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…
Author: Robert Peyton
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…
Takeout and Life
My wife and I are both fond of cooking, but prior to the current situation, we also would dine out now and again or order food from restaurants to pick up or to be delivered. Then this whole COVID-19…
Cooking in Quarantine Vol 3, Sec. 34
Welcome to Cooking in Quarantine! We’re happy to have you here. How is your sourdough starter? Do you need sourdough starter? Because I have sourdough starter if you need it. I also have chili peppers and several different herbs…
Restaurants Re-opening – What’s Your Plan?
We are going to be entering an interesting time in the history of New Orleans restaurants in the coming weeks. We’ve already started to see some restaurants open with reduced capacity and alternative seating arrangements. As I’ve driven around…
A Recipe That May Help
Here are the things I know if you are reading this: 1) You have a device capable of accessing the internet. 2) You are a human of discerning taste. The latter makes me think you will appreciate a recipe…
Whither?
As I write, Chef’s Brigade has idled. I understand Red Bean Krewe shut down this past Sunday. Chef’s Brigade will be back in the near future and I hope the same for Red Bean Krewe, but for the moment…
DIVERTICUWHAT?
It has been an interesting quarantine chez Peyton. There’s Chef’s Brigade, which has taken up a good bit of time and then my father-in-law was hospitalized with double pneumonia. He was released a couple of weeks ago and for…
Recipes from the Past
Now and then my mother will come across some documents from my grandparents’ house in Amite and share them with me. They’re always fascinating, but this weekend she gave me a bunch of recipes, most of which were handwritten by…
Restaurants and the Economy
New Orleans is a service industry town. A very large percentage of our economy is based on restaurants, bars and music venues. I believe New Orleans is the best food city in the country because the people who live…
News From the Kitchen
Nola Caye Newly-opened Nola Caye adds a Caribbean-influenced restaurant to the dining options near Lee Circle. While the menu reads a bit more Mexican/Central American than Caribbean – there are a half dozen tacos on offer as well as guacamole…
Restaurants and Covid 19
I remember after Katrina, when I had a food blog called “appetites” that focused primarily on fine-dining restaurants, thinking that the gig was up. I’d been happily writing about meals I had in those early days when there was so…
Sheltering in Place and Restaurants
I reached out the other day on Facebook to ask that restaurants serving take-out and delivery to let me know so that I could pass that information on to you. I got a lot of responses on Facebook and…
How I Learned to Love the Corona Virus
I have been working remotely for several years. By “working remotely,” I mean “working from home and often in casual clothing/dainty unmentionables.” I am used to being alone and dealing with other humans via cell phone, Skype and my…
How To Celebrate Your Big (Birth)Day
As most of you know, I have a birthday coming up in the next few days. As we measure these things in temporal terms I will be 51. That is a full third of the way through my expected…
News From the Kitchen
Laurel Oak The Magnolia Hotel, on Gravier Street, is now home to Laurel Oak, a Southern Brasserie. The restaurant results from a partnership between hotelier Stout Street Hospitality and TAG Restaurant Group, both out of Denver. Local chef Wesley Rabalais…
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.
