Sneak attack: Nudo House in the East Loop opens today, a day early

Owner Qui Tran says to “expect more of the same, and then some” at the ramen shop’s second location.

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He’s done it again and he’s done it again.

We speak of Qui Tran, beloved co-owner of Mai Lee and sole owner of Nudo House, a companion concept. When the flagship opened in Creve Coeur in July 2017, it did so a day earlier than planned.

That same song is playing again today: The new location opened at Nudo House 11 a.m. today. Inaugural hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with eventual late night hours for Friday and Saturday.

“You always try to give yourself a cushion in case something goes wrong,” says Tran, not wanting to over promise and under deliver.  “Despite some glitches we were able to open the doors. Hopefully today won’t be too crazy. It’s nice to ease into a pair of new shoes...if you can.”

The long-awaited second location is at 6105 Delmar, in the East Loop, on the ground floor of The Everly on the Loop building. Veteran chef (and two-year Nudo alum) Chris Ladley will run the second operation. (Chef-partner Marie-Anne Velasco, who opened the Creve Coeur location, will stay on there.) In addition to six types of ramen, Ladley says the Delmar menu will feature Nudo’s best-sellers, including many newer items which started out as specials at the original location. Several Mai Lee mainstays—pho, spring rolls, crab Rangoon, Vietnamese chicken salad—have endeared themselves to the #nudosquad as well.

Not to worry. Nudo House's pho eventually ended up on the cover of Food & Wine magazine's Comfort Foods issue in February 2018,  earning the restaurant and Tran nationwide acclaim. 

The name is derived from “how kids say the word noodle,” Tran says. “Both the name and the logo are goofy, kind of like me.” The whimsical Nudo theme is even carried into the light fixtures, with tangles of noodle-like wires terminating in a series of curlicue bulbs.

This one was somewhat easier, Tran says cautiously. “You plan and you rehearse and you plan some more,” he says. “So we’re all ready to open and we lose an ice machine and one of our two steam kettles. Fortunately or unfortunately, restaurant guys get used to stuff like that. It didn’t slow us down at all.”

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