Lexington’s newest seafood restaurant is delivering authentic gulf coast flavors

There’s a new lady in town and she’s taking it by storm. The lady I’m referring to is the Seafood Lady, a take-out restaurant dedicated to bringing the tangy fare of the Gulf Coast to land-locked Kentuckians.

The restaurant opened its doors on Georgetown Street in June under less than ideal circumstances, with a world-wide pandemic in full-blown mode.

“We gave it a lot of thought, and decided that even under the circumstances, we didn’t want to wait to open,” says the Lady herself, Nichelle Thurston, of the third establishment in the chain. “I think it was a good move as the response has been great, far exceeding our expectations.”

The line of satisfied customers waiting to grab a to-go feast of crabs, shrimp, oysters and crawfish that are manna to Gulf Coast residents will attest to that.

I was one of those customers on a recent weekend when I picked up several of the Lady’s signature items. First, came the hot buttered lobster roll. Okay, so lobster may not be native to the Gulf of Mexico, but the lightly spiced Cajun corn and potatoes gave a Louisiana spin to a New England staple.

The succulent crab was more like what one finds on the southern shores, but what really made me a fan was their crawfish boil. I spent nearly three decades in New Orleans and one of the things I miss the most is crawfish season and the inevitable round of boils where we would pop the tails off the mudbugs and wash them down with beer.

I’ve done a few up here but they just weren’t the same – until now. That might be due to Thurston’s own roots. The 33-year-old was born and raised in Pensacola, Fla., just a couple of hours drive from New Orleans and right on the Gulf with its abundant bounty.

Thurston says her food philosophy is grounded in the “Seafood Sundays” she shared with her family growing up.

“We would get together every Sunday and have a feast on the kind of food we liked best,” she says.

When she moved to the commonwealth 12 years ago because of her job in health care, she found a void for the kind of food she was used to. Deciding to remedy that, the health care industry’s loss became the restaurant industry’s gain.

She opened her first Seafood Lady in Old Louisville in 2016 and her second in Fern Valley in 2018. They have been so successful that she is moving the original from Old Louisville to the NuLu area where she expects to open an expanded 120-seat restaurant by the end of the year.

Inspired by her welcome in Louisville, Thurston decided the next logical step was to test the waters in Lexington. Partnering with Lexington native Seneca Hudson, they opened the building on Georgetown Street, just a stone’s throw from where Hudson grew up on Charlotte Court.

The partnership is flourishing now, but when the two teamed up there was one obstacle to overcome.

“I was a vegan,” laughs Hudson. “While teaching me how to cook Creole, Cajun and Gulf Coast dishes, Nichelle converted me to a pescatarian. Now, I don’t think I could do without my fried oysters.”

I asked the ladies what their Louisville and Lexington customers couldn’t do without.

“The lobster rolls are the most popular dish in Louisville,” says Thurston.

“I would have to say that Lexingtonians really love the Chee-Sea fries,” says Hudson. For those of you not familiar with Chee-Sea fries, they’re like cheese-y fries only with snow crab.

Other popular choices are the crab cakes, lobster and shrimp waffle (think chicken and waffles, only replacing the poultry with crustaceans) and the po’ boys – shrimp and oyster sandwiches for the uninitiated, and gator for the more adventurous. The latter is a fried Florida gator tail dressed with tomatoes, lettuce and remoulade sauce on French bread.

The Seafood Lady’s authenticity has attracted both locals and visitors alike. No doubt most of it has to do with the freshness of the seafood (Thurston says 75% of it comes directly from the Gulf Coast), but the national attention it has gotten hasn’t hurt either.

Appearances on both the Food Channel and at the James Beard House in New York have raised Thurston’s profile with the culinary elite and convinced her there is a market for the bounties of the Gulf Coast this far inland.

“I do have plans to expand, but obviously now is not the right time to do so,” she says. “When the time is right, I am looking at both Cincinnati and Nashville.”

Move over chili and hot wings. There’s a new lady coming to your town soon.

Seafood Lady

Where: 833 Georgetown St

Phone: 859-368-9069

Online: seafoodlady502.com

This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 11:19 AM.