Mélange on Sycamore blends Louisiana flavors with house-made pasta in Newtown

Mélange on Sycamore opened at 255 North Sycamore Street in Newtown with a menu that treats house-made pasta as part of a bigger Louisiana-Italian mash-up, not a gimmick. The restaurant moved into the former Sycamore Grill site and opened to the public on April 8 after a soft opening for invited guests, with Marc Gelman and executive chef Joe Brown steering the concept.

The pasta side of the menu is specific enough to matter. Brown’s lineup includes tri-colored cheese tortellini arrabbiata, fresh house-made pasta and Frutti di Mare, but those dishes sit alongside a broader spread of Cajun and Creole plates like crabmeat cheesecake, seafood jambalaya, duck gumbo, shrimp and grits and etouffee. That mix gives Mélange a clearer identity than a standard trattoria. It is using pasta as one lane in a Gulf-South story, with enough regional crosscurrents to keep the menu from feeling like a novelty act.

The room itself matches the pitch. Patch reported the dining room seats about 100 and the bar another 20, with a black-and-white interior, saxophone wall hangings and Louisiana-inspired murals. Other reporting described white tablecloths, taupe-and-black tones, a custom New Orleans street mural and a renovated black granite bar. The restaurant’s own site later pushed lunch service back until Tuesday, April 21, a reminder that the rollout was still being adjusted after the opening.

Brown brings more than a menu idea to the project. Patch said he has 48 years in the restaurant business, built largely in South Jersey, and he told guests the kitchen would blend Cajun and Creole cooking with northern and southern Italian influences, while keeping fresh fish and fresh pastas moving out of the kitchen to order. That matters here because the concept depends on execution. If the pasta is limp or the seafood is overworked, the whole fusion falls apart. If the timing is right, it can read like a fresh lane for neighborhood Italian dining rather than a one-off experiment.

The soft opening got the kind of reaction operators hope for. Several hundred invited guests came through the door, and diners singled out the crabmeat cheesecake and oysters, with one calling the cheesecake “absolutely fantastic” and another saying the restaurant had “breathed new life into this space.” Brown said he and his team were ready to welcome everybody, and that tone fits the moment. This opening also lands after Rocco’s at The Brick shut down abruptly in November 2025, leaving more than 60 employees out of work amid a landlord-tenant fight over the liquor license and repair disputes involving water damage, mold concerns and a broken boiler. Mélange on Sycamore gives that address a reset, and for now, the pasta looks like part of a credible second act.