A New Era Has Arrived At Emeril’s in New Orleans, With a Familiar Name
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Among the flurry of canapés to begin a meal at Emeril’s is a barbecue shrimp tart, a bite-sized version of a dish that Emeril Lagasse served on the restaurant’s opening menu, 35 years ago. You can still get the full-sized 1990 recipe at the bar with rosemary biscuits, but today Emeril’s is a bit more polished, with a sensibility that’s more a whisper than the shout of the chef’s trademark “Bam!”
To be fair, Lagasse’s flagship restaurant in New Orleans’ Warehouse District has always offered more nuance than his TV persona, but the finesse is on full display after an extensive renovation last year. There’s one change more major behind this than any other, though: Lagasse has passed the torch to his 22-year-old son, EJ.
Since reopening, the restaurant has enjoyed a flurry of accolades: one of the New York Times’ first national reviews offering an unqualified rave; a strong showing on North America’s Top 50 Restaurants; becoming a Relais & Chateaux property; and in fall 2025, an impressive two Michelin stars. For that matter, EJ received the ‘New Talent of the Year’ award from La Liste in Paris in 2023; even the French had to acknowledge how much classic backbone is in the Lagasse family’s cooking. “We’re getting back to our roots,” EJ says. “I would say 80% of the menu has its origin in the contemporary Louisiana food that’s been served in the restaurant since the 1990s.”
At the same time, there is, if not a formality, certainly a sense of refinement to the experience at Emeril’s these days. Every guest is invited into the kitchen for their very first bite, including that shrimp tart, a welcome that sets the tone for gracious service to come. “I love when you get bombarded with all of these small bites,” the younger Lagasse says. “It’s the first impression and first impressions matter.” Or consider the oyster stew, another Emeril classic with an EJ update. The cream base is the same, but “we’re just cooking it for longer without actual bits of oyster,” EJ explains, “and then we’re poaching the oysters and adding them in at the end when we’re plating on the pass.”
This encapsulates the challenge that EJ Lagasse faces: His stage is a very familiar one — and one that has been subject to the whims of New Orleans dining, and his father’s fame, for a long time. Leading up to the renovation, Emeril’s was a very busy restaurant, serving large tables of 14 or 16 guests nightly, and over the years, it had strayed away from Emeril’s original vision of being New Orleans’ premier white-tablecloth restaurant. “We found a lull and wanted to reinvigorate it,” is how the younger Lagasse puts it.
Hency why, today, there are only half as many seats in the dining room now compared to before, so a fully booked night means 56 covers — which, EJ points out, still translates to more than 500 plates of food with the new tasting menu format. That tasting menu comprises six courses, with a few choices along the way, plus lots of little surprises sprinkled in, including a delightful cafe au lait treat for the morning after.
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There is also the burden of defining a career while living with the Lagasse name. But let’s get one thing straight: EJ Lagasse is not just a nepo baby. You might be wondering how else a chef who is barely old enough to drink is serving one of the most expensive tasting menus in New Orleans. Yes, growing up between New Orleans and New York — in the kitchen and on TV sets — certainly provided a head start. But he put in his time, too, first peeling vegetables and cooking pasta at Meril’s (named after his sister) in New Orleans when he was just 13.
You know how some actors say they just knew as children that acting was their true passion? That was EJ with cooking. He would stand on apple crates in his father’s restaurants so he could see over the pass. Mantras like “taste, taste, taste” and “always wipe your plate” were drilled into his head at a young age like holy dictums.
Yet he didn’t realize that his dad was a famous chef until people stopped his father for autographs and photos in New York. EJ naively thought it was because he had voiced Marlon the Gator in Disney’s “Princess and the Frog” movie. “I found out much to my dismay that it was because he was a chef,” he recalls. Young EJ started spending time on set at “Emeril Live” and even made a couple cameo appearances in a chef’s coat helping his dad cook.
“Not once did my dad ever tell me to think about being a chef,” he says. “My parents would have supported me in whatever I wanted to do, but I wanted to be a chef.”
When his parents saw how serious he was about following in his father’s footsteps, they shipped him off not to boarding school, but to work with Eric Ripert at Le Bernardin in New York when he was 15. And yes, this is where the family connections came in handy. Lagasse would complete schoolwork online and spend long days in the kitchen.
“I fell in love with food from my dad, and my love for restaurants came from being in our restaurants,” Lagasse says. “But I learned so much at Le Bernardin about working at a restaurant at the highest level. That’s the type of kitchen that we want to cultivate.”
It’s the first impression and first impressions matter.— EJ Lagasse on the shrimp tart, the restaurant’s legendary initial course
If there’s one dish from the current menu that perhaps best exemplifies Ripert’s influence on EJ’s style, it’s the precisely plated pan-roasted Mississippi trout almondine, a traditional New Orleans dish made famous by nearby Galatoire’s Restaurant that was also popular at his father’s restaurant for years. (EJ’s rendition is of trout almondine is among the best in a town that prides itself on that dish.) Crunchy slivered marcona almonds, uniformly diced haricot verts and twee baby potatoes create a plate that would not look out of place at Ripert’s seafood temple. The dish is brighter and more delicate than expected, even with a generous tableside pour of clarified parsley butter. “It was the intention to be lighter because of where it lands on the menu within the progression of the meal,” he says.
EJ’s tutelage in the kitchen hardly ended with Le Bernardin. After graduating from his father’s alma mater, Johnson & Wales, in 2021, he worked at Core by Clare Smyth in London and Frantzén in Stockholm, before returning to New Orleans in 2023. You’ll still spot Emeril senior in the kitchen when he’s in town, often greeting guests at the canapé station, but the elder Lagasse is focusing his energy on a new restaurant, 34, that celebrates his Portuguese heritage. At Emeril’s, meantime, a young new team largely assembled by EJ is now in charge, including chef de cuisine Emilie Van Dyke, who previously was at San Francisco’s groundbreaking Californios. “Once you’re surrounded by a group of people who have worked in so many different places, the restaurant’s network gets bigger,” EJ says.
Diners can watch the team in starched chef whites through crystal clear floor-to-ceiling windows. You’ll glimpse them cooking and plating, but also smiling and cracking jokes, occasionally staring right back at diners. They insist they’re only checking to see if we’re ready for our next course, but the immediacy of the interactions is lost on no one.
There’s also a new sommelier, Chelsea Palmer, a New Orleans native and most recently general manager at Toups’ Meatery. She has inherited a truly astonishing wine cellar — Emeril’s, like Commander’s Palace and Brennan’s, has been building its stash for decades. Thus you can find rare gems if you know what you’re searching for. (There is for instance a deep roster of the Loire’s Domaine Huet, and California’s Littorai.). And that has also given birth to The Wine Bar at Emeril’s, which seats 40 and is available for walk-ins, for a more casual time and a small plates menu.
In other words. the younger Lagasse has managed to pull off that most tricky of endeavors: to take a storied restaurant, and give it new energy. And if Emeril’s has always been dedicated to serving contemporary Louisiana food, it currently is bringing a twist to New Orleans’ rich culinary heritage by, ironically, infusing it with more direct French formality. That might not be the move in many cities, but on Tchoupitoulas Street, it feels absolutely natural.
“We celebrated 35 years in March, and I’d love to be here in 35 years celebrating our 70 years,” EJ says. “I literally feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. The greatest joy of the whole of this is that I get to do it with my dad. This is my family business and I have no intention of leaving it.”
