When a blizzard closes airports in the Northeast, New Orleans is arguably the best place to get stuck... which is exactly what happened to the boy and me a few weeks ago. We saw friends, we messed about in boats in the Manchac Swamp, but mostly we ate. Here are some highlights:
- Friday Lunch with Soufflé Potatoes and Café Brulôt at Galatoire’s
- Fried Chicken and Red Beans and Rice at Café Reconcile
- Barbecue Shrimp Po-Boy at Liuzza’s by the Track
- Swamp!
- Beignets and Iced Au Lait at Café du Monde
- “Thin Fried Catfish” at Middendorf’s Manchac
- Mississippi Chicken at Rachel & Gabe’s house in Algiers with Lisa & Mike
- Lost in the stacks at Arcadia Books and Prints
- Warm Muffuletta and Jambalaya (and Hegel) at Napoleon House
- Tropical drinks at Latitude 29
- Touring Tulane with Mackin
- Kid’s first crawfish
- Sandwiches with Gabe at Cochon Butcher
- Burgers at Ted’s Fro Stop
- Hanging in Liz’s kitchen
- Riding the St. Charles streetcar
- Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy sing REM at House of Blues
Today on The Buildout podcast, we sat down with St. John Frizell, Ben Schneider, and Garret Richard to unpack the twists of fate, creative risks, and behind-the-scenes hustle that became the Sunken Harbor Club.
Tap the link in bio to listen.
Had a great time goofing around with old pal David Wondrich and new pal Dean Kotz, the author and artist behind The Comic Book History of the Cocktail, at last weekend’s Sunken Sunday event at the Sunken Harbor Club.
I thought the Comic Book History would be an illustrated rehashing of Wondrich’s extensive earlier work, and I was down for that — but NO. This book creates a narrative throughline from the murky origins of mixed drinks to the present day in a way no book has yet. AND there are tons of juicy new historical tidbits along the way. AND Kotz’s art brings all these stories and bizarre characters to vivid life. I expected great things, but this book exceeds expectations.
During the show, Dean accepted the challenge — suggested by the audience — to illustrate “Admiral Russell’s Punch,” an event recorded in an earlier Wondrich book. Peeved that he wasn’t allowed to sail home for Christmas and had to stay in Spain, Russell ordered the construction of what might be the world’s largest cocktail, in the Delft garden fountain of the governor of Cadiz. How large? He invited 6000 of his closest friends, and the punch was served by a cabin boy who paddled around the punch in a small rowboat.
The resulting drawing, the book, and the afternoon were all remarkable.
📸: @tom.wolfson as nifty with a camera as he is with a shaker
Catching a wave in an outrigger canoe off Waikiki Beach 🤙
Boy, do I love piloting unique regional boats. Didn’t get a chance to sail on one of those big voyaging canoes, but that’s a great reason to go back to Hawai’i, as if I needed another! The Hawai’i Food and Wine Festival was a blast, and I was thrilled to participate last weekend. They had me makin’ and shakin’ all day Thursday, but Lauren and I had two days to explore O’ahu. Farmers markets with tropical fruit, spam musubi, vintage aloha shirts, great food and drink, and stunning vistas everywhere. Congrats to Alicia Yamachika from HFWF and her team for successfully wrangling bartenders from all over the world, and putting on a great show. Mahalo!
St. John Frizell is one of the most renowned saloon keepers in New York City. He is currently one of the proprietors of the famous Brooklyn restaurant @gage.and.tollner and its associated cocktail bar @sunkenharborclubnyc . Before that, he owned and ran for many years Fort Defiance, one of the best regarded cocktail bars in Brooklyn. He began his career as a cocktail bartender at the legendary Pegu Club.
At @themartiniexpo St. John will be part of the “Signature Martinis” panel, which begins at 12:15 pm at The Landing @industrycity . Tickets are still available for the Sept. 13 Expo. Link in bio.
A snowy hike in Rocky Mountain National Park (on National Park Day, no less!). Down the mountain and back on the prairie for a late lunch at Avogadro’s Number in Fort Collins. Dinner at Dushanbe Teahouse in Boulder. Multiple climates and biomes in one day, all beautiful. Colorado is such a show-off!
Caught a little unprepared for the spring weather in Colorado. It was 73 degrees yesterday. Here we are hiking around Chautauqua. That tree smells like butterscotch.
Today marks four years since we officially re-opened Gage & Tollner, or five years and one month since we initially *planned* to reopen Gage & Tollner. It’s been an unimaginably wild and wonderful ride since we first got the keys to this storied space back in 2019, but through it all—two presidencies, a global pandemic, immense social and cultural shifts, an economic crisis (or two?), and so much more—this 146-year old gem has remained a beacon on Fulton Street, offering a warm, welcoming space to celebrate milestones big and small. And it’s really all thanks to you, our incredible community, for getting us here: for donating to our opening Wefunder campaign, ordering gift certificates and ribeye meal kits during the shutdown, and helping us provide meals for frontline workers; for lining up outside at 5pm every night, spending late nights at the bar, cozy lunches in our booths, and celebrating your birthdays, engagements, showers and weddings in our private rooms. It’s an honor to carry the baton through this momentous new chapter in Gage & Tollner’s history, which we can only hope will continue on for centuries to come.
In honor of our birthday, we took a little trip down memory lane to share some of our favorite moments leading up to opening day.
1 - Ribbon cutting ceremony on April 15, 2021 (credit: David Dyte)
2 - Cataloguing ephemera uncovered in the attic while picking out CGS and tasting @islandcreekoysters
3 - Menu design with @order.design.nyc
4 - Goodbye Arby’s sign! Marquee install (shot by @paulfrangipane )
5 - Mirror install day!
6 - Polishing our iconic original brass gas chandeliers
7 - Menu testing (and testing and testing…)
8 - Longtime G&T maitre’d Wade Siler serenading a group of Wefunder investors at a pre opening party, February 2020
9 - New gilded window signage by @travis_signs
10 - Opening coverage in the @nytimes metro section by @john_freeman_gill
11 - Boxed treats for frontline workers
We’re hosting a celebration of our friend Pableaux’s beautiful life at Gage & Tollner on Monday, Feb 17, at 6pm. Red beans and turkey bone gumbo will be served (and that’ll be me on the pots and pans). Come ready to laugh, cry, eat, drink, and all the rest. Please help us get the word out to all Pableaux’s “people”… and if you want to bring something, please bring cornbread. Recipe below. :) All are welcome (til we run out of room!).
Papa’s Corn Bread
INGREDIENTS
2 cups Cornmeal
4 Tbsp Unbleached flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
4 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
1.5 cups Buttermilk
3-4 Tbsp Vegetable oil
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a heat-proof mixing bowl, thoroughly blend dry ingredients with a wire whisk or a wooden spoon. Add the eggs and the buttermilk. Stir until the mixture forms a medium-thick batter.
In a 9-inch cast iron skillet, heat the vegetable oil until it’s lightly smoking.
Swirl the oil around to coat the inside of the skillet. Then pour the hot oil into the batter and mix vigorously until the oil is thoroughly blended in.
Pour the batter into the prepared skillet.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until slightly brown on top.
Pableaux Johnson died doing what he loved, photographing a second-line parade. You never had to ask Pableaux what was important to him, because he lived a life of flawless integrity. He loved food and cooking, so he made you dinner; he loved art, so he got out in the streets and worked, and ceaselessly supported the art of others; he loved New Orleans, so he documented the city’s evanescent culture, so that it will not disappear from the earth. His contributions to these fields are staggering, and will outlive him, and will outlive us all.
He loved his friends, so he kept in touch. Reading remembrances of him today, I had to laugh. I can’t understand how he maintained so many friendships, all over the country. The unprompted texts, the calls, the little check-ins, so warm and so intimate — turns out it wasn’t just with me. Pableaux was like a mother whose every child will boast in confidence that, if you must know, they are her favorite. There was something motherly about Pableaux, and something like your favorite uncle, but mostly, he was as he always described himself to us: he was our brother, and we were his, and we loved him. May his life be an example.
We will host a memorial get-together at Gage & Tollner on a future Monday night. DM or email me if you’d like to help organize. My sympathies are with you all. 💔
EDIT: Gage & Tollner will host a celebration of Pableaux and his beautiful life on Monday, February 17, 6-10pm. All are welcome.
📸: @cgranger
I still can’t believe that I got to pilot a boat through the canals of Venice — easily one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. We went out with Row Venice, a nonprofit group of women dedicated to the preservation of voga alla veneta, the Venetian style of rowing. The boat was technically not a gondola, but a slightly different style called a batelina, and used the same oar and oarlock system.
The oarlock, called the fórcola, is a beautiful piece of craftmanship, a sinewy, organic shape carved from a single piece of wood — each one is slightly different, and made to the specifications of the individual vogatrici. You push forward to propel the boat, then twist the oar through the water to reset, slightly dragging it to correct and straighten the boat’s path. In the hands of a skilled rower, the movement is quick, subtle, and delicate, and reminded me of watching fish fluttering their fins as they feed at a coral reef. Our guide, Viola, starting learning the craft from her mother when she was 4 years old.
The Times reported in 2022 that of the 433 licensed gondoliers in Venice, only 5 were women. But women still row, and race, especially in the summer. The races come in all forms — solo, two-person boats, mixed doubles, and one in which each pilot chooses their own path through the city’s canals, a kind of maritime rally race, which sounds incredible.
I can’t recommend this experience highly enough — if you go to Venice, you simply must meet the women of Row Venice.
🐙 CICCHETTI APPRECIATION POST 🐙 Venetians take Aperitivo Hour more seriously than anywhere else in Italy, & that’s saying a lot. After all, they invented the Spritz! 🍷🍾 We tried to sample as many Bacari (Cicchetti Bars) as possible in 3 days. Wish we could have done more! We even rowed to a few during our lesson with @rowvenice . Our faves were Bar All’Arco, Cantina do Mori, & Ostaria Diavo’lo L’Aquasanta in Rialto, Osteria al Cicheto, Vino Vero, Estro Pane E Vino & Al Tappo in Cannaregio, and Strani, La Barrique & Basego in Castello. The fact that we hit that many in 3 days (plus other great non-Cicchetti meals) was why we had to walk 20k steps a day! Lol
