Du Jour with Brian Landry

Executive Chef Brian Landry, 32, sounds pretty calm for a guy who has two small children and two big jobs. As executive chef of both Galatoire’s Restaurant in New Orleans and Galatoire’s Bistro in Baton Rouge, Landry burns up Interstate 10 daily, but not before turning out fresh herb-and-cheese omelets for his children, ages 3 and 2. Then it’s off to other bosses who want Landry to guard the reliability of a New Orleans institution, while creating a name for its young Baton Rouge outpost.

“They’re very different restaurants,” Landry says, “My job is to make sure that the food is consistent at both.” Landry grew up in New Orleans, where he cut his culinary teeth using the region’s bounty. Family fishing trips off the coast of Venice, La., provided great fodder, and the chef’s favorite meal today is still a just-caught speckled trout, redfish or drum filleted and sautéed. “We have access to some of the freshest seafood around in this state,” he says. After graduating from Jesuit High School, Landry earned undergraduate degrees in biology and philosophy from the University of Alabama and planned to go to medical school. But food science trumped biological science, and Landry entered Johnson & Wales University instead. Armed with a degree in the culinary arts, he trained at the Charleston Grill, and under respected New Orleans chefs Rene Bajeux (Rene Bistro), Kevin Vizard (Vizard’s) and Gerard Maras (Ralph’s on the Park), before taking the helm at Galatoire’s.

While the 103-year-old Galatoire’s relishes its resistance to change, Galatoire’s Bistro, Landry says, provides creative opportunities. Some dishes that have been well-received by Capital Region diners, like shrimp and grits in spicy tasso broth and duck crepes with house-made boursin, have also gone on to an enthusiastic reception in New Orleans. “It’s been a great place to try out new dishes,” he says. “We’re here to stay.”

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