Ella's Legacy, Susan's Hands

Though Chef Susan Spicer receiving the 2023 Ella Brennan Lifetime Achievement in Hospitality Award may seem like an obvious choice, it was the last thing Spicer was anticipating when on her day off she was unexpectedly called to come in by her manager of Rosedale, her more casual restaurant in Mid City, on pretenses that she needed to do something for the restaurant.

“So, all of a sudden, I'm doing something in the back room, and I hear a trumpet. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's not Spotify. What is that?” Spicer wondered. “Then here comes this, you know, second line down the hallway. And I'm like, ‘Okay, what's up here?’”

The Brennan family is known to go all-out with celebrations, so once Spicer processed the initial shock, she conceded that the surprise mid-day restaurant second line was quite on-brand: “That’s the Brennan way.”

Despite the unexpected hooplah, Spicer says the experience of it all was truly exciting. “It was a really great surprise. I was surrounded by friends and family and respected colleagues and people that I've worked with and that I admire,” she said. “And certainly having Ti Martin there, you know, and everybody there to to make the announcement, was a huge deal. You know, it was really exciting,” Spicer told me. “And like I said, a complete shocker.”

Anyone looking at Spicer’s substantial list of accomplishments and accolades would have a hard time being as shocked. "Chef Spicer has been a culinary household name in New Orleans for over three decades," Aimee Brown, NOWFE Executive Director, said. " She has been entrenched in the New Orleans community and served as a mentor to many up-and-coming chefs over the years.”

“And certainly having Ti Martin there, you know, and everybody there to to make the announcement, was a huge deal. You know, it was really exciting,” Spicer told me. “And like I said, a complete shocker.”

As one of two daughters in a family of nine, Spicer always felt that her parents had the same high expectations of her and her sister that they did of their brothers. The military family moved fairly often: Spicer was born in Key West, Florida, spent several childhood years in Holland, and by age seven, she was living with her family in New Orleans. Much of her own passion for cooking, and particularly incorporating international flavors and ingredients, Spicer credits to her Danish mother, who was very creative when cooking for her large family. “I had a pretty global palate from an early age,” Spicer told me. “My mom was a great cook. She always, you know, did lots of different kinds of food. And so we really had no food fears in my family.”

Spicer’s culinary career kicked off in 1970, when the young chef trained under Chef Daniel Bonnot at the Louis XVI Restaurant in Paris, then with Chef Roland Durand at the Hotel Sofitel. She returned to New Orleans where she helped open Savoir Fair, a bistro in the St. Charles Hotel. She spent much of the late eighties traveling in California and Europe, returning again to New Orleans to open her flagship restaurant, Bayona, with business partner Regina Keever in a historic French Quarter cottage in 1990. She also opened Mondo in Lakeview in 2010, which has since closed but opened a spin-off in the New MSY airport terminal. Rosedale, her more laid-back, brunch-y restaurant nestled in a former home near City Park, opened in 2016.

As far as gaining star-status by New Orleans standards, besides being a household name for her cooking, the chef inspired a character on HBO’s show Tremé and appeared as herself in the television series NCIS: New Orleans. She also appeared on Top Chef’s season finale in 2009. She received the James Beard Award for her work at Bayona in 1993, and since then her flagship has received the Ivy Award, the Mondavi Culinary Excellence Award, and entered the Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame. In 2010, Spicer was inducted into Thea Beard Foundation’s “Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America”. Her cookbook Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans received a nomination for Best American Cookbook by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Even already possessing so many accolades, the weight of a lifetime honor in Ella Brennan’s name is striking to Spicer. “I really feel like she has meant so much to the restaurant community in New Orleans. You know, there have certainly been people that have come before and come after that have done great things, but Ella just represented, I think, just the combination of guts and an innate intelligence to create such a successful entity, you know, to create Commander’s and before, when she was younger, when she was at Brennan's on Royal Street,” Spicer said. “She was so smart like that, and so invested in other people's success.”

Spicer values such an investment, as she grants much of her success to the very first chef that believed in her, early on in her career.  “Daniel Bono gave me the opportunity, my first chef opportunity, which I thought he was nuts,” she recalled. Since then, Spicer has carried on this tradition, mentoring countless young people working at her restaurants, helping them work their way up to successful careers in New Orleans cuisine.

On why she decided to plant roots and build kitchens in the Crescent City, she said, “I love the city…fortunately cooking and being successful in the culinary world has allowed me to travel the world. And New Orleans is just a great place to come home to.”

Chef Susan Spicer will be presented with the 2023 Ella Brennan Lifetime Achievement in Hospitality Award at the Award Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans on January 12 at 7 pm. Find more information or get tickets at nowfe.com.