Each year, Food & Wine magazine shares their list for Best New Chefs in the country. Not only does New Orleans typically have a chef on the list, the last four Best New Chefs have been women making an impact in the culinary scene of the city. Kelly Jacques joins the ranks of Nina Compton, Anna Castro and Nicole Cabrera Mills as a Best New Chef. Jacques co-founded the highly popular Ayu Bakehouse following the COVID-19 pandemic and made a big impact in the Frenchman Street neighborhood. Jacques talks about her mission of bringing joy to the community and those who eat her food, plus what the honor means to her and what the bakehouse is cooking up for the holidays.
Q: Ayu is an Indonesian word that means “joy. What about baking and feeding people delicious food brings you joy?
I think on maybe in its most distilled form is just the joy of making something for someone. At the end of the day, we’re feeding people and that is not nothing; that is huge. It feels very ancient and very primal in that way. Best-case scenario, we’re adding a little bit of joy into somebody’s day. It’s either that we remembered their coffee order because they came in yesterday, or that a bite of a jalapeno cornbread cookie brings a little smile to their face. So, in that sense, I think, that is the goal of all of this work. I think joy also finds itself in other places here on the day to day. My work is all in the kitchen, for the most part, and so it’s really important to us that we create a joyful space for ourselves and each other because we have to do this every day. We don’t take that lightly. We don’t want anyone to ever have a day where they dread coming to work. The work itself can be hard enough as it is. It’s high scale production, day in and day out, and we don’t need to be making it any harder for each other. If anything, we’re making it easier for each other by being nice and caring.
Q: Besides bringing joy to people, what was your goal when opening Ayu Bakehouse?
We wanted food that felt elevated but still really accessible. For us, it was never going to be hyper intricate. You know, cakes in little jewel boxes. Each thing is going to look a little different, just by nature. We don’t need uniformity, but it’s got to be good. And so for a lot of things, we don’t necessarily want to make the classic version of this as you always see it. We want to make our version of it, and mostly just for our own interests. We want to make something that feels it’s bringing something new to the table.
Q: New Orleans has a very “gumbo pot” background, and you also have a diverse cultural background. Was it important to bring that into your cooking?
I think it took us some time to wrap our head around that. When me and my business partner, Samantha [Weiss], started to sit down and plan this out, both of us had been out of production for quite some time and had been doing more operations. We hadn’t been baking every day. And so, the first thing you do is look inside and look back. We’re actually both “mutts.” I’m Chinese, Irish, Italian and French, and had watered down versions of all of those things growing up. Samantha’s Honduran [and was] adopted into a family from New York that is Jewish and midwestern. So neither of us had [just one] cultural identity to pull from. I think at first that felt like a stumbling block, but then it turned into “that is our authentic identity.” It’s cultures that have been translated over time and miles and immigration. And, so, when we started to kind of unpack that, there’s this flavor from Singapore, where my grandma’s family all lives. There was, of course, New Orleans and a lot of sandwiches and boudin and flavors that I’m so obsessed with. And for Sam, she’s got her New York Jewish ties, so babka [and] bagels. She grew up making rum cake with her family all the time. So, it kind of opened the doors, in a way, to not feel we had to define ourselves as an Asian bakery or something, because that would feel so not real to us.
Q: How did it feel to be named Food & Wine Best New Chef?
It was weird. We found out a couple months ago. They gave us a little heads up, and I just was speechless. I mean, I went through all the stages of denial and whatever. At first, I was like, “I’m not a chef, I’m a I’m a baker. I can’t call myself a chef.” It was a lot of feeling like, “Oh boy, I’m gonna be found out for not being a good chef,” or something. I don’t know. I think I first kind of went through that phase and then kind of sat with it for a while. They told us not to tell anyone, so other than my business partner and our publicist, not many people knew. But it gave me a little time to absorb it and at some point it was like, OK, the spotlight has come this way. Some way, somehow, I need to make the most of it. I can’t let this opportunity go. I have to live up to what they are labeling us. So that’s kind of my mindset now. It’s an insane opportunity. I never in a million years would have imagined being on a list like this. And everyone on that list is a sweetheart. I got to meet everybody in New York. The community that has formed out of this group of people in nanoseconds is insane and something I’m so grateful for. Just all the energy and new connections feels like the greatest gift of the whole thing. Honestly, the best part, almost, is this new network or this camaraderie of people that I have now.
Favorite item you sell in the bakery: A plain croissant or baguette.
Favorite Restaurant in the City: Budsi’s Thai
True Confession: I’m not sure if people know this, but I was a glass blowing major in college at Tulane.
