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Culinary world mourns Leah Chase

Family to continue operating landmark New Orleans restaurant

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 3, 2019

2 Min Read
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The restaurant world is mourning the passing of Leah Chase, chef and owner of Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans, who died Saturday surrounded by family at age 96.

Chase hosted musicians, politicians and other celebrities at her landmark in the Treme neighborhood, originally opened as a street-corner shop for lottery tickets and po’boy sandwiches by the parents of her husband, musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase.

It later became a full-service restaurant, and Leah Chase added trappings of fine dining to the spot, which blossomed into a center for multi-racial gatherings in the segregated South. Dooky Chase’s became a crucible for the civil rights movement as well as a gathering place for musicians and other artists as well as a restaurant where African Americans could celebrate special occasions at a time when they were banned from other fine-dining establishments.

Photo: Paul Natkin/Archive Photos/Getty Images

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Chase was the warm hostess of this bustling institution and was known for her warmth and frankness combined with diplomacy and for the Creole food that came out of the kitchen.

“In my dining room, we would change the course of America over a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken,” The New York Times quoted her as saying.

She inspired many people to be better versions of themselves, including celebrity chef Aaron Sanchez, who tweeted, “She inspired me to be the best and make no excuses.”

Related:Video of the week: Chef Leah Chase on her historic New Orleans restaurant

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She also was inspiration for Disney’s first African American princess, Tiana, in the 2009 film Princess and the Frog, who dreamed of opening the finest restaurant in New Orleans.

“She not only made the culinary world a better place, our whole world was better,” New Orleans chef Kevin Belton said on Twitter. “I will always remember the joy her family brought her, how she always welcomed everyone & how she loved to feed people.”

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Dooky Chase was closed for around a year and a half after it was flooded in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, and New York City-based chef Floyd Cardoz tweeted his memory of meeting her three weeks after the storm.

“The spirit and strength I felt from her soul inspired me then, today and everyday,” he said.

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Chef, philanthropist and activist José Andrés thanked Chase on Twitter for making the United States a better nation and said that his charity organization, World Central Kitchen, would “pay respect to your legacy of feeding and healing one meal at a time.”

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The New Orleans Advocate reports that Chase’s family will continue to run the restaurant, which family members said would reopen on Tuesday.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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