January 13. 2008 12:30AM

Health-conscious entrepreneur opens downtown Houma Café

BRIAN FONTENOT
Staff Writer

HOUMA -- What began as a former aerobics instructor’s dream to open a wellness center in Houma has become a premiere four-star café and bistro in downtown Houma.

Donna Malbrough, 53, the owner of Café Dominique, has invested more than $1 million into the café and bistro positioned in downtown Houma on Main Street across the from Government Tower.

Café Dominique, 8013 Main St., promises American-Mediterranean cuisine prepared by chef Klime Kovaceski, and three distinct dining atmospheres -- an energized martini bar, a roomy boquette and a romantic patio dining area at the edge of Bayou Terrebonne.

Kovaceski, 47, owned and operated the four-star, four-diamond and Golden Spoon-award winning Crystal Café in Miami for 10 years. He specializes in new continental cuisine, which focuses on "elevating" traditional cuisine to new heights.

Malbrough said the idea for the café, which takes its name from her fifth child and second daughter, originally came from her visits to different spas around the country.

She said she fell in love with the healthy food served at the spas.
"So I thought, 'Wow, we don’t have anything like this on our area,’ " she said.

But the venue she initially intended to use for her wellness center was too small to do everything she wanted. So, she put the idea on hold, until four years ago.

That’s when the downtown building, which previously housed B.J.’s Coffee Station, went on sale.

By then the idea of opening a wellness center had morphed into her desire to open a restaurant.

So, she purchased the property, but hurricanes Katrina and Rita delayed the planned renovations and opening day.

"I just kept believing it would fall into place, and it really has with a lot of great people," she said.

Troubled with her own desire to slim down, her main drive for opening the restaurant has been to bring healthier food to the people of south Louisiana.

"It’s very personal," she said. "It’s a mission."

The café hosted a sneak preview on Dec. 30, serving 120 guests, mostly comprised of Malbrough’s family and friends.

"We had all of our eggs in a row and it was really a success," she said.

She expects the restaurant to officially open and begin serving dinner in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Klime, who is the café’s executive chef and general manager, has been training his wait staff by hosting private parties in the café.

Once the staff is ready, the restaurant will begin serving lunch and eventually breakfast.

Klime said the menu will change often, based upon the ingredients available to the restaurant, which will strive to serve the freshest, purest local ingredients possible.

The restaurant will feature a large wine list, stocked by boutique wineries.
Menu prices vary. Most entrees are in the mid-$20 range and appetizers range from $5 to $15. Some of the dishes include venison loin chops and filet mignon.

"It has its own life force and it has evolved into something so wonderful," Malbrough said.

Staff Writer Brian Fontenot can be reached at 857-2204 or brian.fontenot@houmatoday.com.

Organic Food Can Taste Good

February 2008
by Emmalee Antil

When most people hear about the opening of an organic restaurant, images of tie-dye-clad customers sitting on the floor sipping wheat grass often come to mind.

While there is nothing wrong with a wheat grass cocktail, Donna Malbrough’s Café Dominique, located at 8013 Main St., will shatter the stereotypical organic view.

Chauvin native Donna Malbrough says she had a love of cooking from a young age. (As a child she asked for an Easy-Bake Oven instead of a baby doll.) She got her start in the food industry when she opened a small catering company; however, that was put on hold while she helped her husband start his engineering firm. When he sold the company, Malbrough turned her sites back to her passion. When a downtown Houma building entered the market, Malbrough seized the chance to create her vision of an exciting fine dining restaurant with healthy choices.

Due to her children’s health problems, Malbrough has always looked for the healthiest foods to feed her family. Seeing the lack of healthy dining choices in the area, she decided to create a restaurant to fill that need. “[I know] I’m not the only one who wants a healthy choice,” she explains.

Malbrough says Café Dominique will serve a wide variety of free-range meats and local seafood. The menu will change periodically so customers can experience the freshest ingredients available.

She also promises a cooking-from-scratch method, stating nothing will be processed. “There will be very few cans opened,” Malbrough says.

Malbrough has employed the services of award-winning Chef Kime Kovaceski to create eclectic dishes ranging from French country to Mediterranean to new American. “We know how to get the fat out,” says Kovaceski. He promises the meals will be comfort foods people know and love, yet with a different and exciting twist. He says his combination of ingredients and culinary techniques will create healthy dishes that are also conversations pieces. “They will beg to be talked about,” Kovaceski laughs. Cafe Dominique hopes to create not simply amazing meals, but a complete dining experience.

Kovaceski also boasts the restaurant will have impeccable service, stating a restaurant can have the best food in the world, but if the service is bad, none of it matters. He ensures each occasion at Café Dominique will be magical.

If the amazing food and quality service is still not enough to shake the stereotype of an organic restaurant, then perhaps the atmosphere will do it. The smell of specialty coffees and pastries greet guests as they walk into the elegant foyer. Inside are three possible dining experiences. The bar area offers some of the best wines and cocktails in the country, owners say, and has an upbeat vibrant feel. A second dining area has a cozy dinner-for-two feel that offers the patrons an intimate dining experience. The back room, which is available for rent, offers a wonderful view of Café Dominique’s patio and Bayou Terrebonne. The French Quarter-style patio is suited for customers to enjoy a glass of wine while watching the bayou laze by. The entire décor offers a high level of elegance and comfort.

With healthy food offerings which are full of flavor and serve as a meal for the eye, the owners hope Café Dominique becomes a restaurant to create wonderful memories for years to come, or at least a place for a relaxing, good time. PoV