Bouré has released its first new menu since the arrival of its new head chef, Tory McPhail. The new menu, released at the beginning of the year, features multiple new dishes inspired by Southern Louisiana, including smothered chicken sauce piquante, New Orleans barbecued shrimp and a bananas foster sundae.
McPhail previously served as the executive chef of legendary New Orleans restaurant Commander’s Palace from 2002-21. His time there inspired him to bring a more authentic Creole dining experience to Oxford.
McPhail shared one of his favorite dishes he learned to cook early on in his career — shrimp and tasso.
“It’s a beautiful white shrimp directly out of the Gulf of Mexico,” McPhail said. “We clean those, we take the shells off and then stuff them with a spicy ham called tasso. It’s super salty and super smoky. We pack that with cayenne pepper and paprika. It’s a dish that hits up all parts of the palate — sweet, sour, salt and pepper, with a little bit of bitterness.”
Shrimp and tasso’s explosive flavor opened McPhail up to Creole cuisine and gave him the idea of localizing his dishes to Louisiana. He replaced salmon, for example, with redfish, which is native to southern Louisiana and a nod to famed Commander’s Palace chef Paul Prudhomme.
McPhail’s passion for cooking began as a child growing up on the Canadian border in Washington.
“When my grandfather came home from World War II, he was encouraged to start a ‘victory garden,’” McPhail said. “It was about the size of Bouré, but longer. The temperate and mild climate makes for the perfect growing season for fresh berries, specifically raspberries.”
These childhood memories from the agricultural Pacific Northwest inspired a lifelong love of food in McPhail. He wanted to take his passion for culinary arts to the next level, so he attended culinary school and graduated at the top of his class. An instructor told him that to be a fantastic chef, he had two options to learn the absolute fundamentals of American cuisine: go to New York or go to New Orleans.
“I bought my ticket that day, packed up all my stuff in one duffel bag and headed off to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico to start my new life,” McPhail said. “(I) was lucky enough to get an interview at Commander’s Palace. I might as well have been in South America. Talk about culture shock.”
After working as a chef in Florida and later London, McPhail opened a Commander’s Palace in Las Vegas. A member of John Currance’s City Grocery Restaurant Group since 2025, McPhail said he sees a lot of New Orleans’ culture in Oxford.
He believes increasing the menu’s authenticity is a necessary step forward for Bouré.
“With a fresh set of eyes, knowing what I know about New Orleans food, the idea is that we’ve got to get back to the basics,’” McPhail said. “I love Jamaican food, and we have Jamaican jerk chicken on the menu. If I was reading through the menu as a food writer, I’d be like, ‘It’s a bit all over the place.’”
What flies in New Orleans may not fly in Oxford, McPhail said, but experimentation is part of the process.
“There is no ego here,” McPhail said. “All we’re trying to do here is make really good food and to make a place for Oxford that can be their neighborhood restaurant. … We just want to be a place for everyone.”
