Stanton Hall's Carriage House

Related recipes: Carriage House Biscuits; Creole Remoulade Sauce; Frozen Fruit Salad; Sweet Corn Potato Salad  

Naysayers who have yet to be seduced by the flashy new menu at the Carriage House Restaurant (established in 1946 in Natchez by Pilgrimage Garden Club matrons Katherine Miller and Helen Jenkins) may claim it’s too “New Orleans-y.” But perhaps those who cling tightly to their memories of Jenkins’ chicken salad and Miller’s tomato aspic would change their minds if they met the chef.

True New Orleanian, Uptown-raised, Bingo Starr spent his childhood in his family’s restaurant Bull’s Corner, a local institution right near a major medical center, where his grandfather was a popular ob/gyn, (all the expectant husbands, he remembers, waited at their bar).

“That kitchen was my summer camp, my day care and my dance lessons,” says Starr. The menu, he recalls, boasted great steaks, fresh local seafood and five freshly made soups a day, from turtle and lobster bisque to vegetable beef and gumbo. After growing up in an atmosphere that provided a combination of food and entertainment on that level, it’s little wonder that pursuing a business degree at U.N.O. didn’t hold Starr’s interest for long.

“I had a job cooking and I realized I was having more fun at work than in college … I ran into an old friend who attended The Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York.” And that was that.

He spent two and a half years in New York—where he says, he could hardly lose touch with his Louisiana roots sharing classes with two other “Louisiana boys,” New Orleans chef John Besh and chef Jason Roland of St. Francisville’s Heirloom Cuisine. After an internship at the Mansion on Turtle Creek and the Rosewood Crescent Hotel in Dallas for nine months, Starr headed back home to New Orleans to prove he’d earned his place at the stove.

“After school, I took John Besh’s place at the Windsor Court when he left for the Gulf War,” he says. Working under Kevin Graham, Starr rose from line cook to sous chef and styled food for one of Graham’s award winning cookbooks, Grains, Rice and Beans. “Kevin left me alone at The Windsor Court to develop all the day time menus—breakfast, lunch and tea,” says Starr, “I got to test many dishes and I developed a following.”

Starr soon swung from Kevin Graham’s apron strings to those of Emeril Lagasse. “I worked at all of his restaurants and helped him re-open Delmonico,” says Starr. And learning from the best, he says, pays off in more ways than just observing technique. “From Emeril, I learned to have passion for my work, to maintain a good work ethic, and to take care of the people that work with you … nobody works harder or treats you better than Emeril.”

Those sterling mentors and years of experience lead Starr to the helm of one of the best restaurants in New Orleans, Cuvée on Magazine Street. As executive chef in the hottest spot in town, Starr enjoyed creating memorable dishes based on French and Spanish cuisine, and pairing them with some of the world’s best wines.

Letting no grass grow under his feet, Starr married a New Zealand beauty and took a trip to meet the family down under, that ended up lasting a couple of years. Living on the beach, eating mussels, snapper, oysters, and crayfish, Starr and wife Mary, started their family while he cooked at boutique hotels and high-end lodges. “I didn’t do anything too serious in New Zealand … mostly just learned about the family and the culture.”

Three children in tow, the Starrs moved back to Louisiana, but not to the hustling hot kitchens of New Orleans—to a pastoral setting in St. Francisville where Starr became a partner with fellow CIA graduate and St. Francisville native, Jason Roland, in Heirloom Cuisine. For over two years the partners raised herbs and vegetables and catered grand affairs all over the state of Louisiana—one of which was the 2007 Food & Wine festival in Natchez.

“I had been hunting and fishing in this area all of my life—over by Lake St. John and Lake Bruin, but the first time I came into town was to cook at Regina’s (Charboneau of Twin Oaks Bed and Breakfast) for the Food & Wine Festival. Starr introduced his Country Casserole, a layered dish of slow cooked pork shoulder, southern greens, and mashed sweet potatoes all bubbling under a savory cornbread crust, to rave reviews at the Natchez 2008 Food & Wine Festival.

Over a glass of wine with Regina, Starr mentioned he might like to live in Natchez. A couple of weeks later, she called him to come take a look at the Carriage House. “Right off the bat, I was smiling,” he recalled. “I loved the ladies of the kitchen staff so much, I felt like I was back home.”

In only a month and a half, Starr has won over the veteran kitchen staff, stretching their cooking techniques to include crème brulée and soft shell crab, to the utter delight of a once-skeptical Natchez crowd.

“I respect and appreciate the old menu at the Carriage House (you can’t argue with over sixty years of selling out of fried chicken) but some things could use a little ‘freshening-up’,” he says. By that, Starr means, out with the canned and the frozen and in with the seasonal and fresh-picked. “My favorite thing to do,” he says, “is to take fifty bucks and ride around to local produce stands and markets and find ingredients to start the day.” His day starts at 7 am, two hours before anyone else arrives. “That gives me plenty of time to play by myself.” Lately he’s used that time to create luscious fresh Creole tomato gazpacho (pure fresh tomatoes, puréed with fresh herbs and spices), creamy lobster bisque, and a sinful chocolate chip-bourbon-pecan pie.

If you’re new to Natchez or travelling through, don’t let the Carriage House’s barnlike interior and lackluster wine list fool you. This garden club ladies’ haunt now serves exceptional, inexpensive farm-fresh fare that’s drawing a crowd from those who once had to travel to New Orleans for food of this caliber. (By the way, nothing on the menu is over thirteen dollars.) Snagging a prime-time table ain’t always that easy either, and especially now, since Starr has retooled the menu. Tasty standbys from the popular old lineup—such as fried chicken, and biscuits, mingle on the menu (there’d be a riot if they didn’t) with fresh-inspired dishes like yellow tomato and Vidalia onion salad, soft shell crab over fresh sweet corn and black bean salsa, and pickled mirliton slaw.

His clever and creative mind has elevated leftover fresh baked biscuits from waistful (spelling pun intended) to sublime—no joke…in a fruit-laced biscuit bread pudding, as buttery toppings for savory and sweet crumbles, and as crusts for pot pies so good you’ll lick the spoon. Starr sneaks in more high-brow ideas on his “Queen’s Salad” plate, three fresh salads which change daily, and daily soups. And his shrimp remoulade and half oyster and half shrimp poboy are as well-crafted as any you’ll find in New Orleans. Other, more down-to-earth, additions include a beautifully executed beef brisket with vegetables and a black skillet ham steak. One word of advice: Save room for dessert; not only did he leave the much-loved chocolate tart on the menu, he’s added cream brulée, and that chocolate chip-bourbon-pecan pie among other treats.

What’s next for Chef Bingo? Besides catering weddings, luncheons and parties at Stanton Hall and the Carriage House, (“The phone never stops ringing,” he says) he’ll be participating once again in this year’s Food & Wine Festival (July 31—August 2), preparing a menu based on the theme of sustainable seafood, at Charboneau’s Twin Oaks. And one more thing—beginning in July, he’ll be opening on Thursday evenings for dinner. About that wine list … it’ll have an overhaul as well. Until then, we’ll just have to survive on another item from the old menu: The Carriage House “Famous Mint Juleps.”

Related recipes: Carriage House Biscuits; Creole Remoulade Sauce; Frozen Fruit Salad; Sweet Corn Potato Salad