Chef Cory Bahr

Raising the Bahr

Monroe's celebrity chef creates superlative culinary experiences that go beyond the food

Story by Chris Jay • Photo by Hays Porter

Cory Bahr, the forty-five-year-old Monroe chef and restaurateur, whose rise to stardom included a high-profile Chopped win in 2012 followed by Food & Wine naming him Best New Chef in 2015, isn’t the same person he was when he started wearing the “celebrity chef” mantle over a decade ago. Though he remains laser-focused on creating what he calls “superlative experiences” for patrons of Parish Restaurant and Standard Coffee Co.—the restaurants that Bahr co-owns with wife and business partner Whitney—his approaches to cooking, management, and life were changed dramatically on the afternoon of December 5, 2021. That Sunday, Bahr was returning from a solo trip to his hunting lease. His Nissan Titan had just rolled to a stop at an inter- section in downtown Monroe when a car traveling more than ninety miles per hour suddenly struck it from behind. Bahr’s truck was flung through the intersection by the impact, rolling twice before being struck a second time by the out-of-control vehicle. The second impact flattened the truck, pinning it against the wall of Standard Coffee Co., the coffee shop and ramen bar that the Bahrs opened in 2019. Against incredible odds, he emerged from the wreckage requiring only stitches, standing in his own parking lot.

Hays Porter

“I walked away from a wreck where first responders arriving on the scene, professionals who see a lot of crashes, assumed that I was dead,” Bahr said. “Whatever qualities my life may have from the outside looking in, the fact that I am still here at all is the result of what I see as a divine intervention.”

Tall and disarmingly attractive, Bahr comes across as the kind of food personality who can effortlessly “turn on the charm” and host a cooking demo on national television, emcee a cook-off before a live audience of thousands, or walk the floor of a crowded restaurant greeting patrons with easygoing confidence. Actually, none of these things come naturally to Bahr, who said that he spent the first half of his career battling severe anxiety, panic disorder, and imposter syndrome. A high school dropout who never received his diploma or attended culinary school, Bahr said that early success in the restaurant industry “brought a lot of stress that I hadn’t been taught how to manage. There were times when I didn’t deserve my community’s support, but they stuck with me. I’m not perfect, and Monroe’s not perfect, but when we get together, it can be a lot of fun.”

On a recent Saturday night at Parish, the get-together was in full swing. Bahr weaved among a dozen or so tables in the restaurant’s art-lined dining room wearing a trucker cap and a crisp, white chef’s jacket over jeans and cowboy boots. He disappeared into the kitchen frequently, emerging to huddle with the maître d’, greet guests, and present dishes like hand-pulled burrata with pepper jelly and warm biscuits, kimchi creste de gallo pasta with white pork Bolognese, and Parish’s popular tribute to the American diner burger, the double double.

The menu at Parish includes a few holdovers from previous kitchens helmed by Bahr, including his signature duck wraps (a throwback to his days at Restaurant Cotton) and handmade pastas (Bahr previously celebrated his Italian roots at the now-shuttered Nonna), but there are not so many that the menu feels like a greatest hits album. The sixpage wine list includes organic options, a section entitled “American Cult Selections,” and a small but jaw-dropping list of sought-after Bordeaux bottles topping out at $1,600—making this the rare restaurant where patrons can enjoy a 2003 Château Mouton Rothschild alongside a platter of deviled eggs or a double-decker cheeseburger.

Locally-sourced ingredients are always the stars of the show at Bahr’s restaurants. Parish buys directly from several regional farms including Current Farms in Linville and Estes Farms in Ruston, but Bahr still finds himself walking the rows at farmers’ markets, seeking inspiration for new ways to spotlight local farms and seasonal crops. This past spring he took Parish’s commitment to local sourcing a step further by planting figs, peaches, mayhaws, pears, limes, and more in the lot adjacent to the restaurant. “Over the next eighteen months, we’re going to turn the greenspace next door into our own little farm,” Bahr said, citing farmto-table pioneers Highlands Bar & Grill, The French Laundry, and Manresa as having inspired his team to grow some of their own ingredients.

In addition to the local ingredients, Bahr sources rare and exciting food and drink from the Gulf South and across the US. Parish uses Instagram to notify followers when he’s somehow managed to procure an armload of black truffles, a slab of perfectly-marbled A5 American Wagyu beef, or a spring shipment of Malpeque oysters from Prince Edward Island. Among photos of fatty blue crabs and highly allocated bottles of bourbon, the @parishrestaurant Instagram profile showcases one local resource more often than any other: Parish employees.

At Parish, service flows from one course to the next with the almost-imperceptible inertia of deep, swift water. The restaurant’s servers are knowledgeable when called upon, attentive but not intrusive, and as warm and hospitable as old friends.

“It’s one thing to stand on the food, but food isn’t a complete experience,” Bahr said, expressing a sentiment that he might not have agreed with a decade ago at the height of his celebrity. Now, “I attribute the success of Parish as much to the front of the house as I do to the fact that we cook good food. . . I’m more concerned with everyone on my team getting along and doing what they love doing while they’re here at Parish,” Bahr said. “I haven’t changed my commitment to providing superlative experiences, but I have changed my outlook on how I get there. Life’s too short.”

Peruse the menu and make your reservations at Parish and Standard Coffee Co. via parishrestaurant.com and standardcoffeela.com.