Tom Fitzmorris's Hungry Town by Tom Fitzmorris

Author:Tom Fitzmorris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2014-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

DOWNHEAVAL

“I never go to any Brennan restaurant anymore. I think they’re all totally overrated.”

I should have known it was coming. But still, it took me aback the first time I heard that on my radio show. Since I was the guy who gave out the ratings, this denigration was not only something I disagreed with, but a challenge to the quality of my research and my pretense of authority. As the 1990s headed to a close, that statement and others like it were voiced more and more often. The one that completely shocked me was this: “What’s the big deal about Susan Spicer, anyway? I went to her restaurant and thought the place was snooty.”

What? Susan Spicer, snooty? The most likable chef in town, the one with the big heart, who was always raising money for hunger charities, who kept the prices in her five-star restaurant far lower than she could have, who supported local farmers and artisan cheese and bread producers, who had the reputation of being a hip, creative chef, and whose restaurant wasn’t yet a decade old? Soft-spoken, lovely Susan Spicer? What could a diner possibly find snooty about her?

The answer, of course, was that her restaurant Bayona was not sleazy chic. Susan executed meticulous cooking with unusual ingredients and boasted a menu full of dishes you never thought about before, served by knowledgeable servers in a beautiful dining room, backed up by a great wine list. You had to make a reservation to dine there; you would not show up in a T-shirt and shorts. But sleazy chic was no longer just a cool thing to have; it was essential if a restaurant wanted local customers. Or hip visitors.

It was hard to believe what was happening. Large numbers of local diners, from baby boom age down, deserted an entire range of restaurants. Antoine’s completely fell out of favor with them. Emeril’s was being taken over by tourists, now that its chef was famous. Unless a major convention was in town, you could walk into Commander’s Palace and get a table. The most astonishing development of all was the dwindling of the line of customers in front of Galatoire’s. The line still formed on Fridays at lunch and other times favored by the regulars, but there were days when you could walk right in and sit right down, even at noon or seven in the evening.

We all heard the waiters at Galatoire’s complaining about the downturn. But few knew about a deeper unrest behind the scenes. The extended Galatoire family—after a century, it included a lot of people—was not happy with its dwindling profits. Their disturbance grew into a coup, which was instigated sub rosa by Chris Ansel, a third-generation Galatoire. He had left Galatoire’s twenty years before to open his own excellent restaurant, Christian’s. He and the other Galatoire cousins, aunts, and uncles had always allowed a small number of their relatives to run the restaurant. But in 1997 they rose up and took over. They

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