3039Tulanian article

Mar. 19, 2005

 

 

http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5523

Welcome to Food Land
By Suzanne Johnson
tulanian@tulane.edu
Photography By Paula Burch


While the rest of the world frantically counts grams of
carbohydrates and restaurants scramble to figure out new ways to
serve protein as a complete meal, New Orleans is abuzz: There's a new
restaurant in town.

Chances are, that restaurant will not skimp on crusty French bread or
savory sauces. If called for, there will be battering and frying.
Butter will flow like cream, and cream will be on the table.

It's the Big Greasy, the City That Calories Forgot, the Crescent Roll
City. For better or worse, New Orleans doesn't care if the food is
good for you--only that it's good food.

Tulanians are not immune to the gustatory grasp of the city we love.
In the pages that follow, you will meet 13 of them who've made food
their life's work here in the alternate world we call Food Land. From
the white linen of Arnaud's, Bacco, Galatoire's or Gabrielle to the
funkiness of Jacques-Imo's or the slurping sounds of downed oysters
at Acme Oyster House, join us as we stroll through some of the sights
and tastes our fellow Tulanians have to offer.

And take your time. Like a good gumbo, a walk through the tastes of
New Orleans shouldn't be rushed.

Mike Rodrigue - Acme Oyster House

Archie and Jane Casbarian - Arnaud's

Ralph O. Brennan - Bacco, Red Fish Grill, Ralph's on the Park and The
Jazz Kitchen--Disneyland

Bradley Gordon - Bayou Bagelry

Jimmy Urrate - Bruning's Seafood

Jeff Cooperman - Coop's Place

Robert Nelson - Elmer Candy

Nanci Easterling - Food Art

Gregory Sonnier - Gabrielle Restaurant

David Gooch - Galatoire's

Sam Scelfo - Gambino's Bakery

Jacques Leonardi - Jacques-Imo's Cafe, Crabby Jack's and Jacques-
Imo's Cafe--New York

Kay Roussell - Caterer and Chef

Good Eats




Tulanian
Fall 2004


http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5524

Mike Rodrigue - Acme Oyster House
By Heather Heilman
tulanian@tulane.edu
Photography By Paula Burch


In the '50s and '60s, Acme was really the spot," Mike Rodrigue
says. "It was a classic funky New Orleans joint. We just revived it."

Rodrigue (A&S '75), who lettered on the Green Wave golf team before
graduating with a degree in economics, bought Acme Oyster House in
1984.

He is a New Orleans native who grew up by Lake Pontchartrain and is
the second of three generations of Tulanians in his family. He got
started in the seafood industry early, when he used to help his
father tend crab nets along the seawall.

During college, he worked as a bartender at Bart's Restaurant, a
longtime institution on the lakefront. Even though he quit after a
house-clearing bar fight, he always valued his experience there.

"The restaurant business teaches life skills," he says. "You learn
crisis management and how to deal with people. It's a great
experience."

Rodrigue went to work as an insurance broker after finishing school,
but he was still thinking about restaurants.

"I think everybody dreams about owning a restaurant," Rodrigue says.
It's an idea that appeals, if not to everyone, then to social,
hospitable, gregarious types--the kind of people who want to have
everyone over for dinner.

So when Acme became available, he decided this was the opportunity
for which he'd been looking.

The Acme Cafe opened on Royal Street in the French Quarter in 1910.
It was located next to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, for decades a center
for local political wheeling and dealing that often spilled over into
the restaurant. The original location burned down in 1924, and the
restaurant moved around the corner to Iberville Street.

Acme had long been a busy, popular place to eat raw oysters and fried
seafood. But business had slowed down by the 1980s. Like a lot of
restaurants in the French Quarter, it lost some local patronage when
the center of New Orleans business shifted from Canal Street to
Poydras. The restaurant closed at 4 p.m. Still, it had history,
tradition and plenty of atmosphere with its long tiled bar, narrow
front dining room and striking antique light fixtures shaped like
clusters of grapes.

"When I first bought the place, we only had one waitress. If she was
on, you had wait staff," Rodrigue says.

The sign reading "Waitress available sometimes" is still posted above
the bar and has become one of the restaurant's slogans.

Without making any radical changes, Rodrigue brought new life to the
restaurant.

"We just woke up a giant," he says.

At first, he ate lunch there everyday. He loved dealing with the day-
to-day business and seeing friends, but he had a hard time
maintaining control of his time. His insurance business is still his
primary job, and Rodrigue estimates that Acme takes about a quarter
of his work life. He is no longer involved in most of the day-to-day
operations, though he is still a regular presence.

These days, the original restaurant in the French Quarter is always
busy. The small kitchen produces endless oyster po'boys and bowls of
red beans and rice, while a crew of shuckers turns out plates of
salty raw oysters.

Rodrigue disputes the notion that raw oysters shouldn't be eaten in
the summer.

"I had some great ones last week," he says. "They have their cycle
and they're plumper at certain times of the year but that doesn't
affect the taste. You can tell if we've had a lot of rain, though. It
affects the salinity level-- they lose some of their pop."

Acme has served Louisiana oysters to everyone from blue-collar
workers to U.S. Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft. So many people have
eaten their first raw oyster at Acme that you can get a T-shirt
proclaiming yourself one of them.

"We want to be a value-driven restaurant where you can get a good
meal for a reasonable price," Rodrigue says. The average cost of a
full meal at Acme is about $17.

The original location is half a block off Bourbon Street, and most of
its patrons are tourists-- although a sizable local crowd still shows
up for lunch on Friday.

And Rodrigue has slowly built an Acme empire. He opened new branches
first in Covington, La., on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain,
then at the lakefront and now in Sandestin, Fla. The new restaurants
have bigger kitchens that allow for an expanded menu. Rodrigue hasn't
decided if he will expand further.

"I think we've got to stay within a hundred miles of the coast with
this concept. If we try to move Louisiana oysters farther than that,
it gets too expensive. We want to be able to sell oysters for $7 a
dozen, not $12."

His current project is renovating the original restaurant. He
recently bought the building, which was built as a townhouse in 1814.
The trick is to modernize the facilities without ruining the
building's ramshackle charm. It has been newly shored to keep it
standing straight. The second floor and balcony are being renovated,
and a bigger kitchen is being built.

"After that, we'll put in a grill so we can serve charbroiled
oysters, which are fantastic."

As he shows off the building, his love for Acme is obvious.

"It's a great New Orleans tradition," he says. "Sometimes I can't
believe it's mine."



Favorite comfort food?

Red beans and rice. That's my favorite thing to eat here. I always
have it as a side item.
Food idol?

Emeril Lagasse. He just makes food fun, and I love his restaurants.
He loves turning people on to food. He's done a lot for the food
industry.
Greatest food fear?

Governmental regulation of oysters. We've always done the warning--
you have to do it by law, but we did it when it was just a
recommendation. It's frustrating, because we know who we buy our
oysters from. We're particular. It's frustrating when California
won't let Louisiana oysters be sold in their state.
Who would you like to see in your restaurant ?

I don't know, but we do serve John Ashcroft every time he's in town--
the FBI shows up first. We've fed the First Lady, too. We boarded Air
Force Two with oyster po'boys for the ride.

http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5525

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Archie and Jane Casbarian - Arnaud's
By Carol J. Schlueter
tulanian@tulane.edu
Photography By Paula Burch


Count Arnaud Cazenave would be proud of the restaurant that still
bears his name at the corner of Bienville and Bourbon streets. Right
down to the Happy Meal.

The Count, as he was known, passed away in 1948 but his legacy of
fine Creole dining continues at Arnaud's in the efficient hands of
Jane (NC '68) and Archie Casbarian.

Now in their 25th year of running the restaurant, the Casbarians
recall how they researched the old restaurant menus and "boiled it
down to 100 items" they wanted to offer. (Consider: The Count's menus
had nine oyster appetizers, 51 seafood entrees and 40 vegetables,
including potatoes prepared 16 ways.)

Still, diners--both New Orleanians and visitors-- often steer toward
tradition.

"We call it the Happy Meal," Jane says. Over the 87-year history of
the restaurant, "everybody who came here had to get the Shrimp
Arnaud, the trout meuniere with the brabant potatoes, the caramel
custard for dessert. To this day people still do that."

The Casbarians acquired the famed restaurant from Germaine Cazenave
Wells, daughter of the Count, in the late 1970s when Archie
developed "this entrepreneurial itch" while serving as regional vice
president of Sonesta International Hotels in New Orleans. As Wells
was casting around for a successor, many of the leading family
restaurants in town expressed interest. "She wanted someone to keep
up the tradition of Arnaud's. Eventually she decided I ought to be
the person to receive the property," adds Archie, a native of
Alexandria, Egypt, who came to New Orleans in 1966.

And so began a family enterprise that includes Jane, who has always
been responsible for buying wines and now handles all purchasing ($2
million of merchandise each year); son Archie Jr., who runs the
family's casual restaurant, Remoulade, that is around the corner on
Bourbon Street but connects to the Arnaud's kitchen; and daughter
Katy, who is in charge of the service staff, dining rooms, and
special promotions.

"We thought this would be a wonderful adventure, and it turned out
that way--along with a lot of tears," Archie says. "And a lot of hard
work," Jane adds.

Their early years running the restaurant were a challenge. Arnaud's
had 12 connecting properties covering most of the block, and it
needed major renovations. One dining room had holes in the ceiling,
allowing pigeons to fly around inside. What they thought would be a
cosmetic job turned out to require major mechanical and structural
changes.

Jane recalls, "It was in bad shape, but I could see how beautiful it
could be." She worked extensively with the interior designer, "which
was right up my alley" because of Jane's art training at Newcomb. A
native of New Orleans, she grew up near the Tulane uptown campus.

She and Archie worked side-by-side to return Arnaud's to the
restaurant jewel it once was.

He and Jane became the decision-makers about everything--linens,
china, silver, uniforms and, of course, food. "We decide what
something should look like, or taste like. Of course my background,
my training is that, but Jane is equally competent. It's a labor of
love," Archie says.

Jane was "thrown right in there." She says, "One thing I will say,
Archie was wonderful, because I was with him all the way and I
learned a lot. When the children were small, I'd put them to bed and
be here every night, hostessing. They used to ride their Big Wheels
around here when we were closed. They grew up here, working in the
storeroom, washing dishes. I mean, it was quite an education."

Archie points out how tough the restaurant business can be for
families. "It's really tough finding a husband-and-wife team to do
it."

They found the recipe for success. "It was really just the two of us,
and there was never anybody to spell us," Jane says. "So we were
always here together. It was all-consuming. On the other hand, we
have met so many people--presidents of the United States, film stars,
great local customers. It's been wonderful."

Maintaining the tradition of Creole recipes is something they take
seriously at Arnaud's. "We're true to what the Count tried to do
originally with food," Archie adds. "Creole has a lot of
connotations. In terms of food, at least my interpretation is, it's
French food with local ingredients. Plain and simple.

"We're hoping the kids carry on the legacy," Archie says. "It's not
just another restaurant. It's a special restaurant with a lot of
history. We are the caretakers."


Favorite comfort food?

Jane-- Beef brisket. Caviar would be a close second.

Archie-- Pistachio nuts.
Greatest food fear?

Jane-- That we are losing our Creole cooking because all the new
restaurants are doing fusion cooking. I call it "tortured food." And
I think that's my biggest fear because we're losing so much of our
local heritage.

Archie-- I ditto that.
Food idol?

Jane-- Archie.

Archie-- My training at the Swiss Hotel School, where they taught me
my taste in food.
Who would you
most like to serve
dinner to/have
dinner with?

Jane-- One of the ones I was most excited about was Buffalo Bob from
Howdy Doody. I loved him. With all the presidents and all the famous
people who've eaten at Arnaud's, he was the one I was most excited
about.

Archie-- The interim president of Iraq. To give him some advice.



http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5526

Ralph O. Brennan - Bacco, Red Fish Grill,...
By Mark Miester
tulanian@tulane.edu
Photography By Paula Burch


If Ralph Brennan has a few more gray hairs than he did this time
last year, you can blame it on Ralph's.

In December 2003, Brennan (A&S '73, B '75) unveiled his latest
restaurant venture, Ralph's on the Park, but the opening turned out
to be a bigger challenge than he had anticipated. What was expected
to be a six-month renovation of a historic 19th-century building on
the edges of New Orleans' City Park stretched to nearly a year.

It was worth the wait. Ralph's opened to rave reviews from customers
and critics alike, earning a prestigious four-bean rating from the
Times-Picayune for its stylish coupling of French cuisine and fresh
Louisiana ingredients.

In an industry with a failure rate as high as 90 percent, Brennan has
proven he knows the ingredients for success.

You could say that Brennan has the restaurant business in his blood.
He got his start in the business as a teenager, peeling shrimp in the
kitchen of Brennan's, the legendary French Quarter restaurant founded
in 1946 by his uncle, Owen Brennan.

By the time Ralph Brennan graduated from Tulane, however, a long
simmering rift in the Brennan family was coming to a head. Unhappy
with the efforts of Ella Brennan, sister of the late Owen Brennan, to
expand the family's restaurant holdings, brothers Pip, Jimmy and Ted
Brennan, Owen's sons and majority shareholders of Brennan's, broke
rank with their aunts and uncles and assumed sole control of
Brennan's. The rest of the family, including Ella and Ralph's father,
John, were given ownership of the other restaurants, including
Commander's Palace, which the family had purchased in 1969. The split
threw the financial future of Ralph's father, aunts and uncles into
uncertainty.

"Commander's didn't have the reputation it has today," Brennan
explains. "Brennan's was the breadwinner, and they had lost that
stream of income, so it put a lot of pressure on them. It was a
difficult time."

Brennan had already planned to get an MBA. With the uncertainty
surrounding his family's future in the restaurant business, he
accepted a job with Price Waterhouse following his graduation. For
the next six years, he worked as a CPA, an experience he says
ultimately contributed to his success as a restaurateur. "Accounting
teaches you an analytical way of thinking," Brennan says. "It's not
necessarily the numbers part but the disciplined thinking and the
approaches to problem- solving that have been helpful to me."

Commander's, meanwhile, under Ella's direction, prospered, becoming a
nationally acclaimed institution. Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse
are among the chefs to get their start in the Commander's kitchen. It
was over Christmas dinner in 1981 that Ella Brennan first asked Ralph
if he'd be interested in leaving Price Waterhouse to join the
restaurant business. Brennan leapt at the opportunity. "I always had
the feeling it was in my blood," he says, "so when I had the
opportunity to get back into the business, I wanted to try it."

In the summer of 1982, Ralph and his sister, Cindy Brennan (UC '78),
began to put their stamp on Mr. B's Bistro, a French Quarter
restaurant that their aunts, uncle and father had opened a few years
earlier. Mr. B's became a popular and influential restaurant, blazing
a culinary trail with smartly updated Creole classics. Their partner
in that effort was executive chef Gerard Maras, who is now at Ralph's
on the Park. Cindy remains at the helm of Mr. B's.

Inspired by the success of Mr. B's and restless to take on new
challenges, Brennan began to branch out on his own. Bacco, a Tuscan-
style Italian restaurant in the French Quarter, came first in 1991,
followed in 1997 by Red Fish Grill, a Bourbon Street seafood
restaurant. In 2001, Brennan started up the Jazz Kitchen at
Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.

"I don't tell a chef what to cook, but we talk about the concepts and
the types of dishes we'd like to see," says Brennan of his role in
developing a restaurant.

Success depends on more than the menu, says Brennan. "You have to
have the right people in place. This business isn't that complicated,
but it does require an incredible amount of detail. It's the
execution of those minute details--every day and every meal, period--
that makes it difficult."

Difficult but gratifying. Now that Ralph's on the Park is up and
running, Brennan's feeling the itch to look around for a new
challenge. "There will be something," he says. "I don't know what
yet, but I see a lot of opportunity."


Favorite comfort food?

A cheeseburger and chocolate milk shake.
Greatest food fear?

That I would have to eat escargot again.
Food idol?

Certainly, the senior members of my family. They started with very
little and established themselves as one of the top restaurant
families in New Orleans and the country. My generation has been left
a great legacy that we must build upon. The restaurant industry is an
industry of opportunity. Through my National Restaurant Association
involvement [Brennan served as president of the association], I have
met several industry leaders who have also become informal mentors to
me and, in a sense, idols, but they are not celebrities or household
names.
Who would you like to see walk through the door of one of your
restaurants?

Any U.S. president.



http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5527


Bradley Gordon - Bayou Bagelry
By Heather Heilman
tulanian@tulane.edu
Photography By Paula Burch


Bradley Gordon (A&S '92) left his home on Long Island, New York, to
attend Tulane in the fall of 1988. He loved the school and the city
from the start, but there was one problem.

"I noticed that there weren't any bagels," he says. "I think they
sold frozen bagels in Bruff, but they weren't very good."

Gordon can take much of the credit for introducing New Orleans to
real bagels. He sells bagels like the ones he grew up eating in his
five Bayou Bagelry stores and in most of the coffee shops in town.

During Gordon's college years, he saw bagels gradually becoming more
available and popular outside of the Northeast.

"Ever since Mc-Donald's put bagels on the menu, they're not as much
of an ethnic food as they once were," he says.

By his senior year he was toying with the idea of opening a bagel
shop in New Orleans. He graduated with a degree in history and went
home to Long Island. But he missed New Orleans, and in less than a
year he was back. He brought with him the recipe from his favorite
bagel store in New York.

But the first batches didn't come out quite right. "It took us a
while to perfect the process," Gordon says. "We had to adjust because
of the heat and humidity here."

Initially partnered with a fraternity brother, he opened his first
shop in the New Orleans' Central Business District on Gravier Street.
He hoped to attract a professional crowd interested in trying
something different than eggs and bacon for breakfast. It was a great
success, and soon he opened a second location near Tulane's uptown
campus. That location continues to be the most profitable, although
it is the smallest in the budding chain.

There are now Bayou Bagelry stores on St. Charles Avenue near the
Garden District, in Old Metairie and on the north shore of Lake
Pontchartrain.

The stores offer the classics like a bagel with a cream cheese
schmear for breakfast, but you can also get a roast beef or chicken
cordon bleu bagel sandwich for lunch.

Gordon and his staff make fresh bagels five nights a week in their
bakery in downtown New Orleans.

"We run almost 24 hours at the bakery," he says.

Bagel-making is a labor-intensive enterprise. The dough is made and
shaped into bagels, then put in a cooler for 12 hours. In the old-
fashioned method, the bagels would next be briefly boiled, and then
baked. But the boiling method makes the bagels too thick and chewy to
use for sandwiches, so at Bayou Bagelry they are instead steamed for
a minute and then baked.

"We make everything from scratch and use the best quality ingredients
we can get," Gordon says.

He makes his bagels with temperature-controlled purified water and
imports smoked salmon from Brooklyn, sourdough culture from Chicago,
and sun-dried tomatoes from California. He knows that as the purveyor
of a specialty product, quality and consistency are of utmost
importanceý especially in New Orleans, where people know good food
and are notoriously picky about what they eat.

"I'm constantly watching over everything. It takes a lot of time and
a lot of effort."

That means that he works constantly, visits all the stores at least
six days a week, and answers his cell phone at all hours of the day
and night.

"But I love it. It's still fun to get up every day and go to work."

And his wife knows how much work owning a business entails. He's
married to Ashley Bazzone Gordon, who graduated from Newcomb in 1993
and owns a bridal accessory store in Metairie. The couple didn't know
each other well during college, but got reacquainted and started
dating after running into each other at a restaurant several years
ago. In addition to running two companies, they take care of their
son, Andrew, who was born last year.

For awhile it seemed that Bayou Bagelry would be serving bagels to
all of south Louisiana. But if New Orleans diners were demanding when
he first started, the low-carbohydrate revolution has only made them
more so.

"The low-carb thing definitely affected our business. People are not
eating as much bread," he says. "But now we have low-carb bagels and
low-carb wraps, and one of our suppliers just started making low-carb
kaiser rolls."

Of course, a low-carb bagel is not quite the same as the real
thing. "It's like Coke versus Diet Coke, but what are you gonna do?"
Gordon asks. Even he has been on the Atkins diet. When you make
bagels all day, after awhile you don't want to eat them anymore
anyway. "These days I eat the low-carb wraps."

But every once in a while he has a craving for a New York Classic
with smoked salmon.

"If I'm going to eat a bagel, that's what it's going to be," he says.


Favorite comfort food?

Chinese food or New York-style pizza.
Greatest food fear?

I worry about employees. You go through all this work, and then they
donýt show up on time or they snipe at the customers.