A new St. Augustine restaurant will bring French Pantry, Vietnamese cuisine under one roof

A new restaurant concept pairing popular Jacksonville restaurant The French Pantry with Vietnamese cuisine restaurant Little Miss Ha is planning a fall opening in historic St. Augustine.

In an email to the Times-Union this week, Johnny Hudgins, a partner in the new venture, shared new details about the project that’s taking shape in the former Corazon Cinema and Cafe spot at 36 Granada St.

Named after its address, 36 Granada will encompass four distinct dining concepts, including established restaurants The French Pantry and Litle Miss Ha; plus La Petite Kitchen, a chef-driven cooking class studio and private dining room; and Cache Cache, a secluded speakeasy bar and event space, according to Hudgins and the venue’s website.

Hudgins and his wife, Janice, are teaming up with French Pantry owner John Valentino to open 36 Granada. With more than 200 seats, the multi-concept restaurant will be near Flagler College, St. Augustine City Hall and the Lightner Museum in the southern end of the city’s Historic District.

A dining destination for decades in Jacksonville, French Pantry is known for its lunch-only menu of sandwiches, burgers, panini and bruschetta — all made with freshly baked bread from the large commercial bakery housed in the Powers Avenue building — as well as gourmet salads and decadent desserts, including Wedding Cake, Carrot Cake, Pound Cake and more.

At 36 Granada, French Pantry will debut its dinner menu of French-Mediterranean cuisine, offered exclusively at the St. Augustine restaurant, Hudgins wrote in the email.

Little Miss Ha, though, will be new for most Northeast Florida diners.

In early 2020, Janice and Johnny Hudgins debuted Little Miss Ha in Mount Pleasant, S.C., after building a following by cooking private dinners and catering events and fine-tuning their menu crafted from family recipes at Charleston food hall Workshop.

The restaurant’s name is inspired by Janice’s mother, Thu-Ha, whose co-workers at Piggly Wiggly called her Miss Ha and whose family recipes brought with her from Vietnam to Charleston in 1979 are still used to this day at Little Miss Ha.

Little Miss Ha has earned rave reviews for its egg rolls (named for Miss Ha), dumplings, pho, curry, bahn exo sizzling crepe, vermicelli bowl and Saigon salad.

When the restaurant’s lease expired last fall, the couple decided to bring those family recipes and their successful restaurant to St. Augustine.

Restaurants come together again

36 Granada will be a reunion of sorts for the two restaurants.

In November 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Little Miss Ha joined The French Pantry for a successful, pre-Thanksgiving pop-up event in Jacksonville showcasing the restaurant’s traditional Vietnamese cuisine.

Now, in a lead-up to 36 Granada’s opening, the two restaurants are planning weekly pop-up dining events to give area foodies a taste of what’s to come.

Beginning Thursday, Aug. 1, and continuing weekly into September, The French Pantry and Little Miss Ha will partner for a rotating, five-course tasting menu of authentic Vietnamese dishes, and later, an exclusive taste of the new dinner menu from The French Pantry.

The weekly dinners, on Thursday nights, will be at The French Pantry’s original Jacksonville restaurant at 6301 Powers Ave.

The first dinner, on Thursday, Aug. 1, features the following menu:

• 1st course: Crispy Imperial Roll filled with pork, onions and bean thread noodles
• Salad course: Seared Beef Salad served with cucumber, mint, cilantro, pickled red onion and toasted rice flour.
• Soup course: Pork and shrimp-filled wontons in a savory broth
• Entree: Choose from Bo Lu Lac (Shaking Beef), wok-seared beef and onion served with side of rice, watercress salad and garlic-pepper dipping sauce; Cha Ca La Vong, pan-seared turmeric and dill fish served with rice noodles and pineapple-ginger sauce; or Bun Bo Hue, spicy beef noodle soup served with Vietnamese ham, pork shank and topped with fresh herbs and lime
• Dessert: Provided by The French Pantry

A limited number of tickets ($70 each) are available via the Eventbrite website and include food, non-alcoholic beverages and tax, but not gratuity. Beer and wine will be available. Tickets for the second dinner on Aug. 8 are also available. The two-hour dinners begin at 6:30 p.m.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: A new St. Augustine restaurant will bring French Pantry, Vietnamese cuisine under one roof