THE HISTORY OF ANTOINE'S RESTAURANT
New Orleans, Louisiana
NOTE: Antoine’s, devastated by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, reopened on December 29, 2005.
Excerpt from Antione’s Restaurant Cookbook by Roy F. Guste, Jr.
In April of 1840 a young man, 16 years old, opened the doors to a small pension on Rue St. Louis. This man was my great-great-grandfather Antoine Alciatore.
Antoine grew up in Marseilles, France; his father, Joseph Alciatore, was a wool merchant there. At a very young age Antoine was apprenticed to the owner of the Hotel de Noailles and began working in the kitchen. During his apprenticeship he became a qualified chef and even learned the secret of Pommes de Terre Soufflees from the great chef Collinet.
Antoine became restless in Marseilles and soon decided to seek his fortune in the New World. He boarded a ship to the United States (to New York), taking with him all the money that he had saved and whatever his parents could spare.
On the boat young Alciatore met and became friendly with a young Alsatian girl, Julie Freyss, who was coming to the United States with her parents to settle in New York. Julie and Antoine became very close. He told her that he was going to New Orleans to find his fortune, and that as soon as he had established himself he would send for her and they would be married.
Once in New Orleans, young Antoine found himself in the environment he had longed for, and again in a city that spoke his native tongue.
He first found employment in the St. Charles Hotel, which was then just a year old, but was soon lured into the heart of the city, to the first municipality, which we now call the "Vieux Carre." There he rented a building at 50 St. Louis Street and opened a small pension or boarding house. This is now the 600 block of St. Louis Street and is occupied by the Old Civil Court House.
From here the fame of Antoine's began to spread with travelers and the citizenry of New Orleans alike. Antoine had brought his knowledge of La Cuisine Francaise, La Cuisine Provencal and his own ability to create and adapt the products of the area for the people of the area.
It was five years after his arrival in New Orleans that Antoine sent for Julie. She traveled to New Orleans and they were married as promised. Together they worked in the small pension, which was now becoming more restaurant than boarding house, and soon outgrew this location. In 1860 they moved the business to a larger building, the Lacoul residence, located at what is now 714 St. Peter Street.
By 1868 Julie and Antoine had seven children; both family and business had outgrown their St. Peter Street residence. Antoine had for some time been planning to build his own place and had acquired a piece of land from the Miltenberger family. Antoine and Julie built themselves a building grand enough for a larger restaurant, for the family residence, and for some guest rooms for friends and discerning travelers. Once of the guests who, with his wife and children, would stay at Antoine's was Pierre Bienvenu Roy, a planter from Youngsville in the parish of Lafayette, Louisiana.
In early 1877 Antoine was told by his physician that he was dying of tuberculosis. He arranged his affairs and informed his wife and children that he wanted to die and be buried in Marseilles. "I do not wish you to accompany me, for it would only prolong any sorrow you might feel, were you to watch me fail, day by day, as I neared the grave. Just think of me as though I had already died, for when we part, as I take the boat for Marseilles, we will not meet again on earth." Within three months of his arrival in Marseilles, Antoine died in his mother's home at the age of 52.
HISTORY OF ANTOINE’S CONTINUED - PAGE 2 >>
|
