Bon Temps with Besh

Photography by Rodrigo Gaya on February 22nd, 2013 in Celebrity, Lifestyle

John Besh

Miami Beach, FL – February 21, 2013 – Everyone got down with Chef John Besh‘s Cajun style at Soho Beach House for Bon Temps with Besh last night. The celebrated New Orleans Chef and owner of August restaurant, along with Mandarine Napoléon, the legendary citrus liqueur crafted for Napoléon Bonaparte, brought the flavors of the Big Easy to Miami Beach for more than 150 guests. Food Network chefs Marc Murphy and Aaron Sanchez, along with restaurateur Drew Nieporent were just some of the food and wine industry notables sipping on Mandarine Napoléon cocktails and wine by The Vini throughout the night. World Red Eye caught up with Chef Besh on his signature style- check out our interview below.

John Besh & Josh Capon

World Red Eye: How do you like being down here for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival?

Chef Besh: I love Miami. It’s always good to be here and catch up with old friends. It’s a great place… It’s a place you come to have fun. That’s the common denominator, and everyone’s having a great time.

John Besh

WRE: Do you draw any similarities between Louisiana and Florida-style cooking?

CB: The interesting thing about Florida is that you’re really talking about three different Floridas- you’ve got the panhandle, which is like an extension of Louisiana. Then there’s Northern Florida, which is like the deep south, and South Florida, which is made up of so many transplants, but the interesting thing is that you have the Caribbean influence which is so strong and fun. We share this incredible body of water- the Gulf of Mexico- and we’re both seafood and season-driven, so outside of lobster season, we don’t eat lobster, same for stone crabs, etc. Those are really the essentials of New Orleans cooking- it’s season driven, localized cuisine.

WRE: What’s your favorite part of the crawfish to eat and why?

CB: The whole nine yards! From the tail to the head. I’ve never bought crawfish that weren’t whole, so I’ve never known anything other than that. I control how they’re cooked from beginning to end. Mostly, out of any part of the crawfish, I can take the heads and create more flavor for dishes. It’s not fat in there actually; it’s all glands, but it’s very flavorful, that’s for sure.

WRE: What’s your favorite thing to cook during Mardi Gras and other New Orleans events and festivals? It seems that there is always a reason to party in your city…

CB: Food in New Orleans is a really social thing, it’s like the social cause. The thing that brings people together the best is food, and to me, that’s the reason why I’m a cook. The reason why I like to feed people is because it just brings everyone together. Mardi Gras is built up as having big, single pot dishes like gumbo and jambalaya. You put your soul into this pot, and the return is all the dividends of this deliciousness.

David Gordon, Sunny Fraser, & John Besh

Aaron Sanchez & Daniel Wuthrich

Aaron Sanchez & David Gordon

Marc Murphy & John Besh

WRE: You take Louisiana originals like gumbo and jambalaya and have modernized them. This seems to be a post-Katrina theme all throughout New Orleans. In hindsight, would you say that Katrina is something that changed the city and its cuisine for the better?

CB: I think Katrina has heightened our awareness of the role that food and hospitality play in our culture, and it’s no longer something to take for granted. We treasure it now, so because of that, there’s this renewed interest and resurgence to what we cook, and why we cook, and it means something.

John Besh & Robert Zweben

WRE: You have a whopping NINE restaurants! How do you pull it off? That’s more than some chefs accomplish in a lifetime… Any plans to bring any of them to South Florida?

CB: It’s difficult, but the hardest part was to go from one restaurant to two or three because with one, you need to be in control of everything, but when you have multiple ones you have to be able to learn how to not control every aspect. So the jump from three to nine wasn’t so big, but one to three at first seemed insurmountable. As far as our number of restaurants- we’ve expanded because of the people that had been with us for a long period of time. Cooks become sous-chefs and sous-chefs become partners, and while we’re keeping it regional, I can easily see coming here one day. I think there’s Creole influence in both cities- whether it’s the Haitian-Caribbean Creole, or the Cajun Creole of Louisiana. I see a lot of similarities, and it would be great to bring them together.