Boulevard in February 2012, it felt like more than a personal victory for the restaurant’s owners and employees. To residents of Bay St. Louis, having one of its iconic businesses up and running in its original location signaled a new stage of getting past the horrors of Katrina.
The Hancock Chamber named Trapani’s 2011 Bay St. Louis Business of the Year for refusing to waver “in their faith that Bay St. Louis could not only recover, we can be better than we were before,” said Mayor Les Fillingame when bestowing the award.
Trapani’s continues to serve the dishes it’s known for, with emphasis on seafood, traditional Italian fare, Cajun favorites, steaks, and famous appetizers like fried green tomatoes topped with crabmeat and hollandaise, crab cakes, fried calamari, and homemade onion rings. Everything is made onsite.
Tony says that the fish tacos may be the most popular item on the menu. Lightly dusted fillets are topped with a flavorful house-specialty Asian dressing. Asked about his own favorite dishes, he names the trout, and keeps going: “Sesame ahi tuna, crab cakes ... I like seafood. We have great steaks, too.”
Trapani’s Spaghetti and Meatballs and the Eggplant Delacroix come from family recipes that Tony brought to the restaurant. He remembers his mother being the chef in charge at home when he was growing up, but he honed his cooking skills “on the fly, right here,” in the restaurant.
The menu has a wide variety of lunch and dinner fare. You can get a po-boy with fried shrimp, catfish, or oyster, or choose a variation like panéed veal or grilled yellow fin tuna. And a gigantic, fresh Trapani’s muffalatta will more than satisfy that urge when it hits.
Dinner selections are choice whether you’re in the mood for wasabi tuna, stuffed flounder, panéed fish filet with loads of shrimp and crabmeat with pasta, or a hearty steak filet or ribeye. And of course, the oysters are terrific raw or charbroiled whenever they’re in season, with special prices on Oyster Thursdays.
The Blue Marlin Bar upstairs hosts live music on a semi-regular basis, and is also available for private functions.
To look at menus go to trapaniseatery.net, and get the lowdown on daily specials and happenings on Trapani’s Facebook page.