Ella Brennan dies at 92, mentored chefs Prudhomme, Lagasse

Ella Brennan, who couldn’t cook but played a major role in putting New Orleans on the world’s culinary map, died Thursday. She was 92. “Tonight, the iconic Commander’s Palace sign will not be lit,” said a statement emailed from the Commander’s Family of Restaurants. It said Brennan died with family and friends by her side, and services will be private.

Brennan was credited with creating nouvelle Creole cuisine, was the matriarch of a family that owns nearly two dozen restaurants—more if you count every outlet of a local pizza and po’-boy chain—and, at Commander’s Palace, cultivated many of the city’s top chefs, including Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse. She won the James Beard Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2009.

Brennan didn’t inherit her mother’s talent for cooking. “She can’t really boil water,” Lagasse said days before Brennan’s 90th birthday in November 2015. But, he said, “She’s one of the greatest restaurateurs I’ve ever met. She has an incredible palate and an even more incredible mind. And she just has this way with people, of leading and showing the way of exceptional hospitality.”

Brennan started in the restaurant business as a high school kid working in her oldest brother Owen’s bar and restaurant. After graduating, she took a few secretarial classes but happily dropped out in the 1940s to work fulltime for her brother. Mostly, she taught herself, reading books and magazines and asking questions of vendors, butchers, and just about anyone else who crossed her path.

Her mentoring took many forms: weekly “foodie meetings” to discuss any and all aspects of food and the restaurant business; trips to New York and abroad to learn from restaurants and stores; comments and notes.

Lagasse recalled one note handed to him during his early years at Commander’s Palace: “When you come to work tomorrow, do me a favor and leave your ego at home.”

The American Culinary Federation’s New Orleans chapter named an annual award for her. Its website states, “Her talent for teaching and coaching young people with a passion for the restaurant business has led to a legion of chefs who named her as their mentor.”

“Her vision, her treatment of people, her development of so many of our great chefs as well as cuisine made her a leader far ahead of her time,” said Stan Harris, chief executive officer of the Louisiana Restaurant Association. “Her family sustained a significant loss.” /