food & dining an annual SJL special section
Tujague’s celebrating 160 years of culinary tradition and innovation In the restaurant business, staying open for 16 years is an accomplishment — let alone 160. New Orleans landmark Tujague’s is celebrating its 160th anniversary this year, having sailed through changing neighborhoods and changing ownerships, overcoming a few bumps along the way. “It’s truly amazing to have a 160th birthday and it couldn’t have happened without our loyal customers and visitors from near and far who have walked through our doors for over a century and a half,” said owner Mark Latter. Last October, ‘Tujague’s Cookbook” by Poppy Tooker was published, with an extensive history of the restaurant and its influence on New Orleans cuisine, along with about 100 recipes. Tooker said the restaurant’s location has always been significant in New Orleans history. It originally was Madame Begue’s, which opened in 1863 and was known for serving only “second breakfast” at 11 a.m., originating the concept of brunch. The butchers’ market was across the street, and those who had been working the docks since before sunrise had quite an appetite by then. The “butcher’s breakfast” as it came to be known was a five-course meal. Tooker said by the 1880s, when the butchers were no longer across the street, Madame Begue’s was the No. 1 tourist attraction in New Orleans, even though she would feed only 30 people per day. Tujague’s began in 1856 and was three doors down from where Begue’s would be established. Guillaume Tujague, a butcher from France, decided to open a restaurant after working for three years in the butchers market. Like Begue’s, Tujague’s served the butcher’s breakfast, and Tooker said “that is the origin of the prix fixe menu, multiple courses and the meal everyone looked to Tujague’s for.”
The first courses have always been a shrimp remoulade and beef brisket. The competitors would come together in 1914 when Tujague’s bought Madame Begue’s space and moved Tujague’s there. Begue had died in 1906 and Tujague had died in 1912. Philip Guichet, who had purchased Tujague’s from Tujague’s sister, teamed with Jean-Dominic Castet, who had started working at Begue’s in 1908. After the second generation of Castets died without children, the Guichets became sole owners in 1965. In 1982, the Guichets sold Tujague’s to Stanford and Steven Latter, with Noonie Guichet, grandson of Philip Guichet, staying on as manager. In her history of Tujague’s, Tooker said Stanford Latter saw the building as an investment and was going to rent the restaurant space to a fast-food operator, but Steven Latter left his position at Wembley Ties and “devoted the rest of his life to Tujague’s Restaurant.” Though the Latters had no restaurant experience, Steven Latter immersed himself in learning the industry. He researched the history of Tujague’s and revived many of the culinary traditions. He filled the walls with historic photos, and displayed a collection of thousands of liquor miniature bottles — which were illegal to sell in Louisiana until 2014. In 2008, Steven Latter was named Man of the Year by the Downtown Irish Club and tapped to lead the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, where it was joked that he would wear a “Kiss Me, I’m Jewish” button. On Feb. 18, 2013, Steven Latter died unexpectedly in his sleep. Less than a month later, word started spreading in New Orleans that Stanford Latter, who owned the building, was planning to rent the bar space to a fried chicken establishment, and the restaurant space would become a T-shirt shop. For a community just seven years removed from the flood that had
August 2016 • Southern Jewish Life 35