A Book and Events Happening Shortly
My friend Sue Strachan has a book out. It’s called the "Café Brulot," and it’s about what it says on the tin, but in much more detail and more entertainingly than the topic would suggest. Sue is a great…
Author: Robert Peyton
A New Sushi Restaurant
Where it comes to sushi, generally speaking, I am a one-shop man. My shop is Kanno, where Hide Suzuki has made me some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. But I also like to try new places and,…
Revisiting Herbsaint
Today, I am having lunch with my father at Herbsaint. It’s one of my favorite restaurants and one I haven’t visited often since I stopped working downtown. This is not going to be a review of that meal, because I…
Food Costs and Dining
Food prices have been rising for quite some time, and it does not yet appear there is an end in sight. The consumer price index has food costs up by around 3.5% over the last year. That’s nothing compared…
Birthday Dinners and Mosca’s
My wife had a birthday recently. We had a low-key celebration that night at Bayou Wine Garden, and I will therefore testify to the excellent cheese and charcuterie board we had with a carafe of wine. Two cured meats,…
Here We Are Again
Well, that was something. Almost 16 years to the day I evacuated for Katrina, I was back in Columbia, Tennessee taking advantage of the incredible generosity of friends who offered to put us up for a few days. I…
Nolavore Debuts a la Carte Market Series
Nolavore is a catering company and commissary kitchen located in a former service station at the corner of Baronne Street and Jackson Avenue. Owner Anne Lloyd is a friend and talented, imaginative chef who has worked in the industry…
On Criticism, Adventurous Palates, Live Oak and Restaurants I Want to Try
Recently, I read an online review of a fairly new spot on Oak Street written by a long-time resident of the New Orleans area. It was a critical review – not in the sense that the author didn’t like…
Words to the Wise
I have never been a canny investor. I have never actually been an investor at all, mainly because I know I’m not a canny investor. But once in a while an opportunity comes around and you feel you have…
Episode 2354, In Which We Learn About Things
We here at Haute Plates Small Machinery and Upscale Landscaping are looking forward to so many things. We are looking forward to eating a meal out and more particularly eating out in places with other people. To that extent…
A Conversation Prompted Questions About Authenticity and Tradition
I had an interesting conversation the other night with a chef, Tom, who lives outside of Louisiana. He’s a really sharp guy who is cooking food inspired in large part by his experience living and cooking professionally in New…
Things I Have Learned Lately
As many of you know, I was one of the lucky humans to visit outer space recently. No, it was not with Branson or Bezos; I was on the rocket built by Joe Lotrglio. I am told that we…
Another Column About the Restaurant Industry
I attended a happy hour event hosted by one of my favorite restaurants, Boucherie. It was a “thank you” for Chef’s Brigade and it was awful nice. I got to talk to a number of restaurateurs who participated in…
England vs. Italy
I am not one of those people who thinks that English food is awful. Because it’s not. Done right, an English breakfast is among the best in the world. They know a thing or two about sausages and their…
COOLinary New Orleans
I’m not a huge fan of the capitalization where “COOLinary New Orleans” is concerned, but I’m a fan of the endeavor. It’s a chance for people, mostly locals, to check out some restaurants that maybe they’d been meaning to…
Cooking with Kids
Two of my offspring have decided they are interested in cooking. I am happy about this because I also love to cook but I am also concerned that I will not be able to convey my knowledge about cooking…
The Doldrums
This is the time of year in which restaurants are typically slow. It is hot and it is humid and we don’t have the tourists we normally do during the year. That’s in a good year, but this year?…
The Garden in Bloom
I thought I would write something about my garden this time around because my mother-in-law, Pamela, was a gardener and I have tried to emulate her green thumb. Some years I have things that succeed, and some years I…
Hogs for the Cause
I have not been dining out very much these last months. I have not been out at all for that matter and yet my garden is a mess. My strawberries are consumed by snails. My peas are suffering from…
Things Going On Around Town
There are restaurants opening around town, which is not all that unusual. One is a pizza joint that was also a pizza joint before. Another is a Haitian restaurant that, when I first ran into it, was at the…
Masks and Dining and Things
As reported by the Times Picayune Advocate, the mask mandate has been lifted in New Orleans, per new guidelines from the CDC. I don’t know how to feel about it, to be honest. Given my work, I’ve been dining out…
Chefs and Cooking
Chef Gerard Maras posted a quote from Alton Brown on Facebook recently: “Very good cooks who are employed as ‘chefs’ rarely refer to themselves as ‘chefs.’ The refer to themselves as ‘cooks.’” It made me think about the definition…
Where Now?
I have the distinction of having passed the two-week period following my second shot that means I am officially vaccinated. I do not feel any different, unless you count the slight easing of tension that knowing I am unlikely…
Sake
I received an email recently from Wetlands Sake, reminding me that there is a sake brewery in New Orleans. Moreover, they’re using a short grain rice developed by the LSU Agriculture Center that is being grown just for them. The…
This Is Not An April Fool’s Joke
Nor am I playing at Magritte. I simply have too much respect for you to pretend that I could “fool” you. Also, I forgot it was going to be April 1 when I wrote this piece. If you are…
Secret Thai and Plume
We were looking for take out the other night and I wanted Thai. My wife, whom I love dearly, said she’d heard about a place called Secret Thai and her friends recommended it. I know at least one of…
Silk Road, Torshi and New Tastes
The first thing I tasted when I dined recently at Silk Road was a stuffed grape leaf made by Chef Rafik “Rafiky” Abohattab, who is doing a “popup” as Torshi at Silk Road until March 28. It has been…
Cooking with Offspring
Not long ago I bought my son a chef’s knife. He’s 19 and attending college virtually, but he’s going to be there in-person before long and he’s expressed an interest in cooking. Recently he asked whether we could get…
My Annual Birthday Joke, Houston Food Bank and Felix’s at the Lakefront
I would first of all like to thank those of you who’ve already sent me birthday wishes. This year the celebration of my entry into the world falls on a Sunday, and I am told that because of the…
Meals at Restaurants and Takeout, Too.
My wife and I have, for the most part, been ordering takeout rather than dining in restaurants because there is a pandemic and we have family at a higher risk of bad outcomes from exposure to the virus than…
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.
