Camellia Beans
I’m going to be honest: I dreaded Mondays when I was a kid. Mondays meant red beans and I did not like red beans. I ate the sausage, but the beans were not my thing. It wasn’t until I…
Author: Robert Peyton
Boy Howdy!
Last week I apologized for the light tone of the piece I was writing in the context of ever-rising numbers of COVID infections and the prospect of a mutated strain that would be even more infectious. I was naïve,…
A New Year
2020 was the sort of year that makes a dumpster fire look pretty good. As a person who writes about food and restaurants, it’s been a grim time. There have been some notable openings but a lot of closings,…
Status Quo? and a Meal at Marjie’s
I like Donald Link and have since I first met him. He wrote a letter to the editor that was published in The Advocate the other day, and I think he pretty effectively expressed the issue a lot of…
These Days? I dunno.
"Haute Plates" has been a column in which I’ve related news about restaurants, written recipes and made comments on food culture generally. That has become problematic – particularly the part where I write about restaurants. There’s news, but it’s…
Frying a Turkey
Variables are a problem with most recipes. Unless you are following instructions that include weights for every ingredient – which is typical only for baking – your ingredients are going to vary from time to time and that’s particularly…
Thanksgiving in the Time of COVID
These are not days for traveling over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house. These are days for hunkering down and trying not to get our elders sick. If you are among the people who feel that…
Dinner and a Movie at NOCHI
The New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, or NOCHI as they are more commonly known, has a program coming up that sounds pretty nifty. Here is the release I received recently: This December, New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute…
Gris Gris and Product Warnings
I received word today that Gris Gris, grisgrisnola.com, Chef Eric Cook’s inventive Creole restaurant on Magazine Street, has reopened as of yesterday, Nov. 4. Here’s an excerpt from the PR: After seven long months, Gris-Gris is excited to reopen…
What Comes After Epsilon?
Last week I would not have been able to answer the question, “In the Greek alphabet, what comes after epsilon?” I do not feel any wiser now that I know the answer. Zeta was the sort of storm that…
COOLinary, Outdoor Seating and Patois
Did you know that COOLinary New Orleans is back for the fall? You might if this is your only source of dining information, and if that’s the case, you can learn about it here. There are 58 restaurants participating in…
News and Surprises
Herbsaint is one of the best restaurants in New Orleans and I haven’t been there in far too long. It is one of the restaurants, along with another I’m going to mention shortly, that I have 100% confidence in…
Cooking Through the Pandemic
I have gone through several phases during the pandemic where cooking is concerned. First was the panic cooking. Are people hoarding yeast and beans? Really? How can I make room in my freezer for the 71 lbs. of pork…
We Are Good! All Is Well!
We have dodged a couple of storms so far and I am happy about that, but I wonder whether some of my friends who’ve moved here recently understand how lucky we were. We geared up for disaster and it…
A Local Market and a Reopening
My friend Anne owns Nolavore, and she sent an email recently alerting people to the outdoor market they’re holding soon. Here’s the story: We are all feeling like we'd like to get out of the house a bit more…
Restaurants and You.
My wife had a birthday this week and we celebrated as well as we could under the circumstances. The potential hurricane meant even the limited, socially-distanced celebration we’d hoped to have was nixed. Instead my wife made a salad,…
More Restaurant News and The Mass Feeding Program
I have received several press releases that may be of interest to you, including these: Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski have introduced a new tapas menu at Cochon Butcher. The small plate dishes bring Spanish influences to the Old-World…
Restaurant News
This would already be a fairly slow time for restaurants, but of course we are beset at the moment. Nevertheless several restaurants have news that I can relate. Please support them. Sylvain and Meauxbar, both operated by LeBLANC +…
Healing With Humor
As I write, Hurricane Laura is swirling around in the Gulf about 200 miles south-southeast of Lake Charles. I hope that if you live in one of the areas directly affected, you are safe and will remain so. This…
Restaurant News and Mass Feeding
Galatoire’s is famous for its classic haute Creole cuisine, but less well-known is that the kitchen turns out some of the best fried chicken in town. You have to wait for it – each batch is prepared to order,…
There Are Restaurants Open and Serving
Gianna is one restaurant that is still open for business to the extent that any restaurant is open for business at the moment. Here is a description of the meals they are serving on Sundays: Chef Rebecca Wilcomb of…
Chains and the Pandemic
I receive many things in my email inbox. Some are relevant to my business or personal life, and some are just a public relations person sending out a blast to anyone who has ever written anything about food anywhere…
A Hot Sauce of a Different Variety
Now and again people offer to send me things to evaluate. Sometimes I must respond with a “thank you” and an explanation that while I could probably find a use for drywall screws around my house, drywall screws are…
A Menu for Quarantine
Welcome to Chez Corona, my friends. Tonight, the menu is set by the chef. We hope you enjoy the experience. To start: Store-bought hummus that technically went past its “best by” date a few days ago, but it…
K-Paul’s and the Anchor at Tchefuncte’s
K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen announced it would close this week, and that is a shame. I will admit I had not been there for some time, but from most accounts it was still a very good restaurant. It was, in…
Remembering Semolina and Openings
It has been quite a while since I have felt comfortable writing about restaurants without using modifiers like “doom” and “woe.” But despite the ongoing pandemic and the news yesterday that the City is returning to the 25 percent…
There is a Mass Feeding Program
The city issued a press release on June 30 announcing the COVID-19 Mass Feeding program and I am happy to report that Chef’s Brigade is involved. You may ask yourself, “Chef’s Brigade? Isn’t that the thing that Robert was…
It's All About The Hot Sauce
Our neighbors and friends returned from a brief trip out of town today, and the first thing my friend Joe said to me was – paraphrasing – that the hot sauce I’d given him was quite nice. I have…
GARDENING IS FOREVER, or Why Your Coronavirus Garden Sucks and Will Die Soon
This is the time of year when I both regret having a garden and marvel at the bounty my garden produces. It is the time of year in which the things I planted in the winter are dying off…
Phase Two
I apologize if the headline misleads you, because I am not going to talk in any detail about what “Phase 2” will mean to restaurants. That is because in many cases it will not mean a great deal to…
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.
