NEW ORLEANS FEATURES - Chef Susan Spice

Spice Girl - Chef Susan Spicer's steady climb to the top

You won't recognize Chef Susan Spicer from television. She's not on a regular cooking show. But in the profession she's known as one of the nation's top chefs. To New Orleanians, she's as recognizable as any of the TV chefs.

Spicer's popularity came about the old fashioned way: from her restaurant Bayona, occupying an old Creole cottage on Dauphine Street in the French Quarter. Spicer is finally breaking into the media, though. She just signed on to do a cookbook.

"It's on the front burner now. I'm compiling list of recipes and things," she says. "I know from teaching cooking classes what people are interested in. But it also has to be pretty. It's gonna be for the home cook."

Since opening Bayona in 1990, Spicer has been one of the restaurant scene's brightest and friendliest faces. She speaks modestly about her food and keeps her hair back with a signature red or purple bandana, a holdover from her hippie days of trekking to pop festivals. But Bayona is marked more by its elegance and has consistently ranked as one of the city's top restaurants, as well as one of its most beloved. In 1993, the James Beard Foundation named Spicer the top chef in the Southeastern United States. The Beard Foundation awards are the Oscars of cooking.

Bayona is where Spicer's style came together. She's translating some of that style into her book. She describes it as being ingredient-driven, using solid technique and mixing tastes and textures in a dish. Her menus mix everything from Creole dishes to Indian and Thai curries, though not within a dish. She's no fusionist. But putting together a global menu even sounds easy when she talks about her approach. "For me it's just matching one from column A and one from column B," she says. "Today, I bought redfish and Copper River salmon, hangar steak and I have some chicken. Then I look at what sauces and sauce bases I have on hand. Then the produce. We have baby artichokes and some tomatillos I got at the market.

"I say, so these are the things we have to use, and, well, I can use the blackberries and blueberries with the chicken and just do a little pan sauce. Why don't we use the artichokes and chanterelle mushrooms with a nice little snapper. It's just matching things."

Breaking down the approach is what her book will try to do. "[It's] how to have a certain amount of spontaneity at home. Buy a piece of chicken or fish and bring it home and see what you have on hand and what you can do with it."

Though she established herself very quickly, she didn't get an early start. At the end of high school, Spicer thought about going to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, but her father refused to pay for it. Since she had done well in school, he was hoping she'd enter a field like engineering. Instead, she spent time traveling and trying different things. She tried working as a secretary, working for a printing company and cocktail waitressing.

Then a friend convinced her to go work in a fine dining kitchen. In the late 1970s, it was very uncommon to see women working in such kitchens above the rank of prep cook. Spicer had always liked cooking and was ready to try it seriously. In Chef Daniel Bonnot, she found a mentor. In the kitchen of Louis XVI in the French Quarter, she soaked up everything about cooking and food. Soon she took off to Paris to work for Chef Roland Durand in the Hotel Sofitel. When Spicer returned to New Orleans, Bonnot put her in charge of a new restaurant, Savoir Faire. The position was intimidating at first. As resumes came in, Spicer knew she was hiring chefs with more formal training and more experience. But that worked in her favor. "I came to a realization after a year," she says. "I discovered that my standards, what I was willing to aim for and adhere to, seemed to be higher than what those people were willing to do. It was kind of a turning point for me. I realized I was more of a perfectionist. I had the maturity. My work ethic was pretty well developed."

Spicer worked at Savoir Faire and traveled to California and France again to learn more. Eventually she opened another new restaurant and became one of several chefs who launched their solo careers at the Bistro at the Maison Deville. With its small kitchen and intimate dining room, it's a natural showcase for whomever is in charge. While there, Spicer met a regular customer who convinced her they should open a restaurant together. They opened Bayona in 1990 and turned a profit just six months later.

While her early focus was simply Bayona, Spicer has expanded her reach and notoriety. She was one of the early enlistees in the Superbowl weekend's Taste of the NFL. Spicer has been New Orleans' sole envoy to the annual party and fundraiser. In recent years, she started Wild Flour Breads, a baking company that provides many of the city's top restaurants with different varieties of bread. In 2000, she launched a new restaurant, Herbsaint, downtown on St. Charles Ave. She's a partner in the restaurant and chef Donald Link oversees the menu of Louisiana-French cooking. Spicer has also served as a consultant for newer restaurants, as well.

As her notoriety and that of the profession has increased, opportunity is knocking often. In November, she will be a guest chef at a major Tokyo hotel in a series presenting top women chefs.

"Travel is one of the new perks," she says. "That's one of my big loves."