Commander’s Palace gets cooking on campus

Food enthusiasts flocked to Freeman Auditorium Monday night to hear the first in a series of talks on good eating in New Orleans. Ti Adelaide Martin, co-owner of Commander’s Palace, and the restaurant’s executive chef, Tory McPhail, engaged in a conversation with New Orleans food critic Gene Bourg and talked about the mechanics of operating an upscale restaurant, from service to food preparation.

“Talk about Good: Conversations about Food, Behind the Scenes at Commander’s Palace,” was sponsored by the Deep South Regional Humanities Center at Tulane and is the first in the group’s new culinary history series.

The event began with remarks by Randy Sparks, interim director of the Deep South Regional Humanities Center. “These events are designed to explore the role of food in our culture,” he said. “If we understand our food-ways, we understand our history … and our culture … We intend to follow Southerners wherever they eat.” Commander’s Palace is one of the premier restaurants in New Orleans, Sparks said, which is why the center decided to open its lecture series with it.

Commander’s Palace is known for its service, which is, as one audience member said, “magical.”

“A big part of service is reading the table, to know when to interact with the table. You’ve got to know when to leave people alone and when to hang around,” Martin said.

The restaurant developed a now widely-used service technique, in which each table is assigned a team of three waiters, a captain to take orders, a front waiter to take and bring plates and a back waiter to refill drinks and bread. They also use salt and pepper signaling. “When someone takes your drink order, they act like they’re fixing something on the table, but they’re really pushing the salt and pepper shakers together. We know it’s annoying when you get asked for drink orders twice. This way, the wait staff knows if they need to ask or not,” Martin said.

Another trademark of Commander’s Palace is its fresh food. “We create from scratch what a lot of restaurants buy in bulk. We make our own Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, pickles, ice cream and cream cheese. It takes seven days to make a cheese cake,” McPhail said. 

Commander’s Palace also buys most of its products from the surrounding areas. “The key to a great restaurant is using local products. All of our seafoods are 100 percent wild, from guys with commercial fishing licenses.  There’s such a difference between a farm-raised fish and a bayou fish,” McPhail said.

Martin also gave a few tips for local restaurant-goers. “We reserve tables for locals. You should be able to go out to eat in your own hometown without making reservations three weeks in advance. Sometimes, people will call … and we’ll be booked up, but then they mention they’re locals and we’ve got … a table,” she said. Also, to get the best table, dress nicely. “We like to ‘dress our dining room.’ If you don’t look nice, we might put you in a corner,” she said.

Martin and McPhail both expressed that the biggest reason Commander’s Palace is so successful is the attitude of its workers. “We are having fun doing what we’re doing, and we surround ourselves with people like that,” Martin said.

Commander’s Palace was founded in 1880 and has been owned and operated by the successful Brennan family of restaurateurs since the early 1970s. The Brennan family as a whole owns numerous successful restaurants in New Orleans and elsewhere, and Martin’s branch of the family owns and operates such famous establishments as Commander’s Palace, Commander’s in Las Vegas, Caf‚ Adelaide and the Swizzle Stick Bar on Poydras Street and Brennan’s in Houston.

Commander’s Palace was the starting place of many now world-famous chefs, such as Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse. As the current head chef of Commander’s Palace, McPhail has held his post for three years, and has, as Martin said, “magic in his hands and fil‚ in his belly.” McPhail is assisted daily by a kitchen staff of nearly 50 people.

Future culinary events hosted by the Deep South Regional Humanities Center will be held on the first Tuesday of every month at 11 a.m. at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market in Uptown Square. The second event, Tuesday, will be a discussion about the New Orleans Food and Farm Network.