Dining: Restaurant Roux

What do you do when you take on the shell of a 72-year-old dive bar? If youre Matthew Lewis, owner of the Where Ya At Matt food truck, you use it to reinvent your mobile Creole mecca. After a long search for a brick-and-mortar location, Lewis opened Restaurant Roux in the old Buckaroo Tavern space in upper Fremont last fall.

It has a soul and thats … the feel of New Orleans, says Lewis, who hired Mike Robertshaw (of Local 360) to run his kitchen. And the food here is spectacular. Start with the addicting crispy pig ear ($6), which is dried, then fried and tossed with a blue cheese sauce. The jalapeno and cheddar hush puppies ($5) are the best Ive had moist, pillowy and a tad sweet with honey and lemon. The shell-on grilled shrimp are surpassed by the souffle-like grits they adorn ($12). Same with the jambalaya ($18): The spicy and hearty mash-up of chicken, rice and house-made Andouille sausage relegate the shrimp to garnish status. A must is the easy-to-crave fried rabbit saddle ($10), which teeters on a pile of potato salad.

The food here is more daring and refined than the trucks, yet Where Ya At Matt fans will be put at ease with familiar dishes, the no-frills, open-kitchen decor and rows of barstools that provide witness to affable food slingers. Restaurant Roux has helped rocket the neighborhood into a respite for consistently good, accessible food thats not too expensive.

Lunch MondayFriday, brunch SaturdaySunday, dinner daily. 4201 Fremont Ave. N; 206.547.5420; restaurantroux.com.