Food is our medium, but it is a people business. The suppliers, staff and guests. This very complex dynamic must click on all cylinders to be successful.
chefs today are too concerned with dazzling the customer, yet lack basic cooking skills. Do you agree?
Yes. Often I look at menus or photos of food that sound good or look beautiful, but I ask myself, “Where is the cooking?” It’s why I will never tire of making gumbo and gravy. Marchesi also says, “The customer’s job is to know what to eat. The task of the chef is to cook it to perfection.” Do customers know perfection on a plate when they see it?
It is a relationship between the chef and the diner, an exchange of trust and understanding. The chef is not cooking for himself or herself, but for the guest. The very bottom line is that I cook to make people happy. For that >>
photo: CANDRA GEORGE mycreativereality.com photo: SARA ROAHEN SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE
Renowned Italian chef Gualtiero Marchesi says that
Clockwise from top: A bowl of Frank Brigtsen’s gumbo; Tres leches cake with strawberries and chocolate whipped cream; pots on the stove at Brigtsen’s; sautéing rabbit for gumbo.
photo: CANDRA GEORGE mycreativereality.com
When I sat at the table with the Batterburys and Paul, he called me “Chef” of K-Paul’s for the first time. I am also blessed to have learned from some of the greatest Creole chefs that no one has ever heard of, both at Commander’s Palace and K-Paul’s. Creole cuisine has been passed down that way for centuries, with no recipes. I learned to cook without recipes. This was before Paul began writing. We had a wall phone in the small, very hot kitchen of K-Paul’s. I learned to make marinara sauce over the phone. Paul created crabmeat hollandaise and other sauces over the phone with me! Many of these old-school Creole chefs worked at the icons of our city—Brennan’s, Commander’s Palace, etc. Among them were Stanley Jackson, later at Kabby’s in the Hilton; Leroy Thomas, a very patient mentor; Raymond Sutton; and Armond Jonte, the first one of the early chefs at Gautreau’s. They all took me under their wing. Steve Gambel, who partnered with Gerhardt Brill on Gambrill’s, was my first mentor at Commander’s Palace. He broke me in on the pantry station. I got to work hot appetizers when that cook was sent home for drinking. I got on backline sauté when those two guys didn’t see the schedule change and didn’t show up for Sunday jazz brunch. I learned the hard way, but it was a good way, under the ever-watchful eyes of Miss Ella and Mr. Dick Brennan.
photo: SARA ROAHEN SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE
Besides Chef Paul, who were your mentors?
June-July 2015 39