Po-Boy Views

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Bon Appétit or Soup’s On!

Long before the advent of the Celebrity Chef, the hands that stirred the pots in New Orleans restaurants were black and people were fed well. Curiously, the business’ names are generally synonymous with the names of the (white) restaurateurs Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, Arnaud’s, Tujaques, and Kolbs.

IIt was the same in most major cities that became famous for food. An enterprising person put out tables, called it a café or restaurant and started serving food. Someone placed a wooden board across two barrels, called it a bar and served drinks. They stood in the way of hungry and thirsty traffic and worked and built and served and took in money and raised their children to do the same. Eventually staff was added and the owners became managers and handled the money, the clients, and their employees; then, their reputations grew.

Sometimes they began as a grocery store and shoehorned in space for a kitchen as takeout food became a source of income and by and large the kitchens were cramped, hot, sweaty, noisy, dirty, and a hard, thankless place to work. The hours were long, the pay was small, and the staff was readily expendable. There was no training curriculum except being told what to do and becoming trusted to know and do more. Workers, and those in charge of them, were invisible to the public. That was then and this is now.

Fast forward to the twentieth century where our food Mecca is comprised of restaurant museums, factories, and little mom and pop places that carved out niches and anchored neighborhoods. Any cook or culinarian with any ambition left town for training (and generally did not come back) and any ambitious restaurateur fished outside of this small pond for talent. The food here was mostly popular with locals.

In the 1970s a forward-thinking Ella Brennan hired, outside of the box, a magician of flavor named Paul Prudhomme who put Creole and Cajun food not only on the map, but in actuality, splashed our food and flavors into the world’s faces (and the world lapped every scrap and wiped their plates clean). Culinary classes, per se, had barely started emerging as curriculum and endeavors; however, no real full time structured education for aspiring chefs took root and dared face the world, worthy of the name “school.”

In 2017 after three years of negotiations, a location at 725 Howard Avenue, a space of 94,000 square feet, quietly began construction of what would become the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute or NOCHI. At that time the hospitality industry was the region’s largest employer with a workforce of 88,000 people, and it was clear to anyone with the sense of a goat that a lack of education was the one thing seriously holding so many employees back. Several New Orleans culinary and business heavy hitters including Ti Martin of Commander's Palace and Dickie Brennan backed the foundling enterprise with energy, financial astuteness, fancy footwork, and allaround audacity. NOCHI opened for its first class in January 2019.

We all know what the last three years have been like and can probably imagine what any business in New Orleans has been through; it’s been like that at NOCHI— squared. The economy, the pandemic, the hurricane, the pandemic again, and the recession have bent, but not broken, the spirit of NOCHI which is like a proud ship sailing rough seas. As captain and executive director of that ship, Chef Leah Sarris, RD, LDN holds fast to the vision and purpose.

I started at the location with World Central Kitchen during Hurricane Ida where NOCHI turned the building into a machine that put over half a million meals into the stomachs of New Orleanians along with four surrounding parishes. I stayed on and became Executive Events Chef and part of a cadre of professionals dedicated to making NOCHI look sharp and stand tall.

NOCHI is skilling the chefs of New Orleans and the world (pun intended); the 650 hours’ course of instruction in the culinary arts as well as baking and pastry is taught by instructors who could work anywhere in the world but have chosen NOCHI. The support staff consisting of directors of admissions, educations, finance, promotions, and dining are second to none that I’ve ever seen and there is real NOCHI pride that comes to work each day. NOCHI pride is an inspiration and shines through the students (called cohorts) that are basically given an immersion into the arts, sciences, and execution of the culinary disciplines—none of which is available in on the job training. When a cohort finishes the 100-day course of instruction, they are on the fast track to becoming chefs, managers and owners; with this knowledge, paired with focus and dedication, the sky virtually is the limit.

Imagine, if you will, the arrival of a new class of cohorts; they’re in their fresh white chef’s jackets, have new knife kits, are freshly scrubbed and more than a little intimidated by what lies ahead: being thrown into the deep end of the culinary pool. Slowly, they gain their footing and take on the rhythm of learning: knife skills, protein fabrication, bread baking, basic desserts both fancy and fancier, breakfast and lunch standard dishes, as well as the preparation of meals in twelve nationalities. They gain visible confidence.

At the close of each course the cohorts “pop up” a simulated restaurant in the third floor dining lab where the public (by reservation) gets to sample what their capabilities have become. Don’t miss out on a magical mystery meal; there may be one coming up before you know it.

New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute, 725 Howard Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130. 504-891-4060. This article came to you spontaneously and unsolicited from NOCHI’s biggest fan: me. Thank you.