“Susan Spicer, the acclaimed New Orleans culinarian, began her cooking career in New Orleans as an apprentice to Chef Daniel Bonnot at the Louis XVI Restaurant in 1979. Her resume includes staging with Chef Roland Durand in Paris, extensive travel in Europe and California, as well as stints as chef at Savoire Faire and the Bistro at Maison de Ville in New Orleans.”
“Spicer and Regina Keever partnered together to open Bayona in the French Quarter in the spring of 1990. With solid support from local diners and critics, Bayona soon earned national attention, countless awards and has been featured in numerous national and international publications. Susan received the 1993 James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Southeast.”
“Susan’s first book, entitled Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer’s New Orleans, was released in 2007. New Orleans Magazine awarded it Best New Cookbook, and it was also included in Food & Wine’s Best of the Best recipe collection
In May of 2010, Susan was inducted into the prestigious James Beard Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America.”
“The same year (2010) she launched Mondo, a casual, family-style restaurant which opened in Chef Spicer’s neighborhood of Lakeview. (It was sold in 2019.) In October 2016 she launched her third restaurant, Rosedale, a neighborhood joint in a unique and historic building that serves her own style of Louisiana home cooking. In the Spring of 2019, a new version of Mondo joined other great New Orleans restaurants in the new terminals at Louis Armstrong International Airport.”
Susan Spicer takes a brief break from her busy kitchens to join us.
At present Chef Susan is focusing most of her time at Rosedale.
Hi, I'm Sherry Yard, the Los Angeles Advisory Board for Careers Through culinary arts program. When I want the absolute best in food 411, I listen to the SoCal restaurant show right here on AM830KLAA. And welcome back, it is the SoCal restaurant show and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10am to 12 noon, right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, kind of putting it all together. Do appreciate you being out there and we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce. I had a real treat a couple of weeks ago as the guest of New Orleans and Company and the Mentor Foundation to visit New Orleans and enjoy the festivities surrounding the America's selection for the Bocustor International Culinary Competition. And as a result of what happened in New Orleans, five teams from the Americas will be joining teams from Europe and other parts of the world in January of next year to compete in the Bocustor International Culinary Competition. I love New Orleans, I had not had a chance to get there since the pandemic and it was great catching up. And an old friend that I had a chance to renew the acquaintance with who I have great respect for is a very well established chef in New Orleans. This is Susan Spicer, you know her from Bionna but she also has two other restaurants. And it's been so long, I apologize chef Susan, I wanted to get her back on the show to update about everything she's doing and that experience for the Americas competition. Good morning Susan and welcome back. Hi Andy, nice to reconnect with you after all of these, I guess I should say, decades, a couple of decades that seems like. Chef Susan, it has been a while but talking about lengths of time, you're doing a very special celebration this year because it is 34 years since your business partner in your Regina opened Bionna in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Does it really seem Susan like it's been 34 years? Yes it does Andy, absolutely does. And also that marks my 45th year in cooking as a profession. So it was, you know, I had been cooking nine years before I opened my first restaurant. Which is slower than guys are doing it these days. We had a chance to break bread when I was in New Orleans at Nina Compton's flagship restaurant and I would say you are still looking very vital and very youthful. So whatever you're doing Chef Susan, you're doing it right. Well thank you, I think it's called working hard. That is, I think, I think your middle name. Now let's get back to this 34th anniversary celebration this year at Bionna. I think through the summer you are still doing this incredible $34 three-course lunch. And I guess that is Thursdays through Saturday. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well we just, well I will say I have to give all props to my current Chef de cuisine. Her name is Kristi Anjurand and she is really running the show on a day to day basis. I'm still a partner at Bionna but she is making all the menus and she's amazing. She worked with me when we first opened the restaurant 34 years ago and it's truly a labor of love for her to be there. She is incredibly talented and just comes up with so many different dishes. They're still doing some of my old signature dishes like the crispy quail salad and things like that. But Kristi has come up with a lot of different menus and they're going to change throughout the program of the $34 with the 34 cent Martini. Now Chef Susan, a 34 cent Martini? I know, I really, we started this I think on our 25th anniversary I believe and at that point it was 25 cent Martini and I never, I never knew there were that many day drinkers in New Orleans but it's pretty amazing. It's quite an attraction for people. They enjoyed all the specials and the great three course menu and also the beverages. I think they do a Cosmo, a 34 cent Cosmo also. Chef Susan, I'm liking it. Now you mentioned that this crispy smoked quail salad which is one of your signature items is still on the current menu. Can you give us a little bit more of a description of that? Absolutely. It is, we take Mississippi Pop White quail and we marinate them and cold smoke them which means they're exposed to, they go in the smoker but it's done on a low temperature so the quail are still raw but infused with smoke and then we dip them in a rice flour batter and fry them until they're crispy and that goes on a salad with celery hearts and pears and lettuce and a bourbon molasses vinaigrette with ice pecans. Wow. Now if I'm remembering correctly Susan, you always had a way with rabbit which we don't see too much out here in Southern California is there's still a rabbit dish on the current bione menu. I believe so, yeah, Kristi, we've always enjoyed using the whole rabbit. I trained with French chefs so I was taught to use, as they say, everything but the squeak on the pig and that goes for pretty much anything we use so we use the whole rabbit. We usually do the tenderloin which is the little back strap and then the leg might be braised or stuffed and then the more tender part is just a quick saute and of course we make stock with the bone so we've always done different versions of that. Sometimes with maybe a sausage stuffing and more of a southern twist, like a chicken fried rabbit leg with some smothered greens, collards and mustards and things like that or we might do it more refined like more of a French style so it changes up from time to time. While I am still a partner at bione Andy, I did mention that I spend most of my time at Rosedale so I am at this stage in my career I am focusing on one restaurant at a time. I like it and we will talk about Rosedale in the next segment but backing up a little bit, bione Susan is in a very historic building in the French Quarter. Give us a little bit of a snapshot of the ambiance if you will. It's really lovely when I met my partner Regina and she was a customer of mine at the restaurant where I was chef prior to that which was the Maison de Bill and she had asked if I'd be interested, that was a very very small restaurant and people were always saying you need to be in a bigger restaurant and I met Regina and her husband Ron and I liked him very much and they said would you like to go into partnership with us and I said yes but it has to be the right place and we looked at quite a few places and none was quite right for me until we until another customer of mine said I have this building I think you should see and this was originally a Creole home with a connected servants quarters and a patio beautiful courtyard and I had always said if I was going to have my own restaurant in New Orleans it had to have outdoor dining because I grew up in the I just love traveling to Europe and I loved eating outdoors in Greece and France and you know Spain it's just always been something I really love so so I went and looked at this building which actually had been a restaurant in the 70s and into the 80s and I saw the building I fell in love with it and you know within I think within six months we were opening bionna together so it is really beautiful it's it has a beautiful patio and it has three rooms inside and a private dining place upstairs so a small private dining room seats up to about 30 people upstairs very atmospheric and one larger dining room and two smaller ones downstairs with windows that open onto Dauphin street and Susan before we take our top of the hour break can you give us the address in the French Quarter the website for bionna and what days you're serving lunch and dinner okay well let's see the address I know it was 430 Dauphin street and I am let's see what it's bionna www.bionna.com and our hours are let's see I'm sorry they change from time to time with all the different things that have happened over the last couple of years with covid and you know all this kind of stuff so I'm open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday opening at six o'clock and open for lunch on Thursday Friday and Saturday terrific and Christie is also doing a great vegan special menu on Thursday lunch terrific we are speaking with James Beard award-winning New Orleans chef Susan Spicer three restaurants now in New Orleans to keep her busy we're going to pick up the conversation after our top of the hour break it is the SoCal restaurant shelf we're proudly presented by Melissa's world variety produce and West Coast Prime Meats don't wander far. 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