We Live To Eat
Louisiana's trusted industry advisor for restaurants, Louisiana Restaurant Association, presents We Live To Eat. It's a behind-the-scenes peek at the members of the association and how the LRA helps them navigate the complicated world of restaurant ownership. Host Wendy Waren intrigues us with interesting stories and engaging conversations with special guests from Louisiana's culinary scene. Join us each month for an update & check out all our social media - Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin. Follow We Live to Eat on Spotify and Amazon Music.
We Live To Eat
Special Episode 3: Authentically Louisiana with Chef John Folse
In this special episode, LRA's own Wendy Waren sits down with this year's LRA Showcase Keynote Speaker and Louisiana’s culinary ambassador to the world, Chef John Folse, as he shares personal stories from his boyhood in the German Coast swamp to the founding of the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute. Get a taste of what’s to come when he takes the stage as keynote speaker at the 2025 LRA Showcase—Sunday, August 3 at 2 p.m. at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center.
New episodes are available each month on most podcast platforms. We Live To Eat podcast is produced by the Louisiana Restaurant Association Comms Dept.
https://www.instagram.com/louisiana_restaurant_assoc/
https://www.facebook.com/LaRestaurantAssoc
https://www.linkedin.com/company/louisiana-restaurant-association
Welcome to another episode of the We Live to Eat podcast by the Louisiana Restaurant Association. I'm your host, Wendy Warren, and today we have a very special guest. Few names resonate across Louisiana's culinary landscape and beyond like Chef John Fulce. A chef, historian, author, entrepreneur, teacher, and lifelong champion of Cajun and Creole cuisine, Fulce has earned the title Louisiana Culinary Ambassador to the World through decades of visionary leadership, storytelling, and an unwavering commitment to preserving the foodways of his home state, Louisiana. As the keynote speaker for the 2025 LRA Showcase, Chef Fulce will take center stage on Sunday, August 3rd at 2 p.m. in Hall I at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, delivering what is sure to be a powerful and personal reflection on his role Louisiana's cuisine plays in shaping its cultural and economic identity. His presence perfectly aligns with this year's showcase theme, Authentically Louisiana, a celebration of the people, products, and places that make our industry so unique. As a proud member of the Louisiana Restaurant Association since 1978, when he opened his first restaurant, Lafitte's Landing, Chef Fulce has long stood as a mentor and trailblazer in our industry. He was inducted into the LRA Hall of Fame in 2025. Join us as we reflect on the journey that brought him from the swamp floor pantry of Cabanzi, to international stages and now to the keynote spotlight of the LRA Showcase. So I'm sitting across from you and I'm reading this and I'm like blushing because I'm looking at you and it's, you know, this is truly one of the great rewards of being in this industry and of course working at the Louisiana Restaurant Association is getting to spend time with legendary Louisiana culinary legends. Just like you.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's very kind, very kind. And you know, there's so many wonderful names of great cooks and chefs, men and women who have come before me, that's really instilled in me the passion to continue the great work that they have done. done over the, I'm going to say centuries, all the way back to the explorers walking through the swamps of Louisiana. I treasure all of those that I've met along the way and the Leah Chases of the world and all of these great chefs that I've been able to sit and chat with. So, yeah, great opportunity to tell the story of Louisiana, and I love to tell it often.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and we love to hear it. But I want to go, you know, unless you take a deep dive to the Creole and Cajun Encyclopedia, or you really look into your history, I really want to go back to what brought your people to Louisiana. Let's go back to your great-great-grandfather and talk about what they did for work and what things that they brought to this landscape.
SPEAKER_02:Well, my family... deeply rooted in the German culture of Louisiana. Of course, most of the Germans came to Louisiana late 1700s, early 1800s. They came as farmers. They came as woodworkers. They came as carpenters. And so we've always been a family of hard workers off of the land. I remember my dad and My grandfather getting up very early in the morning, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the morning, putting back sacks on and going into the swamps. We may not see him again for a month, a month and a half.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Our dad and our grandfather and uncles were all gone. And all the women were around the house with the children. And we never guessed, we never wondered where they were because we had come to understand that we were a group of people living off of the land. Okay. And the land was so important to fill the coffers of the smoked meats and the sausages and all the preservation of... And we were learning every single day as we watched our great-grandfathers and our grandfathers cure the meats and smoke the meats and make the sausages, and we were enthralled with it. It was our Disneyland. We knew nothing but the swamps around us, but we were totally engulfed in food and family. And what a great place... to begin my journey. You know, what a great place.
SPEAKER_00:So tell me what it was like for you as a little boy. You were one of nine children, big family, number three, I believe. Right. And what was a typical, like, going out with your siblings day like? What were y'all doing?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think probably the most interesting and unique aspect of my youth is the fact that we were not expected to be at home as young boys. Mom, Dad, if we decided to go into the swamps for a week or two, They weren't looking for us because they knew that that was the life we lived. And we were learning it. I mean, it was an education for us. My dad was a trapper. We understood that there was going to be pelts all over the nail to the outside of the house to dry the furs of the mink and the raccoon that the French... and clothiers would come in to buy our furs. I remember sitting on our porch smelling the curing meat, and I don't know whether it was a smell that we didn't like, but it just became... Just omnipresent. We were sitting amongst the furs that were drying. We also realized that on the other side of the fur was the meat that we were eating. And we never questioned whether it was rabbit or whether it was duck or whether it was goose. It didn't matter. It was a cast iron pot full of beautiful meat. nutritious, delicious food that was being cooked at the hands of our grandmothers and our mothers. The gardens were overfilled with... We never ever felt that we weren't in the greatest place we could possibly be. Although looking back at it now, it seemed that we were in just tremendous poverty.
SPEAKER_00:But really, it was like Disneyland. That's the ultimate thing when I think of Sportsman's Paradise. It's like, this... There's all this fishing and hunting. I mean, you even hunted alligators with your dad?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And learned very early on not to fear an alligator coming at you. This is the way you attack that alligator. I mean, we're seven, eight, nine years old. We're in the woods with dad. And realizing that he was teaching us, just like... just like any other animal in the swamp lands who's teaching that little new creature how to survive in the swamp. We were doing the same thing as human beings. We were learning every single day how to survive in this place. What I didn't realize until many years later that the Mississippi River gave us all of our freshwater fish. The swamplands gave us all of our shellfish, our crawfish. The swamplands gave us our venison, our smoked raccoon that we would eat squirrels in the trees. We were seven, eight, nine years old when we got our first shotgun because we were going to... Dad needed at six, seven, eight years old needed to teach us to be good hunters. Imagine that today. You're going to send your seven, eight, nine-year-old child with eight other boys into the swamp, each with a gun, and you're not going to see them again for a week. That was the life we lived. And living that life... taught us that there was nothing impossible, which really led me into a life of believing that anything was possible. I could open a restaurant in Germany.
SPEAKER_01:I could
SPEAKER_02:bring Louisiana cooking to China. Anything was possible. There was nothing in my way to do anything I wanted to do, and it all came from the swamp floor pantry.
SPEAKER_00:That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02:No doubt about it.
SPEAKER_00:So let's talk about the... the time when you lost your mother and then the story of Mary.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I remember probably as clear as it happened yesterday going to my grandmother's house with my six brothers. I was eight years old and realized that this was just another month where mom was going to have a baby because there was eight of us and that every year mom had a baby that was normal and everybody in the neighborhood had a baby and so on this particular day dad got us all our little pack of stuff going going to my mayor's house and we're going to come back probably in a week to pick you up because mom's having a baby and Well, the next morning, we're all on the front porch. And, of course, it's all French speaking. And all we could remember from Dad getting out of the little truck that brought him over to my grandmother's house to pick us up to go back. In French, he told my grandmother, Therese a la mort, Therese a la mort. And we knew that meant Therese died. in French. I'm eight years old. All of us on the front porch, and I'll never forget my older brother, who's only about 11, he hits me like this, he says, Dad is just kidding. I said, oh yeah, Dad is just kidding. And then Dad comes out and tells us that Mother had passed away during the night. And that began our journey of the realization that we didn't have a mother anymore. The oldest child was 10. The youngest was twins, just maybe 15 months, maybe 12, 15 months old, twins. And now we have a house full of babies, no mother, and Daddy gathering us in a big circle and saying... your mother's died, your mother's passed away, and now you're going to be the family. We're all going to have to work together. And I still clearly remember that. That is sitting, I can visualize it right now, sitting around the table saying, we need to really work together now because mom's gone. And I'll never forget my brother saying, I mentioned it already, but he hit me and said, he's just kidding, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, showers. Yeah. In denial.
SPEAKER_02:So thus began our journey, you know. Well, as gifts would come plentiful, the greatest gift was an African-American woman knocking on our door. And my dad said, Of course, you've got all the children running outside because there's no neighbors coming to visit. And here's this African-American woman there, and my dad's talking to her. And she's telling the story of my mother meeting this African-American woman and seeing my mom, nine months pregnant, hanging clothes on a clothesline in the rain with all of these little babies on the porch. And telling my mother, grabbing her hand and saying, if anything ever happens to me, I sure hope a good woman like you would look in on these children. And we remember that. And that's exactly what happened. Mom died in childbirth the next day. And Mary knocked on our door one week later and said, my dad said, can I help you? And she said, no, sir, but I can help you. And then, of course, she told mom's story. And Mary ended up rearing all of us, five of our own children, coming to our house every morning at 6 o'clock. cooking breakfast, washing our clothes, while her children took care of the family at her house. And Mary reared all of us until the last child graduated from school when Mary told my dad my job's done. Wow. But that instilled in me and my family, my brothers and sisters, the need to always be on the lookout for where we needed to help. Right. When it's your turn. Yeah, because it was instilled in us at a very early age that somebody came in and rescued us. And where is our rescue? Who are we going to rescue? Right. And so I think my six brothers and my two sisters are a great example of of remembering the great gift that was given to us and that how important it is that we...
SPEAKER_00:Pay
SPEAKER_02:it forward. Yeah, play it forward for sure. I'll never forget telling a group of visitors when they asked, John, when did you realize you were going to be a chef? And I said, well, probably when I was... eight years old, nine years old. I didn't know I was going to be a chef, but I knew I was enthralled with cooking. I knew that.
SPEAKER_00:And Mary, you cooked with Mary.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I knew that we would do little fires in the yard and cook birds. We were cooking. Of course we were cooking, and we were eating bloody little birds. But it was instilling in us that, a desire to cook. And from that went on that desire continued to grow until eventually we were able to take it globally to bring Louisiana cooking around the world. Who would have thought from cooking a little bird to sitting across the table from Reagan and Gorbachev and feeding them Louisiana cuisine. In my world, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, in between that, though, you had some... Before you opened your own restaurant at age 32, you worked for what is now the Hilton... capital in Baton Rouge and before that you told me you worked at Howard Johnson so tell me about how those experiences kind of got you to the point where you thought you could open your own restaurant and be successful
SPEAKER_02:well you know I've always been a guy of tremendous good luck I mean that's all I can say because when I walked into to one of these job centers that's, you know, you go in and you just sit down at the table and I'm looking for work and what kind of work do you want? Well, you know, this one. And all of a sudden, the lady sitting across the desk from me trying to get four or five things that I might be interested in, and she says, well, I have an opening at a Howard Johnson's restaurant. are you interested in cooking? And I said, well, I've always cooked. I mean, I've cooked all my life, you know. I mean, my mom died. We all cooked when I was seven, eight years old. Well, there's a job opening at Howard Johnson's. I said, well, I'm not familiar with that. I said, well, it's a restaurant chain, and they're looking for an apprentice chef, cook. And I think you might be interested. So I went, and I met this woman. saint, again, another saint in my life, Irene Ryan, who was the general manager, woman general manager of Howard Johnson at the time on College Drive. And she sat me down and told me that, you know, that there was an opening and didn't know if I was qualified for it or not and started to drill me on my cooking and my this and that. Had I ever worked in a restaurant? No, I hadn't. But some kind of way or other, she, through this conversation, telling the story of my mother passing away and dad teaching us to cook and cooking was a way of life for us, I guess that conversation instilled in Irene Ryan that, hmm, this guy, I think, can become a a chef. She says, I think you're going to be really good at this. I think you're going to be really good at this. And I said, well, I've never done it before. She says, you'll be good at it. She said, because you're not afraid to talk. You're not afraid to talk. When people just sit and they don't want to talk, I don't know. But she said, you're anxious to talk about something. That's what it's all about. And she was the one who said... I'd like to try you out at our restaurant. I think you'd be really good at it. And then, of course, I was, and I got into the restaurant
SPEAKER_00:business because of her. And then you were the general manager. I
SPEAKER_02:became general manager within the first year. And then the gentleman who was in charge of Howard Johnson's for the region was out of Dallas. Mr. Dornbush was his name. How I remember that name, I have no idea, but it was his name. And he came in to the restaurant unannounced with another guy, and he called me in. And he said, look, we have an opportunity. We have a restaurant opening in Shreveport that's one of our largest Howard Johnson restaurants, and it's right at the airport, so it's very busy. But Mrs. Ryan thinks that you'd be the right person for the job. And we don't know if you're interested in moving from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. But if you are, we have a job for you. And we'd move you into an assistant GM for 90 days. And then if you're 90 days, we'll make you the GM of the property. And Mrs. Ryan thinks that you're ready immediately. So I came home and my wife was... working in Baton Rouge as well. And I told her, I said, look, I have this great job offer to go to Shreveport. And she said, I'm not going to Shreveport. Well, we're not going to Shreveport. And I said, look, this is what they offered me. And she said, oh, wow. She said, well, I think we can go to Shreveport. And And we got the Freeport. It was the largest Howard Johnson restaurant in the chain. And now all of a sudden I was GM of that with very little experience. I had only been in the business for less than probably a year. And now I'm having the largest Howard Johnson's. And, of course... I immediately fell in love with food and beverage. Immediately. I mean, I knew I was good at it. I knew I had come from a family of good cooks. I knew nothing was afraid of a cast-iron pot. I mean, it was just natural. And now I was learning it from another aspect, and that was the food and beverage side, the money-making side, not the cooking side. And And I loved it. How long were you there? Well, I was there for about a year, and then they kept wanting me to move to the next level, to the next level. So they wanted me to move to Dallas. And my wife said, I'm not moving to Dallas. I mean, look, we at Shreveport was bad enough for her. And, of course, she had a great job. I said, well, if you don't want to move, I said, we either stay in Shreveport or maybe we go back and do something else. And that's when I decided, well, you know what? I think I have enough under my belt here to take a chance to open my own restaurant.
SPEAKER_00:But you went to work for the Capitol Hilton in between there, right? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:after I did those journeys.
SPEAKER_00:So you went to work at the Capitol House Hotel in— and Chef Fritz.
SPEAKER_02:Fritz Blumberg.
SPEAKER_00:So you guys had a reciprocal relationship regarding food. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Fritz Blumberg was probably the gift that was the greatest for me because he was coming to this place where I'm working and he's coming with great international And he was so passionate about not only American food, but global cuisine. And he would pound every single day, John, you're fascinated with Cajun and Creole, and it's a great cuisine. But you need to expand that journey. You're better than just Cajun. Cajun grill, you better. You love it, and I'm sure you'll be successful at it. But if you want to be a great restaurateur, then you need to expand your knowledge of world cuisine. And it was Fritz Bloomberg who kind of nudged me to say, You need to move to a bigger restaurant. You need to move to one of our bigger restaurants where you're going to be engulfed in more of the business side as well as the hospitality side because in the restaurant business, you have to be as good in finance as you are in people. There's no mixture there. I mean, it's both of them you have to be in. And Fritz Bloomberg was the one who recognized the fact that I was probably a good candidate for that and decided that he was going to find out if I was good enough by moving me out of my little... Comfort zone. Yeah, that little comfort zone and throw me into... a big operation where really I didn't know anybody. I didn't know any of the people. I'm safe in my little restaurant because I know everybody. But all of a sudden now, I'm twice the size restaurant. I'm in a different city, a different state. I know nobody, but now I've got to take all of these management techniques that I've learned, and now I realize why I learned them. And I'm so happy I had Fritz Bloomberg to get me there. And of course, that allowed me to really spread my wings and understand that I was good enough to do this for myself at some point in time. I can run my own restaurants at some point in time. I don't need to work for somebody. Of course, that was a slow journey, but... Our confidence was growing. Let me put it that way. I was never afraid. I don't know why, but I was never afraid.
SPEAKER_00:Well, your dad was taking you to hunt alligators when you were a kid. You had the resilience. You were like, if I can take on the wild. Yeah, no, no, no, it's true. It's true. So there's another person, a newcomer. Ruth Newcomer. She was one of those people.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was Ruth Newcomer who was the general manager of the restaurant that Fritz Bloomberg was in, and then he moved out, and I moved into that restaurant, and Ruth Newcomer was the GM. Now I'm working for a woman GM for the first time, and she's brilliant. And I realized that I was infatuated with Fritz Bloomberg, and he was so fantastic. But Ruth Newcomer was much more about revenue, about making money. John, it's not about cooking. Because you're a cook, you're here. But because of management and finance... We're going to be here. We're going to grow the company. So don't be so engulfed in cooking, cooking, cooking. You know how to cook. You know how to do it. You need to start doing this. And figure out. Yeah, you need to know the P&Ls. You need to know when we're making money. And it was Ruth Newcomer who really sat me down at the table and said... You're on your way, but you really need to study finance, and you need to be much, much better at the numbers rather than the stove. You mastered the stove already. Get away from the stove. Get into books. Get into management. Get into training. Get into the communication side of it. Get into customer relations. Forget cooking. You're good at that.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Now you need to teach the next generation the food ways. You're the teacher now. And I think Nickel State is really, where my culinary school is, is the greatest place to tell this
SPEAKER_00:story.
SPEAKER_02:I knew that it was important to do a school that would be dedicated totally to the rich cuisine of Louisiana, but more importantly, Cajun and Creole defined, because very few people knew what it meant or what it was all about. And yet we're living in this utopia of culinary. We're living in this utopia. I mean, we just walk out of our back door and we have the whole world of food, seasons. I mean, it's just incredible, the land we live in. But I realized that what was really missing was culinary education. Everything was just pieces and parts of culinary education, short courses and everything. And I just sensed that we weren't really learning what we should be learning or teaching what we should be teaching. And Don Lyo, who was president of Nichols State, and of course I had gone to Nichols, so I knew him very well, and he stopped at my restaurant one day in Lafitte's Landing, just by accident, to have lunch. And with him was a gentleman who I had never met before, Boise Bollinger, Bollinger Shipyards. And they stopped for lunch. And lo and behold, as they walked in and sat down and had their table, and I knew Dr. IU, of course, and I'm walking into the kitchen to... out of the kitchen to come welcome them. And with me were three chefs in their full regalia.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_02:we walk out into the dining room and I tell Dr. Ayo, I have three chefs here visiting from Europe who wanted to come and learn something about Cajun and Creole on New Orleans cuisine. It's hot overseas. People want to know more about it because America doesn't have a well-defined cuisine, but New Orleans does. And so we wanted to come and see if we could learn a little bit about it. And Boise Bollinger says, we ought to be doing this at Nichols.
SPEAKER_01:And I
SPEAKER_02:said, wow. He said, and you could teach the course, John. And I said, well, I don't know anything about teaching a course. And Boise Bollinger and Don Lyle standing in my restaurant seeing these three chefs... Is what sparked it....sparked the John Falls Culinary Institute at Nichols State University. Just that moment... Of realization. Yeah, that if it wouldn't have happened right then... Or I hadn't invited three chefs to my restaurant to study Louisiana cuisine because there was nowhere to study it. And they had contacted me because they wanted to learn a little bit about Louisiana cuisine, New Orleans cooking, as they called it. The gateway to Louisiana cuisine. And Boise and his genius, we ought to be doing that at Nickel State University. He said, Donald, man, get with this guy. Look at these three guys. They could be at Nichols of Short Course in Louisiana cooking. And I'm just standing there saying, yeah, that's what we ought to do. And that was a great example of moments that happens in all of our lives that we might not take advantage of.
SPEAKER_00:But it will change the trajectory. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, just that one moment of... three guys walking in with me and Boise Bollinger and Donald Ayo standing there right time, right moment. And Donald says, we need to do that at Nichols. And all of a sudden, culinary education begins at Nichols State University at the first four-year college degree in culinary arts in the United States. And that was just, that was 1995. That wasn't long ago, and I had to fight for it because... Nobody wanted to give a four-year degree to culinary. They wanted it to be a two-year degree.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and this was right before really the dawn of the TV celebrity chef. Oh, yeah. We had some cooking shows, but it really wasn't, you know, the Gordon Ramsay and the top chef and the competitions and things like that really didn't have, you know, its heyday until like the early 2000s. So you were actually... on the cutting edge and coming in with this with this model of education and professionalism of our industry that hadn't been done before, but it was done right before that kind of TV celebrity chef took off and really started to attract a lot of people to look at our industry as an opportunity for professionalism. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I remember being on the Today Show and I asked a question about They said, you know, you've been to Russia with Reagan and Gorbachev, and you opened the first restaurant in Beijing. You've done all of these things, and how do you measure in your life what is your greatest accomplishment? Oh, my gosh. And without even thinking about it, I said, oh, that's the easiest thing in the world. It wasn't China. It wasn't Beijing. It wasn't Gorbachev and Reagan. It was opening the John Falls Culinary Institute at Nichol State University.
SPEAKER_00:That's crazy. I'm still blown away by that. But that's kind of how things, you know, this is a very... We're very relational people. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And we... We see the opportunity without thinking about it. Yeah, we can do that. How many students do you think have been through... Oh, my God. Well, you know, let's just say we... Let's just say instead of three classes a year, we did two. And in each of those classes, we had probably 50. So that's 100. Yeah. So just 100 times how many years? 30.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's
SPEAKER_02:significant. I would say that's probably the number.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So let's talk about... the relationship between the John Fulks Culinary Institute and the LRA and our education foundation because there are pictures in our history books at the LRA of you and our former president and CEO cutting ribbons at the institute when it opened, which was the same year that we built the LRA headquarters in Metairie, and also passing legislation for the the institute being recognized and you know highway logo programs and other tourism things you were at the center of all of that as well and nowadays when we do our annual scholarships we have more of our scholars going to the John Fulks Culinary Institute than any other of our Louisiana culinary programs or indefinitely national so that's a real testament to the strength and the popularity of of that program and how well it's respected and how young culinarians want to go there.
SPEAKER_02:The Louisiana Restaurant Association, LRA, has been just... such an unbelievable resource for all of us in culinary. And the great work that's been done through LRA is just incredible. And I've been just so fortunate to be a part of that for so many years. And then look at what's happened at Nickel State University. And now I'm...
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, you have students coming from all over the
SPEAKER_02:world. All over the world. I'm bringing culinarians from all over the world. So from that little bitty... place where Ruth Newcomer and Howard Johnson said, you're ready.
SPEAKER_00:You know how to cook. To that encounter with the three chefs in Boise and Dr. Ayub and then, you know, it really is...
SPEAKER_02:It's going to be a great book one day.
SPEAKER_00:Well, while we're talking about books, you know, any, you know, self-respecting Louisiana knows, like, these are the... the Bibles of Creole and Cajun cuisine and all the things ingredient-wise and history-wise. He has four volumes now. I think you're working on your fifth. The first one, though, is the encyclopedia. You want to tell me about the young kids carrying this encyclopedia?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the funny thing about it is the first book I did was called The Encyclopedia of Cajun Creole Cuisine. It was a little paperback. It was a little paperback. How cute. I said a little paperback. It was about an inch thick, but it had a little cover, a little spiral cover. And it was called, you know what I'm thinking, the Encyclopedia of Cajun Creole Cuisine. But it was there, writing that first little book, and I'll never forget when I published the book, I started getting a big slap across my face because I didn't do a good job of editing. I was just writing a book. I was writing a book. And it didn't dawn on me that I needed to write accurately. So, you know, it reminds me every time I talk to my students at Nichols or when I talk to my own team here, how I reinforce all of these success stories with the failures that I had. Because without the failures, I would have never learned to do the things I'm doing now. So I like to tell my Ryan and all the, whether it's the restaurant or whether it's the manufacturing facility, whatever it is, that, you know, we made a lot of mistakes and it was through those mistakes that we learned to build an empire, build a company we have. It was all about mistakes and learning, being terminated once or twice because I didn't do something right. But through all of those journeys, I came to realize that every one of those was a stepping stone to success. And every one of those was the greatest encyclopedia to be able to teach to the hundreds of employees I have now. And I realize that the respect I have of my staff is the fact that they've known the journey. They know nothing was given to us. Just like them, they're working hard. Just like we worked hard. Nobody gave us anything. My dad didn't have any money to give us anything. We started from nothing. And if I started from nothing and could do this, you can do
SPEAKER_00:it.
SPEAKER_02:And that's the message.
SPEAKER_00:Who are some of your mentees that you've given that kind of guidance to in their careers that, you know, you've helped them see the bigger picture than what they started with, and they've gone on to do great things. Well, I
SPEAKER_02:mean, even my GM here, where we're sitting today, was one of my young cooks in the kitchen and reminded me of who I was as a young boy. Now he's GM of... of my largest food and beverage operation, but he was a young cook. And I could name 10 or 15 of them, because same thing in New Orleans, at my restaurant in New Orleans. I have two guys there who began as cooks, now they run my restaurant in New Orleans. it's incredible how the family has just grown. They hadn't gone anywhere. They've just become much better. They're older. They now have more of the false philosophy, but they've also taught me a lot that I didn't know. They've brought a lot of things to the table that Yeah, sure. I was succeeding really well. But without them, I wouldn't have grown another part of the business. I certainly wouldn't be here at White Oak. Right. Because this is a catering division. I had a restaurant division. I didn't know anything about catering. And you also have a manufacturer. Yeah. So one day I just realized that everything in my life was food. Media. Publishing. Manufacturing, White Oak, my restaurants in New Orleans, airport locations in two or three different states, all embedded in food and management.
SPEAKER_00:I think that it's... You know, we've talked a lot about different aspects of your life and your career, but I think one of the things that we've talked about your restaurant in New Orleans, but we've not actually named it Restaurant Revolution. Right. I remember going to the press conference at the Cabildo when you announced you were going to do this, rather ambitious in terms of, the cuisine arc and framework. Do you want to tell me a little bit about the nations and how that kind of concept came to
SPEAKER_02:you? Well, I knew when we decided to open a restaurant in New Orleans, first of all, I was being asked by a great and generous operation to do a restaurant in New Orleans, and that was Sonesta. Sonesta had come to me to say, you know, we really want a true Louisiana restaurant. There's a lot of restaurants in New Orleans doing great food, but we want one that's really deeply embedded into Louisiana's culinary history. And Sonesta gave us that opportunity. But in addition to that, they did something that I had never seen before, and that is a major corporation coming to me and saying, whatever you want. Oh, I know those kids. Whatever you want. I mean, we want the best of everything. We realize if we're coming to New Orleans, we're in a battlefield because the greatest restaurants in America... They're going to be in New Orleans as far as we're concerned. And names like Brennan and I can keep on going. Some of the greatest names in culinary, that's where we're going. We're going to fight on that stage all of a sudden. And Sinesta, I don't know how they determine that. We could go head to head with them. But the president of Sonesta came in and said, we want you to do this. the greatest Louisiana restaurant in New Orleans. We don't want a New Orleans restaurant. We want to showcase Louisiana cuisine because New Orleans is overfilled with travelers, and we want to indoctrinate them to what is real Louisiana, not frou-frou food. Or not
SPEAKER_00:the same old, same old. Yeah. That's how we got, like, Death by Gumbo.
SPEAKER_02:That's exactly right. So... being challenged by Sonesta with the money they put into building Restaurant Revolution and naming it Restaurant Revolution because we were sitting at a table just like this one day and I'll never forget the president of the company was sitting there and he said, what are we going to name this? A false is what? I said, no, I don't know. We hadn't thought about it. And in that conversation, I said, Well, whatever it is, it needs to be revolutionary. And I'll never forget the president said, that's the name. That's it. Don't go any further. I said, revolutionary? He said, revolution. He said, that's sticking your nose out there when you said revolution. We're going to open a restaurant that's revolutionary in New Orleans when you've got some of the greatest restaurant tours in the world in New Orleans. So you better be ready for good. You better be on your game.
SPEAKER_00:So I remember you giving me a tour before you were open of the kitchen. And I think you had four lines and a bird's nest. And that was the first time I ever heard that term. But that kind of sparked. the whole thing in me of learning about like French cuisine and how these, you know, French operations would have, you know, the big head honcho chef looking at all of the workings of the kitchen from a higher, you know, perch. And I just thought that was the coolest thing. I had never seen that or heard of that before. And the equipment in there, I was just, it was fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Sinesta, you know, let me just say this. I I've been a lucky guy. I really have been. I've been a very lucky guy. We've worked hard, but a lot of people work really hard and bless their heart. They never quite get that, and they've really worked hard to get there, but just didn't. So I know how blessed I am. to have gotten where I'm at today. But the realization is that I got there with the help of people who recognized some of the things I've done and then moved me to a place that I could have never been. And Sonesta's a great example of it. Without Sonesta opening that door and spending millions of dollars gutting out half of their restaurant and saying, now, John, you build what you want. whatever it is, we want the best restaurant in New Orleans and we want people to walk into the kitchen and say, wow. We want every chef in New Orleans to walk into that kitchen and say, wow. And I said, well, I don't know if I want to do that. And he said, no. You don't call a restaurant revolution if you're not revolutionary. And he said, so we want everything in it to be the best. Now, Even with that being said, 10 years later, they gutted it all out and said, let's make it better. And so how can you not succeed when
SPEAKER_00:you're
SPEAKER_02:given the absolute best and they say, just go do it for us? And as long as you do it for us, there's nothing that you can't get. And that's what Sonesta has done for me is... They've opened my eyes to the realization that as long as we're succeeding and getting better every single year, there's nothing Sonessa won't do for us. And, of course, they would love for me to do it
SPEAKER_00:in other places.
SPEAKER_02:But I said revolution belongs in New Orleans.
SPEAKER_00:So that concept is rooted in Louisiana, the nations. Can you tell me a little bit, can we talk a little bit about the nations?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think the concept of revolution and what makes it revolutionary is the realization that we're paying homage to seven distinct nations that make us who we are and from the beginning to now has not changed. from the Native Americans who were here first and brought the early explorers the skill of the swamp floor pantry. I mean, imagine that. Imagine this scene of which I have a great painting of, the Native Americans meeting the French explorers sitting in my office. And they're... showing, they're giving the explorers these furs and what is this? They're looking for gold. They're looking for gold.
SPEAKER_00:So it's the Native Americans, the French, the Spanish, the German, the Italians, the Africans, and
SPEAKER_02:the English. That's the seven. That's the seven nations. And each one of them contributing Equally in my mind, I don't think one... Supersedes the other. Yeah, I don't think so. Each one of them today, I mean, when you talk about Cajun and Creole cuisine, it's captured in those two. And how in the world can any cuisine anywhere match the... unbelievable combination of seven nations in one pot
SPEAKER_00:well and then you expand that yes we're look you know we start talking about um the caribbean the um you know The Vietnamese, the Asian influence.
SPEAKER_02:The Croatians. The greatest gift I think we have in Louisiana is the gift of these nations that came here and brought with them the love of that culture. That, thank God, the... Louisiana chef is always so anxious to learn something new and create something new in our cuisine that what better melting pot could we be in in New Orleans when every all you got to do is go to every restaurant in there and you can pick up some great new tip in cooking and that happens all the time us walking through other people's other restaurants just to see what they're doing and they come in over to see what we're doing and that's very very interesting place to cook
SPEAKER_00:well one of the people that is one of your, was an alum of your school, Michael Gulotta. Sure. I mean, he's really, you know, a white guy doing, you know, Asian, Vietnamese, like he, that we kind of joke about that, but he really, you know, he really embraces that. Absolutely. You know, that part of what, what that, that cultural element has. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:and he's probably a great example of the gift of coming out of revolution. Because there's nothing a pound more to my culinarians around the table is the realization that we're made up of all of these cultures and we can't dismiss them. We have to embrace them in a big, big way. And you have to know them well enough to be able to teach that the next one coming through the door, that these are so important that you have to know them. And the contribution that each one of them gave to our pot is unique in culinary. Nobody's been able to do that, what we've done here. And they have to embrace it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's move to some more fun things, like eating out. Where do you like to eat out when you go out?
SPEAKER_02:Well, first of all, I'm very inquisitive. So, you know, I like to, if a new restaurant is opening and I'm hearing a little bit about it, I don't rush out. But once I start to hear that there's something happening, then I'm just like anybody else. I want to go and see what they're doing. I want to go and taste it. And walking into my competition, so to speak. You know, I'm looking at the pictures on the wall. I'm looking at the furniture. I'm looking at the spoons and the forks. What do they have?
SPEAKER_00:All the choices that were made to get to
SPEAKER_02:that. Yeah, and I'm measuring them by what I'm seeing. I'm saying, oh my God, man, I need to do that. I'm behind the eight ball. So we're pushing each other over the hill And that's what's great about a town like New Orleans, or even Baton Rouge, but a town like New Orleans, where there's so many great restaurateurs and so many great restaurants, that it's easy for us to walk in to our neighbor, sit down and have a meal, look at the menu, and the realization that tomorrow they're going to be in my restaurant, opening the menu, seeing what I'm doing. And we're all learning from each other, and we're all seeing what they're doing. And then, of course, we keep in our own uniqueness. We all want our own as well. But I think that New Orleans has given us the most unbelievable opportunity to grow business. a masterful cuisine and to grow a masterful tourism opportunity for people who want to come and experience something that's unique in America because we're changing all the time. We're never just sitting on our gumbo. We're not sitting on our etouffee. We're not sitting on our jambalaya. That's the basis of everything we sit on. But it's all that new young mind, those new young chefs coming in. And they're not staying away from our food. They're just moving it into another.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and that's another thing about Gulotta is that those red beans, those curried red beans that he makes with the pickled veg and the... pork thin fried pork chop like that blew my mind I am not one to order red beans and rice in a restaurant although my co-worker Brian that he that's his favorite thing but when I had those those are that's one of those moments that just like imprints upon my brain it was like the first time I had death by gumbo the first time I went to restaurant revolution and they brought all the little desserts in the little in the fancy jewelry box and I was just like what is this I've never seen anything like this before and I was like And the murals from Graham Minge on the wall and showing all of the historical photographs of our landscapes and the different cultures. I just thought, wow, this is special. And that market room just moves me. So what's your favorite home-cooked meal? Like, what do you cook at home? You know, my
SPEAKER_02:wife and I really... a pretty simple, regionally driven foods of our youth, I think. I mean, you know, I think we still love just a really good smothered down round steak. Rice and
SPEAKER_00:gravy? Like a rice and gravy? Anything with rice and gravy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Any
SPEAKER_02:braised meat. White beans on the side of the plate, red beans on the side of the plate, pinto beans on the side of the plate. I mean, on and on and on. Wild game of every kind. I mean, we come from the small floor pantry, so we're always still wanting to have our venison, wanting to have our duck, wanting to have our smoked goose, wanting to have our quail. And Louisiana gives that all to us, you know, so... So, you know, it's hard for me to really believe when I look back over the years that the opportunities we have had to create great cuisine and great restaurants and introduce them to the world. I mean, I can't, I'll never imagine in my life that it could have happened that way, but it did.
SPEAKER_00:What's your favorite dessert?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm a big dessert eater. So I still like, I'm still, my mother was a great pie maker, and she died very young. But I have all of her recipes for her cream pies and her persimmon pies and her blueberry pies and her blackberry pies. So I still have all of her recipes. And we're sweet eaters. I mean, no doubt about it. I mean, coming from the swamps of Louisiana and Either had wild game or you had sugar and berries. So, I mean, you were always surrounded by good taste. So, yeah, I tell you, I'm never wondering what's going to be for supper. Whatever's going to be there is going to be pretty damn
SPEAKER_00:good. Okay, let's do some rapid fire like this or that. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Ice cream or a snowball?
UNKNOWN:Snowball.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, my God. Good ice cream.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. Boiled crawfish or crawfish etouffee? I would
SPEAKER_02:say crawfish etouffee.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Rice and gravy or potatoes and gravy?
SPEAKER_02:Rice and gravy.
SPEAKER_00:Muffalata or po' boy?
SPEAKER_02:Po' boy.
SPEAKER_00:Roast beef or shrimp po' boy? Roast beef. Beignets or pralines? Oh,
SPEAKER_02:my God. I'd say beignets.
SPEAKER_00:Gumbo or jambalaya?
SPEAKER_02:Gumbo.
SPEAKER_00:Catfish or redfish?
SPEAKER_02:I'd say redfish.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Creole or Cajun?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, my God. I'd say Cajun because it is my
SPEAKER_00:roots. Yeah. Savory or sweet? Sweet. What's your guilty pleasure?
SPEAKER_02:Uh... I'm such a sweet eater. I really love, love sweet. So any kind of pie or any kind of, any sweet. I'm a sweet eater. And I have to watch myself because I can't pass by something sweet and not eat it. Yeah. And I think that's probably driven from the fact that in our youth we didn't have a lot
SPEAKER_00:of
SPEAKER_02:it. So now we're trying to make up for it.
SPEAKER_00:What does authentically Louisiana mean to you?
SPEAKER_02:Well, just what it says. It's got to be real. Whether it's the music, whether it's the food, whether it's the people. I love going through these little small neighborhoods or these little cabins and these little neighborhoods where somebody's raising a pig. These are the things, at the end of the day, I just thrive. I just want to get up and see it again. I just love the sights, the sound, the smell of Louisiana like everybody else, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:What's your inner dialogue like? What are the things you say to yourself? Well,
SPEAKER_02:I'm a dreamer for sure. I'm always looking at the impossible and thinking it's possible. It's who I am. If I dream it, if I think I can open a restaurant in the Soviet Union, I'm going to open it. I'm not going to wonder how. I'm not going to wonder why. I'm going to do it because it's easy to do. When people say, how did you do that? I say, because I wanted to.
SPEAKER_01:It
SPEAKER_02:was easy. And that's one of the biggest questions I get asked is on my journey and on my travels and doing the things I've done. They said, what are you missing? What have you not done? And I said, I hadn't been in space before. I hadn't been in space, but if I was offered a ride, I would love to do it, and I want to do it because it's what I hadn't done. Before I die, I want to be in space because it's what I hadn't done, and I'm going to do it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:How good is the food
SPEAKER_02:in space? Well, I think it'll just be a nice flight. I think it'll be a flight up and it'll be a flight down. And we're working on it. I know it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the We Live to Eat podcast produced by the Louisiana Restaurant Association. I'm your host, Wendy Warren. And until next time, enjoy all the delicious Louisiana food you can find.
