Revisiting An Old Haunt
I am biased in favor of Café Degas for several reasons, none of which include the fact that – disclosure – I wrote the introduction to their cookbook a number of years ago. The truth is that I love…
Author: Robert Peyton
News From the Kitchen
Bellegarde Bakery Bellegarde Bakery started offering bread to restaurants and retail outlets in 2013, and in July opened a storefront near the intersection of Claiborne and Carrollton. The term “artisan” is overused, but it perfectly describes Graison Gill and his…
News From the Kitchen
Levee Baking Co. Levee Baking Co. started as a pop-up before opening on Magazine Street late last month. Baker Christina Balzebre is originally from Miami, and learned her craft working with local operations such as Satsuma Café, the Link Restaurant…
Best New Restaurants
Discussing food, cooking and restaurants is a part-time sport for New Orleanians. From breakfast to brunch, lunch to cocktail bites, dinner to late night eats and desserts, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Enjoy our selection of the best…
News From the Kitchen
Bordeaux Chef Dominque Macquet is one of the best chefs in town, and he’s returned to the dining scene with a new restaurant, Bordeaux, where he and Sous Chef Martin Fennelly are cooking an ambitious French menu paired with wines…
News From the Kitchen
Gianna Gianna, an Italian restaurant from the Link Restaurant Group, opened in late April in the CBD. Executive chef Rebecca Wilcomb, most recently of Herbsaint, heads the kitchen. Wilcomb’s menu will feature daily antipasti, house-cured meats, locally farmed produce, Gulf seafood…
News From the Kitchen
Costera Restaurant and Bar Costera Restaurant and Bar has opened in the space that for many years was occupied by La Thai. Chef Brian Burns’ menu is “coastal Spanish,” and it’s extensive. Both Burns and Reno De Ranieri, who oversees…
News From the Kitchen
NOCHI Café by Gracious The New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI) has finally opened, and there’s a café on the ground floor operated by the folks at Gracious Bakery. Full disclosure: they’re friends and Jay Forman writes for this…
Hogs for the Cause 2019
The weather recently has been beautiful for everything but respiration, which functions best in a low-pollen environment. According to an area tv meteorologist, this weekend will be a bit warmer and also more humid. Ordinarily I would not vote…
Fresh On The Scene
Two new restaurants open in the Big Easy
Neighborhood Restaurants
I have a soft spot for New Orleans neighborhood restaurants. When I was a kid, my parents took us to Liuzza’s for dinner now and then, and we patronized multiple restaurants in Bucktown. When I was a little older and…
I Am Old
Sometimes I think that I should make clear I write these pieces in advance. I don’t know why I think that. None of you are under the impression that I am now writing the words you are reading. That…
News From the Kitchen
Zasu Chef Sue Zemanick had been out of the kitchen for a while, but in January that changed when she opened Zasu, the first restaurant at which she is both owner and chef. Diners familiar with Zemanick’s direct, precise…
Mardi Gras Time
It is Carnival in New Orleans and many of us are feeling very well, thank you for asking! So far it’s been a hit or miss affair where the weather is concerned, but we’ve seen worse. We’ll put on…
Valentine’s Day
I’m not particularly “into” Valentine’s Day, but I’m aware that I’m in the minority on this issue and I don’t begrudge people who want to take a night to celebrate love. Because love, with a little help from inertia,…
State Of The Dining Scene
I did not watch the State of the Union address the other night because I have been avoiding politics with some success for the last 20 or so years. I don’t care which side of the aisle a politician…
I Have Stumbled Into Healthy Eating
I will be 50 this year. This news will shock some of you who think I can’t be a day over 48, but it’s true. I am aging, and I wonder the extent to which my senescence is coloring…
2019 So Far
There are places where on New Year’s Eve they drop a ball, and there are places where a symbolic baby is hoisted aloft wearing a sash that bears the number of the new year, while commensurately an ancient man whose…
Bal Masqué
And I Am Not Performing With the Rolling Stones
How American Girl Dolls and Marjie’s Grill Are Unrelated Except in the Context of This Blog
Last week, my wife gave me an American Girl Doll catalog that had arrived for one of our two daughters and SPOILER ALERT PEOPLE SPOILER ALERT HERE RIGHT NOW DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW…
News From the Kitchen
Molly’s Rise and Shine Molly’s Rise and Shine is the second restaurant by the folks who opened Turkey and the Wolf in 2016. The focus is on breakfast, which you may have gathered from the name, but it’s breakfast through…
Looking Back
Early this year I made some predictions. I will share with you my assessment of the result and a judgment on the overall accuracy. I hereby waive the inherent conflict of interest involved in judging my own predictions. My…
Kitchen Techniques
I admit that recently I learned I have been using a standard can opener incorrectly, or at least not optimally. This video made me briefly question my sanity. If I have been laboring under the illusion that can openers…
Fusion
Readers, I write today about a time when a strange passion gripped our polity. In the decade we called “the '80s,” there was a fervor for combining the ingredients, techniques and cuisines of myriad cultures into an amalgam that…
Fish and Et Cetera!
One of my favorite restaurants in town, GW Fins, has a couple of announcements. First, on Dec. 5 and 6 the restaurant will have a seven-course dinner celebrating the feast of the seven fishes. The seating is communal, and some of…
Eating Well and Eating Healthy
I read an interesting article recently that suggested the “eco-food” movement has become more about weight loss than environmentalism or ethical eating. The author reached this conclusion through her own experience and that of a former food-writer turned dietician. The…
Ruminations on a Cajun Cookbook
And cooking generally
What A Country!
Bellegarde makes the best bread in New Orleans. That’s an opinion, of course, and if you can point me to another bakery offering bread for retail sale that approaches their product I’d be very grateful, because I love bread. I went…
News From the Kitchen
Poydras and Peters Poydras and Peters has taken over for Café Adelaide in the downtown Loews Hotel. Chef Thomas Hines, a New Orleans native, heads the kitchen. His menu is grounded in the American south, with influences from Vietnam and…
Crespelle!
I think I’ve written before that the first thing I cooked when I had access to a kitchen after Katrina was crepes. I still have no idea why that’s what I decided to cook, but there you are. Conventional…
Haute Plates
A weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene
about
Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived in New Orleans his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He has practiced law since 1994, and began writing about food on his website, www.appetites.us, in 1999. He mainly wrote about partying that year, obviously.
In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.
He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published in St. Charles Avenue, Louisiana Life and New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles magazines. He is the only person he knows personally who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a nasty name. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)
Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers. He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show "Great Chefs" and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring, and some of which have not been defaced.
Robert lives in Mid-City with his wife Eve and their three children, and is fond of receiving comments and emails. Please humor him.
