The kitchen at Antoine's as it appeared in 1951. The restaurant's chefs were still using ancient coalburing stoves to prepare meals for their many patrons. Note the oyster shells ready and waiting to be transformed into Oysters Rockefeller and the row of little baskets, soon to be filled with the delectable soufleed potatoes. Photograph by R. E. Covey. [Louisiana Photograph Collection]
Antoine's
is probably the world's most famous restaurant.... Many of the marvelous
dishes on the menu were invented or brought over from France in the 1830s
by founder Antoine Alciatore. He began his career at the age of twelve,
working in the kitchen of the Hotel de Noailles in Marseilles....Arriving
in the French city of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi, he worked briefly at the St. Charles Hotel. In 1840 he
opened a pension on St. Louis Street. In the dining room downstairs he served his guests not only Pommes Soufflees, but
his own creations, Boeuf Robespierre and Dinde Talleyrand.