Earlier this week I left The Delachaise on my terms. Though it seemed quite sudden to most observers, the move was long in coming as the owners and I did not see eye-to-eye about several pivotal directions for the business. In a nutshell...

I wanted to continue to push aggressively forward with our outstanding culinary program, and I believe the owners were more comfortable with the idea of The Delachaise as just a wine bar. When I realized that all the many sacrifices I had made: with my hours, my passion, and even my financial support in things like buying plates and cool ingredients, all this ultimately gave way to a feeling that ownership was unwilling to support my vision of where we needed to go to make the place even more of a food destination.

There was a straw that broke this camel's back, but by no means was that the total reason I departed. There were also issues like how I wished the place was non-smoking; how I wished there was as much corresponding interest in the beverage program linking up pairings and daring resources in concert with my food; and a host of behind-the-scenes issues where I felt that my 50-60 hour a week schedule was not reciprocated with an interest in making the business more efficient and finding the means to free me to write and publicize the place more. The past year, this blog has been the only Internet resource of the company, and now that I am embarking on a recipe and writing program, I really needed to shed some of the exhausting closing duties of working 5 consecutive shifts of 10 hours (or longer...) per week. I'm also just as sure that they were perpetually puzzled by my maniacal food obsessions, and probably longed for a chef who didn't thrive on chaos, improvisation, and inspiration.

Some of these longstanding issues could have been solved, but others were intractable. It was time for me to move on, since I had long ago proven my point about creating a successful kitchen for this particular bar atmosphere.

I very much enjoyed being the workhorse of the place, and as a chef, it has been thrilling to have such absolute control over the menu and to be able to get my hands on so much of the prep that created each dish. Most restaurants are too big for that to happen, thus the chef is only as good as his weakest cook. However at The Delachaise, I got my hands on most of the essential components of each dish, and it was easy to train my small, and always talented, krewes to make things my way. I really loved how we kept an improvisational jazz spirit in the kitchen -- running menu items that constantly changed -- like our soups, pastas/risottos, and of course the creme brulees. We also were able to work with our produce and our deep pantry of exotic products to develop pretty amazing specials on the fly. There were very few days I felt that I had to drag myself to work; instead, there was always something new to actually work with just about every day and that freshness to our food kept us passionate, and kept our dedicated diners on the edge of their seats, scanning the chalkboards to figure out what inspired dish was up next.

When I left we had about 25 dishes, and our additional 25+ artisanal cheeses. I'm proud of the legacy created for the place. I appreciated my chance to make such a definitive imprint on New Orleans diners and to grow the business with all the accolades we had received. It was an amazing show, from the darkened nights of Oct. 2005, when armed soldiers still patrolled the streets with a tight curfew, to last week in June 2008. I had a great run at The Delachaise!

Personally, it marks the period of our transition back to New Orleans after the levee failures, and I know I leave The Delachaise better than I found it. Likewise, they gave me the stage to boost my cuisine to the attention of a citywide audience in such a crucial period in New Orleans history. Being named the Best New Chef of the Year for 2006, the first time New Orleans Magazine gave out their culinary awards after the devastation, will always be a badge of honor.

The most difficult thing about leaving The Delachaise will be being gone for my customers. I felt like the luckiest cook in the world because our guests just ate everything! We had a wonderful relationship, and I always enjoyed spending time running the food out to our hungry guests, and catching up with them as they dined. Usually, cooks are kept in their unruly cages in the back-of-the-house where they can hone their arsonist's and knife-hurling skills, curse freely, and basically spend all night stressed out and setting stuff on fire. It was a great delight to find our rapport with the customers on a nightly basis, and I will miss that camaraderie. I hope when I find the next venue that we can keep that unorthodox, but very satisfying, means of service points for the kitchen krewe. It kept us cooks civilized, and it let our guests have access to pieces of our knowledge and intensities that caused us to make the food we did.

Although my departure was swift and certain (and I am sure that a few future prospective employers will be aghast at how suddenly the denouement came into force), I left The Delachaise with a terrific, proven menu. My sous chef and line cook have been with me for over 8 months, so they understand the food very well, and I have faith they can execute the menu in outstanding fashion. RJ Tsarov, my sous, will move up to chef, and he'll keep things adventurous, calling on his extensive travels where he learned the foods of Morocco, India, and Thailand. RJ has blossomed into a true cheese phreak, so he will be happy to continue explaining our lovely cheeses when they arrive at your table. Dave Usher, my line "dawg," has stamina, speed and a fun-loving attitude which is well-suited to the odd rigors of The Delachaise kitchen. They now have the chance to evolve a popular business into something that only needs a few tweaks to reflect their culinary goals and inspirations.

I am not indulging in Hater-ade about The Delachaise. While I know things cannot be the same without me, the business should succeed after I'm gone. There's the strong menu and my capable cooks still there, the variety of pours, a very good location, and really all of the same staff, except me. So if you liked it while I was there, I say continue to support the place -- as a cook I believed I had to earn your respect with every plate, so each visit amounted to a new audition to keep your business. Keep giving RJ your chances, and it'll be fun to see how he grows the menu to suit his sensibility.

As for my plans, I will be exploring new and better opportunities. While I anticipate pursuing my cuisine in another New Orleans kitchen before too long, for now I am working on some recipes and checking out options besides just jumping back into "the frying pan" of another pro kitchen. Please stay tuned to these pages to see what happens next. The one thing everybody can count on is that I am 100% dedicated to cooking in New Orleans. I want to thank the folks who worked beside me in the kitchen; RJ and Dave, to D-2, Miles, Jason, Pharin, Connor, Ben, Paul, Gabe. Thanks to all the bartenders and bar backs, too, for learning about my never-ending parade of plates.

I know I don't have any regrets...except for the dishes I was planning to cook as the summer rolled along.... So I'm a gone pecan, but I'm really not going anywhere, thus we'll meet to celebrate "the pleasures of the table" again... and soon.