Alabama Poutine? Yes, please. Just because we’re at the beach doesn’t mean we can’t salute our neighbors far to the north.

For those not in the know, poutine is a Canadian dish. It’s kind of surprising that it isn’t commonplace in the Deep South, because it falls squarely into the category of, “What can we put gravy on next?” In this case, a pile of French fries and cheese curds.

For whatever reason – the scarcity of cheese curds, perhaps – it remains a rarity and I was surprised to see any version of it on the menu at a brand-new Gulf Shores eatery, The Catch. Let alone a version that offered up “crispy fries smothered in our signature crawfish gravy.”

Maybe that sounds more like something that should be called Louisiana Poutine, but why quibble? It made for a tasty appetizer, and a pretty one, at least before I got my hands on it.

That’s fitting, because you wouldn’t want to eat anything ugly or bland-looking at a place like this. While The Catch is new, it occupies a familiar and prominent space in Gulf Shores. It’s the result of a rebranding of the former Burro Azul on West Beach Boulevard.

Burro Azul did offer fish and shrimp tacos and such, but General Manager Kristin Cochran explained that the operators bowed to customers’ wishes for more seafood. “Everybody asks for it,” she said.

That is certainly understandable. The restaurant is a very beachy-feeling place: It’s bright, airy, open, and directly across from public parking for West Gulf Place beach access, meaning you can see Gulf waters and plenty of strolling vacationers from where you sit. It’s elevated, like many of the area’s beach homes and condos, a reminder that the water doesn’t always stay over yonder.

After some freshening up of the site and development of the new menu in the off-season, The Catch opened at the end of February. Cochran said the staff has continued to adjust the cuisine based on customer feedback and kitchen creativity. “It’s all really happening day by day,” she said.

“We wanted something initially with really good seafood but also like a good vibe,” Cochran said. “A place where you can sit, the view is always pretty, the beach air is coming in and out, someplace you can come straight from the beach in your bathing suit if you want to have a drink. At night you can dress up for dinner, but we try to make it just very a chill place but with good food.”

“I think we have some of the best seafood boils on the island, and that is something not everybody does,” she said. “We sell a lot of crab boils, seafood boils. We have a shrimp boil, a lobster boil. And we have a special sauce we make that goes on our boil and with the broth we boil it in. We use wild-caught Gulf shrimp. We hand-batter everything here, so nothing’s frozen in batter.”

Another specialty is The Catch’s Crawfish Creole Cream Sauce, which Cochran said is made in-house. You can get it on a range of entrees, including the blackened Creole Snapper Delight ($25), the Classic Fish & Grits with blackened grouper ($25), the Southern Shrimp & Grits ($22) and the Bayou Crawfish Pasta ($25).

Let’s be clear, they don’t just put that stuff on everything. Entrees include grilled salmon, seafood platters, chicken tenders and Island Coconut Shrimp with pineapple pico ($22); several salads; and a selection of po-boys, seafood sandwiches and burgers.

The boils that Cochran mentioned start with the Gulf Shrimp Boil ($35) with a pound of Gulf shrimp plus Conecuh sausage and fixings, finished in Old Bay garlic butter. You can get a boil built around a pound of snow crab legs for $36, or the Grand Gulf Seafood Boil with crab legs, shrimp, mussels and Conecuh for $40. The flagship is the Spiny Lobster Boil ($45).

On my first visit, because I can’t resist a stunt, I went with the Surf & Turf Burger ($20, with fries). It’s a fully dressed double-decker cheeseburger layered with grilled shrimp. And because that might not sound rich enough, it’s then drizzled with — yes! — that Creole crawfish cream sauce.

It is a thing to behold. And when you bite into it, there’s a lot going on: The shrimp are big, fat and flavorful enough that they aren’t overwhelmed by all the beef. The crawfish sauce doesn’t exactly bind it all together: It’s more like a third partner in the dance. If you turned a Mardi Gras float into a burger, this would be it.

All in all, the successor to the Burro Azul seems to be poised to enjoy a good summer season. Certainly, it’ll be hard for visitors to say there’s not enough seafood on the menu.

The Catch, which is affiliated with the Hangout Hospitality Group, recently shut down so its kitchen could provide catering services to the inaugural Sand in My Boots Festival. The restaurant reopened on Thursday, May 22. Now that Memorial Day weekend and the official start of the summer season are here, things should be back on full boil.

The Catch is at 300 W. Beach Blvd in Gulf Shores. For more information, visit thecatch.com.