Right around the most recent turn of the century, when Americans began deifying chefs and celebrating food culture in previously unprecedented ways, Emeril Lagasse was there to satiate our national appetite. A garrulous man from Cajun country who urged home cooks to “take it up a notch,” at one point Emeril was a constant presence on the Food Network, with his own line of everything from spices to knives to pans, and even a short-lived sitcom on NBC.
Today, at 56 years old, Emeril has achieved permanent rock-star status in popular culture, needing just one name to be identified. He may have mellowed a bit, popping up recently on Top Chef as the contestant’s soft-spoken advocate, but he hasn’t slowed down: Lagasse is a few weeks away from opening Meril, his latest New Orleans outpost and the thirteenth restaurant in his culinary empire. And September will see the debut of his latest television series, Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse, a food-filled globe-trotting adventure for Amazon.
We caught up with Emeril this week, while he was in New Orleans prepping for the opening of Meril, to talk about where he’s been, where he still wants to go, and how one of the most famous chefs of all time puts together weeknight meals for his family.
GQ: How does it work for you when it comes to cooking at home with your family?
Emeril Lagasse: I do all the cooking at home. My wife can cook, and she’s a really good cook, actually, but she’s like, “Why?” So she makes a really great sous-chef. I do most of the shopping myself, just in a regular grocery. We basically shop every day for proteins, and every other day for produce, and we have a well-stocked pantry.
Is there any one tool that you can’t cook without?
Well, you gotta have good cookware, and I don’t mean expensive. I cook a lot at home in nonstick. I really like it because of the ease in cleaning. Even if you don’t have a set, you gotta have good cutlery. And you should never put it in the dishwasher—you gotta take care of it. I’m a big wooden-spoon guy, and maybe that’s because of many gumbos and that sort of thing that I’ve made. I like cast iron as well. I think having at least one good cast-iron pot is important. A fry pan and a gumbo pot would be great, not that you only use it for gumbo. I have one cast-iron pan that came from my wife’s grandmother that we still use for cornbread.
Are there days where it’s getting close to dinnertime and you’re like, “I don’t really feel like cooking tonight”?
Rarely. But occasionally that would happen, so we’ll go out to eat. We have a really excellent sushi restaurant that is very close to our house, so when that happens we’ll go there, or a couple of other good restaurants. We mostly do that more for lunch than we will for dinner.
How do you decide what’s for dinner on a given night?
Usually what happens in my house is we wake up, and at the breakfast table we’re basically saying, “Okay, what do you guys want for dinner tonight?” “Well, Dad, we haven’t had a stir-fry in a while, let’s have a stir-fry.” “Okay, so do you want chicken, you want pork, beef?” And the little one will say, “I want chicken.” So that’s what we’ll do. And I’ll go to the grocery and buy a bunch of vegetables and we’ll do a great stir-fry, really simple with rice noodles and that kind of stuff.
So that next meal is kind of a constant part of the dialogue around the house.
No question about it, Lang. It’s a conversation at the house every day.
Do you have a rotation of go-to dishes for dinner?
Yes. Those dishes can be simple grilled things, or like a great roasted chicken with roasted root vegetables, or maybe smothered chicken. Smothered pork chops is another dish that I do. I do grilled pork chops and make sort of this apple-onion thing. When we eat pasta, the kids love when I make bolognese. We have to have red beans and rice at least once a week or they get crazy. My kids have got great palates—they’re 13 and 11, but they eat everything. Chicken and dumplings when it’s cold. Chicken pot pie. Just those really home-cooked dishes is what I do, and it’s what they want. And I’m cool with that.
Switching gears real quick: With so many restaurants, at this point do you have opening one down to a science? Or at least a formula?
You know, it’s like having a child: It’s like they’re all different, they’re all new. The bones are different, the structure is different. There are some things that are obvious that are repetitive, like how many dishes and cups and glasses and stuff, but the thing is, which is also exciting, it evolves all the time. And the restaurant business right now has really, really changed. I was with a bunch of chefs yesterday at a brunch, and we were talking about how this particular restaurant, which I won’t name, and nobody in the kitchen was dressed in formal attire. Everybody was wearing jeans and different aprons, and it’s a very different scene, even the front of the house. I think America is begging for more casual, and I think they’re getting it. It doesn’t make the food any more delicious by doing that, but it’s just interesting how the move is happening.
When you started appearing nationally on TV, it seemed like you were almost immediately this fully formed character, with catchphrases and everything. Were those made-for-TV, or was that just the way you talked?
The way that “Bam!” came about is, we were taping eight shows a day because of my restaurant schedule. We were closed Sunday and Monday, so after Saturday service I’d fly to New York first thing Sunday morning, shoot five shows, shoot eight on Monday, eight on Tuesday before I would go back home. And doing that many shows and being a food show, the crew would eat all this food and start getting sleepy and tired. So “Bam!” came about as I was waking everybody up. “Kick it up a notch” was just my easy way of saying I was going to level up the spice or make it more salty or whatever. And those things just sort of started coming in. Things like “It ain’t rocket science,” those were just things that I would just say, and a lot of them just sort of caught on.
For a while there, it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the Food Network without seeing you.
I was one of the first ten employees hired at the Food Network, so we kind of started the network. And it didn’t start out very well—I had a couple of flop shows. And the president at the time suggested I come to New York and we spend a couple of days together. And basically that was when The Essence of Emeril was created. It started getting a little repetitious for me, although I enjoyed the heck out of, and still enjoy the heck out of it—I love to teach, and I just love that whole vibe—but I needed something else. So I went to them and said, “Listen, I’m thinking about retiring.” And they were like, “What?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m just going to want to spend time in the restaurants.” And they said, “What do you want?” And I said, “I see these late-night talk shows, and they’re pretty successful—Letterman, Leno—and I’ve been on a bunch of them.”
That started the birth of Emeril Live, and obviously the show evolved, the ratings got better, we did a lot of things to add viewership to the network, so that made everybody happy. It was a great 10-year run. The ticket was one of the hottest tickets in New York. We had all these great musicians who were into food and wanted to tape the show.
And then it was over?
When it ended, everybody felt like it was time for a little break. I didn’t necessarily think that, but that’s what everybody else thought, that maybe it was time for a break from Emeril. And…you know. So I went and did some other things—Emeril Green for Discovery for three seasons. They wanted me to create these reality shows for Food Network, and at the time I just wasn’t into it. I’m old-fashioned, and I want to teach people how to cook, how to eat, how to serve, how to shop, how to drink wine, how to mix a cocktail properly. I didn’t necessarily at the time want to get into this competition stuff. And so I didn’t, until I really did some research about Top Chef and really realized it was the real deal. There’s nothing fake about that. That’s why I got a little bit involved with that and did a few seasons of that. The New Orleans season that I really participated in was the highest-rated Top Chef that they had. It was great for me, great for that city, and obviously great for Top Chef. So now I’m doing Emeril’s Florida, which is in its fifth season on the Cooking Channel, and I’ve got this really awesome project that I’m doing for Amazon.
I’ve read about that, and it sounds like it’s something really different for you.
I can’t wait for you to see it. After doing so much television, Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse is a completely different animal. I’m still able to be with colleagues, I’m able to travel, I’m able to learn. It was an unbelievable experience, because I probably would never have gone to Shanghai and looked for the best soup dumplings with Mario Batali. I went to Sweden with Marcus Samuelsson and went langoustine fishing in the middle of a hailstorm. Every episode is just truly amazing, learning, touching. It’s really cool.
You’ve accomplished so much. What’s left?
What really makes my clock go is still the restaurants. I love people, I love being with my staff, I love learning together, I love making people happy with food, with wine, with service. I’m really psyched about Meril, and so is my team. I can let you know more once I open [laughs]. You can say the food will be great and this and that, but what it really comes down to is what people want, and if it’s what they want and you can give it to them and you can be successful and packed? Whoooo, thank God, you know? Because I’ve been on the other side, too.
This interview has been edited and condensed.