“Delicious” is a word I might use two or three times a year in conversation — like “tasty,” it’s a flabby descriptor I avoid. So I was amused that I kept blurting out, “This is delicious!” during my first visit to Josephine’s, the new Midtown restaurant on the busy corner where Izakaya once held forth.

Dish after dish made me say it. The chicken and andouille gumbo, its dark mahogany roux tilting to the brothy rather than the viscous side, a boon to the cool-weather diner. The astonishing fried okra, sliced lengthwise and given a crisp cling of batter that allowed the pod itself to shine, so that the long sliver snapped rather than squished. 

The red beans and rice, too, with their well-calculated porky twang and red-peppery heat. Not to mention the smoked redfish dip, a true star of its genre, loaded with supple hunks of Texas farm-raised fish and revved with vibrant lemon remoulade. I often despair of the proliferating versions of fish dip around town. Not here.

“Can we get extra crackers for this?” my friend Mimi asked the waiter, and I looked at her as if she were crazy. “Seriously?” I asked. Then the crackers arrived, and I got it. Chef Lucas McKinney had flash-fried the saltines so that they acquired a light, shiny glaze, then anointed them with “ranch powder.”  

That’s the kind of brawny, outrageous idea in which Mississippi-born McKinney trades at this delightful addition to Midtown. The Azuma group transformed the former Izakaya space into a room that would not be out of place on the remoter fringes of the French Quarter, with its flooring of teeny-tiny black and white tiles, its perimeter of booth seating and its long, pale granite counter.

That dish captured the essence of McKinney’s oeuvre for me — he mixes and matches Southernisms into something new and fun, as if a wonderfully gifted friend was cooking for you at their duck camp. When the ideas hit, they’re memorably good, the kind of thing that made me blurt out that string of “delicious”-es. When they implode (as they do on occasion) or fall a bit short, you’re still having a fun ride.

I’m sure early customers are still chuckling over the watermelon salad bedizened with gummy bears, now out of season (the watermelon, not the gummy bears) and off the menu. My table exclaimed over a molded salad of green and black-eyed peas bound together with not-quite-enough mayo-based dressing to carry the day. It was a bold notion that just needed a bit more punch. 

I’m still wondering what the Ham Toast here is all about, its curls of country ham riding on hard-to-chew slabs of sourdough laden with gobs of cheesy “Mississippi sin dip,” chowchow, pickled mustard seeds, pepper jelly and crushed Ritz crackers on top. Our waiter told us it was the combination of two dishes that hadn’t quite worked out, and I believed it.

Yet for every idea that flails, there’s another that wows. McKinney’s fried oyster salad had fine-dining finesse, with its perfectly balanced sweet-mustard dressing, its crisp oysters with juiciness still intact and a range of inspired touches, from tart green apple batons to real-deal bacon lardons to gentle shaved shallots. Pleasantly bitter arugula leaves provided just the right backdrop. I consider this salad one of the best dishes in town right now.

So hold on for the ride. I may not be a fan of the po’boys in their current state (small, too-soft fried shrimp overwhelmed by their dressings; roast beef debris without quite enough oomph); and I might wish for bigger, pearlier shrimp in their shells for the strangely lackluster barbecued shrimp, a small serving in a dark brown broth.

But then comes a version of shrimp cocktail served with a lovely, classic sauce ravigote — tiny bits of egg and all — or a lively tribute to Ryan Lachaine’s Tabasco Toast at Riel. All sorts of sideline touches sing, from crunchy hush puppies with pickled jalapeño tartar sauce, to biscuits with house-made jams, to a “wet sauce” for peel-and-eat shrimp that brings the cocktail-sauce mojo and then some. Want definitive collard greens? Josephine’s has got ’em.

The restaurant has notably friendly service, too, and a wine list put together with more than usual care. 

If you’re a half shell oyster fiend like me, you’ll find yourself drawn back to the welcoming counter for iced trays of farmed Gulf oysters — always with one wild oyster from San Leon’s Prestige oyster company in the daily mix, by McKinney’s decree. They are nicely opened, liquor largely intact, all labeled for purposes of comparison. And this is the season for them.

Houstonians have grown to love rich round Murder Points from Alabama, but check out Holy Ground oysters from Mississippi, with an elegant vegetal finish; Admirals from Bayou la Batre, with their big salt bump; or Barrier Beauties out of Galveston that unfold with a flush of salt and a cucumbery finish. Don’t tell me — or Lucas McKinney — that Texas and Gulf Coast oysters can’t be great.

Get to Josephine’s now and see for yourself.