“St. Lucia native Nina Compton fell in love with New Orleans while filming BRAVO’s Top Chef Season 11: New Orleans (she grabbed the runner-up spot and was voted fan favorite). In 2015, she returned to the city to open Compère Lapin at the Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery. Since then, the requests for reservations have been non-stop along with the deserved acclaim. The success of Compere Lapin lead Compton to open a second restaurant, Bywater American Bistro, in the spring of 2018.”
“Trained in the French tradition at the Culinary Institute of America, Nina mixes the rich culinary traditions of New Orleans with those of her Caribbean roots. She was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s "Best New Chefs 2017.” Along with receiving a rave review from The New York Times, Compère Lapin was named “Best New Restaurant” by both New Orleans Magazine and The Times-Picayune. And then in 2018, she took home the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: South.”
“Nina began her career at Daniel in New York City, alongside Chef Daniel Boulud. From there, she joined Norman Van Aken in Miami at Norman’s. Next up, was a stint with Philippe Ruiz at Palme d’Or at the historic Biltmore Hotel. Then Nina moved to Casa Casuarina in Miami Beach where she rose to the rank of executive chef. Before settling in New Orleans, she was chef de cuisine at the Italian restaurant Scarpetta at Fontainebleau Miami Beach. There the “Gnocchi Queen” worked with celebrity chef and restaurateur Scott Conant.
Chef Nina will be one of the high- profile chefs with a tasting station at L.A. Loves Alex’s Lemonade benefit on Saturday, October 5th at the Royce Quad at UCLA.
Chef Nina Compton takes a break from her busy kitchens to join us.
Hi, I'm Chef Rudy Soremin, Princess Cruises Head of Carinariats, and the minimaker for a catch for Rudy that me, come serve with us when I won the Alaskan King Crab for Food News. I listen to some cold restaurant shows on AM A30KLA radio. And welcome back, it is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon right here on AM A30KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And the halos are home, it is the second game in a three game set with the Mets, and hoping to even things up. And you can also catch us on the AM A30KLAA app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, and we're always presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats. I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to have the pleasure of returning to New Orleans, a city that I love but hadn't been to since before the pandemic. I was there as the guest of New Orleans and Company and the Mentor Foundation to cover the America's competition for the annual, actually the biannual Boku store culinary competition. And it was great to be able to get to a couple of restaurants that had been on my priority list but I just had not been to New Orleans to be able to enjoy them. One of the most awarded chefs currently working in New Orleans is Nina Compton. She is a James Beard award winner. She is a food and wine best chef and a lot of us originally met Nina when she competed on Bravo's Top Chef season 11 New Orleans and obviously fell in love with the city. And with that in his background, it is a real pleasure to welcome New Orleans based chef Nina Compton to the show. Chef Nina, good morning and welcome. Good morning. How are you? Nina, I am doing well and still relishing my evening that I had at Compair Le Pan. What a wonderful experience that was. Nina, let's back up a little bit if we can. You were one of the New Orleans host chefs for the America's competition for Boku's door. You also were an enormous supporter of Team USA and I do believe you were one of the competition judges. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience because you were one busy person for that week? Yes, it was a very busy week but very, very exciting. This is the first time that this part of the Boku's door has actually been hosted in the United States. So that was a lot of pressure. The hosting chefs from New Orleans were Frank Bryson, Susan Spicer, Alon Shire, Emeril. So a lot of heavy weights from the New Orleans side came to support and be there for our team which is exceptional and I was very excited to see how much works and how much passion these young chefs have and how driven they are. So to see that first hand over the span of three days was very amazing. Well Nina, obviously Team USA prevailed with the gold which was very exciting. What other teams as a competition judge attracted your attention? There was certainly a lot of talk about Canada. Canada was a very, very good job but my personal favorite was Columbia. I thought they did such a beautiful job using ingredients from their country and really putting their best foot forward and I think it was very tough. I would not want to be the final, you know, player of who won or who was the best but I think everybody did an exceptional job and it's to see that precision and the care and the thoughts in every single bite. I thought it was especially because every single team, their dishes were so different on what they were using and the team was to use your ingredients so I said even they had to use that so a lot of those things were showcased in each plan on each plated entree. Now Columbia is, if I'm remembering correctly, one of the teams that is moving on to Leon. Do I have that right? Yes, yes. They made it, you know, it was really tough, I don't think they made the top three but I was really hoping because, you know, some of these chefs are, a lot of people don't know that these chefs without competing also have full-time jobs, some of them. So for them to work in a restaurant and then I was talking to a couple of the teams, they said, you know, we work in restaurants and after service, we start practicing. So it's a lot of dedication that people are putting into this so it's not just a one-off, they're practicing for months and getting the timing down, the precision down because it's also very tricky for my understanding, especially working at doing stuff on top chef, is that each kitchen is very different. So when you think that you're going to be using the same oven, you know, back in Columbia or back in Canada, the oven temperature might be a little bit different from the one that you practice on. There's a lot of variables but you see them, you know, pivot and make stuff happen and thinking on the fly of, you know, all the stations where the temperature, where the time, they were able to do that. No, no, Nina, the level of competition and fortunately as a visiting journalist, I was able to get up close. The talent there, as you say, and the skill is truly incredible and it is a head chef, a Comey, and an assistant who they've never met before, that's someone that just comes in that day that they take direction from. And in those five and a half hours, they have to do the very elaborate platter. And then also the plate presentation that you were talking about, I mean, yeah, it really takes your breath away and as I say, the level of skill is just really impressive and it was definitely fun to see. Nina, let's back up a little bit with you. You're a native of St. Lucia. You're also still the culinary ambassador for St. Lucia. I believe at the time that you did Top Chef season 11, you were cooking in Miami. What got you to New Orleans? I had never been to the city before and it was always something somewhere I had to go to visit and hopefully live and we were able to do the show in New Orleans. So that's something that was pretty, pretty special because I was able to kind of get a small piece of my future home, so I was very lucky and I was really taking my advice with my breath away with all the culture and the similarities with the Caribbean and also a lot of Creole, they have in New Orleans, they also have back in the center as well. So definitely you embrace New Orleans now. From the time that you finished season 11 of Top Chef, what was the genesis then of Comperla Pan? Yeah, so I think for me, it was really, I think, you know, doing Top Chef and traveling and finally stemming in New Orleans with the really making concrete for me of what I wanted to cook because for a very long time I was working for a very amazing chef and I was, you know, I didn't have my culinary work at that time, so for me it was really coming to New Orleans because my heritage in New Orleans was very organic and it was also very well received. Now you're in, Comperla Pan is in a very historic building in New Orleans. Tell us a little about the building you're in, this old number 77 hotel and chanlery. The hotel is actually three buildings that are co-joint and one was an old trickery factory, coffee factory. If the building is over 150 years old, that's also the only thing about New Orleans, like everything here has age and has a story, so the preservation of the buildings in the city, you know, are some of 300 years old and they're still around, there's a lot of preservation and that's what we love about the hotel that is, you know, you can't make these kind of walls again, you know, because they're worn in there over 150 years or so, they've been through a lot and they have a story to sell. Well the exterior of your building in particular has, you know, been preserved and restored, so in terms of the architecture, it is very distinctive and when you get inside your restaurant, which is a pretty expansive space, you know, you've retained that character but, you know, given your own spin on it, so, you know, it's, the space itself is quite striking and the food we will soon talk about when we come back from our break. We are talking with St. Lucia native Nina Compton, James Beard Award winner and one of the foremost chefs that's cooking in New Orleans right now with her two restaurants, also one of the host chefs for the recent Bocustor America's competition and hosted the Victory Party for Team USA when they won the gold in the competition. You are listening to SoCal Restaurant Show, we'll be right back. (rock music) (upbeat music)
