New Orleans restaurant icon dies
Ellen Brennan, 92, cultivated top chefs
NEW ORLEANS — 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. Services will be private.
Ella 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.
“Ella Brennan was an icon in the culinary industry, and she graciously shared her passion for New Orleans and our cuisine with the world,” said Gov. John Bel Edwards
in an emailed statement. “She was a trailblazer with a tenacious spirit who made it her mission to learn everything possible about the restaurant business from the ground up … she set a standard of excellence that was unmatched.”
Or, as Brennan summed up her life’s experience in October 2015, “I had a barrel of fun and if anybody calls that work they’re crazy.”
Her speech when Commander’s Palace won the second James Beard award for outstanding service was equally succinct and self-deprecating: “I accept this award for every damn captain and waiter in the country.”
“The entire auditorium rose to its feet for a standing ovation as my mother endeared herself to anyone who has ever set a table or taken an order,” her daughter, Ti Adelaide Martin, wrote in the introduction
to their book “Miss Ella of Commander’s Palace.”
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 went to work full-time for her brother. Mostly, she taught herself, reading books and magazines and asking questions of 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; 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.”