Chef Paul Prudhomme may have brought the flavors of the New Orleans Vieux Carré to presidents and a king, but his deepest satisfaction comes from the food itself.

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If you ask Prudhomme which dish best captures the vibrant passions of the New Orleans, he won’t hesitate for a moment.

 

“We have gumbo all the time,” he says, with a laugh like the sturdy intricacies of balcony ironwork. “I think we got two containers of it in the fridge right now.”

 

The youngest of thirteen children on a farm outside of Opelousas, Louisiana,

Prudhomme was born into the homespun flavors of Cajun country. He began

helping his mother in the kitchen as a boy, eagerly absorbing her ingredients and the way she prepared them.

 

“I learned from her an enormous amount of great food because she was a great cook,” he says in his soft Cajun accent.

 

By the time he graduated high school, Prudhomme was enthralled with the idea of owning his own restaurant. He opened his first in Opelousas, and when that was unsuccessful he kept trying—eventually ending up in Denver, Colorado.

 

The mother who first sparked his love affair with cooking ultimately drew

Prudhomme back to sultry heat of Louisiana.

 

“When I realized that Mom and Dad were both sick,” he says, “I decided I ought

to come home.”

 

Nestled in the historic New Orleans French Quarter, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen was Prudhomme’s eighth restaurant. He says when he and his late wife K opened it in 1979, K-Paul’s was the first Cajun restaurant in the city.

 

“They had never heard of one before,” he says.

 

Bringing such a heavily regional cuisine to the culinary world stage didn’t seem to daunt Prudhomme. His faith in its rustic essence, in locally grown ingredients and simple preparation, is unshakable.

 

“I think freshness for cooking is the most important thing, and having the right

kind of seasoning to finish it.”

 

Something of an aesthetic, Prudhomme says visual and aromatic appeal—the

colors, the aroma of a dish—means everything to him.

 

“It’s been my life,” he says plainly.

 

While cooking throughout the country as a young man, Prudhomme says he was appalled at the amount of frozen food being used. He decided that when he had a restaurant of his own, it wouldn’t have a freezer.

 

To this day, K-Paul’s still doesn’t.

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Prudhomme speaks affectionately of the New Orleans he knows, and seems as much a part of the landscape as the long, slow notes of tarnished saxophones in the sun.

 

He shares his joie de vivre with Lori, his wife of two and a half years. They’ve

been a part of each other’s lives for over three decades, he says, and now care

for each other more than ever.

 

“I can cook,” he chuckles, “but she’s a lot smarter!”

 

Prudhomme has appeared everywhere from Good Morning America to Larry

King Live. He’s authored cookbooks, and owns a popular seasoning brand. He

was the first American–born chef to receive France’s coveted Ordre National du Mérite Agricole.

 

In many ways, he has become a larger-than-life figure, transcending the space of any one restaurant to embody Louisiana cooking.

 

Prudhomme may have prepared invitational dinners for Reagan and Clinton, but the presidents’ names didn’t come to him as quickly as one might expect. The king of Jordan once dined at K-Paul’s, Prudhomme says casually enough for the memory to seem an afterthought. Doubtlessly, though, the chef could recall each intimate detail of the meals he cooked them—because he draws his deepest satisfaction from the food itself.

 

When asked if there was a famous person he’d like to prepare a special dinner

for, Prudhomme laughed easily.

 

“Anybody that’s nearby and hungry, I’ll be happy to cook for.”

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