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05/10/12
You may have heard that a number of New Orleans chefs were nominated for James Beard Society awards this year. Donald Link was up for outstanding chef; Sue Zemanick was nominated again in the rising chef category; and four of the five nominees for best chef in the south region were locals – Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery, Alon Shaya of Domenica, Tory McPhail of Commander's Palace and John Harris of Lilette. The ceremony was held in New York earlier this week, and unfortunately none of our local chefs won. It's a cliché that it's an honor just to be nominated, but that's actually true of these awards. It's just a shame that Roger Goodell was in charge of deciding the winners this year.
The date has been set for the reopening of Rene...
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05/03/12
Chef Isaac Toups spent a decade at Restaurant Delmonico, starting as a fry cook and working his way up to executive sous chef. It was as far as he was going to get there, unless Spencer Minch decided to leave, and there was no indication that was going to happen. He and his wife Amanda had discussed opening their own restaurant, and had set a goal of two years for doing so. When he got an offer to take the position of executive chef at Cuvée, he accepted, but that lasted only around six months.
The Toups met their two-year goal with two weeks to spare when they opened Toups' Meatery at 845 N. Carrollton St. on April 17 of this year. The restaurant is in the space formerly occupied by the Mediterranean Café, though a thorough renovation has changed the place...
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04/26/12
I was thinking the other day about how I could make a great deal of money in a very short time. I rejected ideas involving firearms or the sale of recreational pharmaceuticals, as I am a family man and past the age where such ideas are even remotely appealing. Also, I am a coward and have no idea where to procure recreational pharmaceuticals for resale.
The advice given to young people trying to decide what to do with their lives often includes something along the lines of, “do what you love, because when you do what you love for a living, work isn't work!” This is good advice. I am still pursuing a way to monetize my love of drinking, cooking, and watching soccer on television, but to date I have not found anyone willing to pay me for these activities.
So my...
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04/19/12
My wife is due to give birth to our daughter at the end of May. She's feeling better than she did during the first trimester of her pregnancy, but she's been getting progressively more uncomfortable over the last few weeks.
I believe this is largely due to the fact that her womb contains a five pound human who, like her father, enjoys displaying a sense of rhythm by tapping her hands and feet on things. “Things” in this context include her mother's internal organs.
In addition to the tiny Keith Moon residing in her belly, a few weeks ago my wife began complaining of sharp pain in her sides, sometimes severe enough to make breathing difficult. Not to over-share, but we put it down to gas, and hoped it would pass. (I am so sorry.)
Her doctor,...
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04/12/12
Today is the start of French Quarter Festival, which runs through the weekend. In the 29 years the Fest has been held, it's expanded quite a bit. Over 500,000 people partied in the Quarter last year, and this year attendance will probably top that mark.
Around 65 local restaurants will be serving food at the Fest, and I thought I'd give you some recommendations. Bear in mind that these are just the food that interests me, and not intended as some sort of objective measure of the best food at the Fest. If you think I've missed something, or if you disagree with my choices, please leave a comment below.
Because the Fest lists its food vendors in alphabetical order by location, I'll do the same.
In Woldenburg Riverfront Park, I'd start with...
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04/05/12
“Fusion” is not a term I generally use as praise when it comes to restaurants. It brings to mind a muddle; a chef who enjoys both Italian and Japanese food and expresses that enjoyment with a seaweed risotto topped with raw tuna. It can be done well, though, and it comes naturally to Dominique Macquet, whose home Island of Mauritius is a melting pot of cuisines as disparate as French, Chinese and Indian. At Tamarind, in the Hotel Modern, Macquet is doing something that might be called fusion, though it's far from a muddle. The food at Tamarind is mainly informed by the cooking of Vietnam. Macquet chose his long-time sous-chef at Dominique's, Quan Tran, as chef de cuisine, and Tran's approach to the cooking of his home is grounded in knowledge of the source....
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03/29/12
Let me get this out of the way right up front: I like Mike Stoltzfus. I'm fond of his restaurant, Coquette, and I'm fond of the guy personally. But that said, If I hadn't had a good meal at his new venture, Sweet Olive, I wouldn't be writing about it. Not because I like Stoltzfus, but because that's just not what I do here.
Fortunately, I did have a good meal at Sweet Olive. Apart from a few quirks that weren't so much flaws as not to my personal taste, the experience was positive from soup to nuts.
Sweet Olive is housed in the Saint hotel at 931 Canal St. The hotel's décor is modernist, I suppose. There are diaphanous white drapes lining the windows that face Canal, and which also serve to divide the cavernous lobby into distinct spaces....
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03/22/12
A few times every year I am asked to serve as a judge for one food-related competition or another. I think it's largely because of my great physical beauty, but it's also possible that it's because we have a lot of food-related competitions in New Orleans and not enough food-related people. It's probably the latter.
The reason I bring this up is because recently I took part in judging for the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, which takes place from May 22 to 26. It's the 20th anniversary of NOWFE and the fourth time I've been a judge. They keep asking me back for some reason.
For the past couple of years the judging has been done on location at participating restaurants. This is nice for the chefs but hell on the judges, because it means traveling...
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03/15/12
There are a number of events coming up in the next few weeks about which you should be aware.
On Friday, March 23, the New Orleans Road Food Festival will hold a kickoff party at the Royal Sonesta Hotel at 300 Bourbon St. It's the fourth anniversary for the event, which will include a taping of WWNO's radio show "Louisiana Eats." Host Poppy Tooker will interview Lynne Rossetto Kasper of the NPR show "The Splendid Table" and RoadFood.com's Jane and Michael Stern. The Sterns will also present their annual Blue Plate award, which this year goes to Doug Sohn of Hot Doug’s Cased Meat Emporium in Chicago. Local chef Frank Brigtsen will play a game of “Stump the Chef” against Kasper, with the winner chosen by the audience, and Johnny...
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03/08/12
This column will appear on Thursday, March 8, but I'm writing it on the 7th. For those of you unaware of the significance, March 7 marks the 43rd year I've graced the planet with my presence.
No doubt this revelation has caused some of you to faint. It's understandable. My great physical beauty, lithe grace and perfect complexion are clearly those of a younger man. My secret, as far as you know, is clean living.
We may define “clean living” differently, of course.
So what did I do on my birthday? Apart from the gifts I received, it was like most other days. I went to work, I ran a few errands, and I cooked dinner. It was distinct in that I made a run to Rare Cuts and stopped off for a bottle at Hopper's Carte des Vins, but otherwise it was an...
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