Emeril Lagasse

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Emeril Lagasse once recorded seven television shows in a single day, working from seven in the morning until two in the afternoon. A long shoot like that wears down a studio crew. So Lagasse reached for a single loud word to keep everyone alert and focused: "Bam!" Viewers loved it, and the word stuck to him for good. Lagasse is an American chef, restaurateur, cookbook author and television personality, and his name now sits on restaurants, cookware, spice blends and a long list of shows. Behind the shouting is a working cook with a very particular training. How did a young cook from New England come to define a modern style of New Orleans food? Why did a chef who hosted from a kitchen set also end up in sitcoms, an animated film and a prestige drama? And what happens to a chef when his name becomes bigger than any single dining room?

  435

• 2. Bakery and Drums

  ›

  Emeril John Lagasse III was born on the 15th of October 1959 in Fall River, Massachusetts. His father, Emeril John Lagassé Jr., was a French Canadian from the Province of Quebec. His mother, Hilda Medeiros, came from Portugal. Lagasse has said he "grew up very Catholic."

  As a teenager, Lagasse took a job in a Portuguese bakery. There he discovered that he had a talent for cooking. He went on to enroll in a culinary arts program at Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School.

  Music nearly took him somewhere else. His skill as a percussionist earned him a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music. He turned it down and chose Johnson & Wales University instead, hoping to become a chef. He graduated in 1978. Many years later, the school gave him an honorary doctorate.

  6781045

• 3. Kitchens of New Orleans

  ›

  In 1979, a year after graduation, Lagasse became executive chef at Dunfey's Hyannis Resort on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He was nominated as Chef of the Year in 1983.

  In 1982, he moved to New Orleans and succeeded Paul Prudhomme as executive chef at Commander's Palace. The restaurant's owner at the time was Richard Brennan, Sr. Lagasse ran that kitchen for seven and a half years before leaving to open a restaurant of his own.

  That restaurant, Emeril's, opened in New Orleans in 1990. Esquire magazine named it Restaurant of the Year in its opening year. It has held the Wine Spectator Grand Award since 1999. Lagasse himself won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Southeast Regional Chef in 1991. In 2003, his "Turkey and Hot Sausage Chili" won a National Best Recipe award.

  His approach to cooking has a name: "New New Orleans." It builds on local Louisiana ingredients and his own reading of Creole cuisine. Asian, Portuguese and Southwestern influences all feed into it, as they do into New Orleans cooking more broadly. His restaurants did not all follow one template. Delmonico Steakhouse at The Venetian in Las Vegas is a classic steakhouse with a Creole flair. Emeril's Coastal Italian offered seafood-heavy, Italian-inspired dishes.

  In August 2006, his recipes went into orbit. NASA was trying to improve food for astronauts on the International Space Station and added several Lagasse dishes. Spicier food was chosen in the hope of countering the reported way microgravity dulls flavor.

  911121451

• 4. The Television Years

  ›

  Lagasse's first television work came on the series Great Chefs, where he was featured across ten episodes. From 1993 to 1995, he was the original host of Food Network's How to Boil Water. In 1993 he was also one of sixteen chefs in Julia Child's series Cooking with Master Chefs.

  His first show of his own was Essence of Emeril. The title points to Emeril's Essence, a spice blend he invented and used constantly. It is sold commercially in several flavors. On air, he urged viewers to mix blends that matched their own tastes and to use them without fear when customizing a dish.

  Emeril Live went into production in early 1997. Later that same year it won a Cable Ace Award for Best Informational Show of 1997. The move from Essence of Emeril to Emeril Live added a studio audience, and Lagasse grew more at ease in front of it. In 1998, GQ magazine named him Chef of the Year, and People magazine put him among its Most Intriguing People of the Year.

  Other lines joined the first one. "Kick it up a notch," "Aw, yeah, babe" and "Feel the love" usually came right before or after something spicy hit the pan. When he fried food or made sausage, he pushed the use of real lard and declared, "Pork fat rules!"

  Later series took him in new directions. Emeril Green aired daily on Planet Green and focused on organic, locally grown, seasonal produce. It was filmed at Whole Foods Markets across the United States. From April to July 2010, he hosted The Emeril Lagasse Show on Sundays on Ion Television. Emeril's Table ran on the Hallmark Channel from September 2011 and was cancelled after one season. Emeril's Florida ran on the Cooking Channel for five seasons, from 2013 to 2017. Since 2022, The Roku Channel has carried Emeril Cooks and Emeril Tailgates.

  1820211934

• 5. Beyond the Cooking Show

  ›

  In 2009, Lagasse joined Bravo's Top Chef as a judge. He returned as a guest judge in season 9, set in Texas, in 2011. He then sat at the judges' table for seasons 10 and 11, set in Seattle and New Orleans. In the New Orleans season, Emeril's Restaurant was a featured location, and the winning dish went on its menu.

  On the 2nd of January 2010, Iron Chef America aired a tag battle. Lagasse teamed with Food Network colleague Mario Batali against Bobby Flay and White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford. In 2014, he served as "Menu Master" on the TNT competition On the Menu, hosted by Ty Pennington. It lasted one season.

  The 9th of September 2016 brought the first season of Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse to Amazon Prime Video. Ugly Brother Studios produced it. Lagasse travels the world and tries local favorites with chefs such as Angela Dimayuga, Danny Bowien, Mario Batali, Aarón Sánchez and José Andrés. In 2017, it won Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Culinary Program and for Single-Camera Editing.

  His acting credits are stranger. In 1996, he appeared on the animated Space Ghost Coast to Coast, cooking for Space Ghost alongside Martin Yan and other chefs. In the 2001 fall season, NBC aired Emeril, a sitcom in which he played a fictionalized version of himself opposite Robert Urich. It was cancelled after eleven episodes. In 2006, he played himself in the film Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah. He is the cooking inspiration for her character and appears in the final scene. In the 2009 Disney film The Princess and the Frog, set in New Orleans, he voices Marlon the Gator, a hot-tempered alligator.

  In 1998, he became a food correspondent on ABC's Good Morning America. For the 2008 Tournament of Roses Parade, he served as Grand Marshal and did the televised coin toss in a business suit instead of his usual chef's whites.

  His best-regarded dramatic moment came in 2012, on the HBO series Treme. Fellow chef Anthony Bourdain, a writer on the show, wrote Lagasse's scene. Bourdain called the job "a dream" because the scene showed a sadder, more burdened side of Lagasse. That side existed in real life but rarely appeared in his television work.

  2223262938

• 6. The Brand Empire

  ›

  In 2005, a portfolio of media, products and restaurants tied to Lagasse was estimated to bring in US$150 million a year.

  On the 8th of June 2000, he signed a deal with B&G Foods for dry grocery goods sold under the label "Emeril's." The line covers pasta sauces, marinades, salsas and his Essence spice blend. In 2004, he lent his name to fresh produce from Pride of San Juan, sold as "Emeril's Gourmet Produce." Wüsthof makes two lines of knives for him, All-Clad makes his cookware, and T-Fal makes a line of kitchen appliances.

  On the 19th of February 2008, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced a $50 million agreement to acquire the rights to all Emeril products. That covered cookware, cookbooks, television shows and food products. Lagasse kept the rights to his restaurants and corporate offices.

  The business that remained is The Emeril Group, based in New Orleans. It houses restaurant operations, a test kitchen for cookbooks and recipes, and a boutique store for his signature products. As of 2023, the company owns five restaurants.

  His books show the same range. New New Orleans Cooking appeared in 1993, followed by Emeril's TV Dinners in 1998 and a children's title, Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup!, in 2002. Essential Emeril, from 2015, collects favorite recipes and what he calls hard-won wisdom from his life in the kitchen.

  In December 2022, Carnival Cruise Lines named him Chief Culinary Officer, with a role in the fleetwide menu. His restaurants at sea include Emeril's Bistro 1396 aboard the Carnival Mardi Gras, Emeril's Bistro 1397 aboard the Carnival Celebration and Emeril's Bistro 717 aboard the Carnival Jubilee.

  4042161539

• 7. Giving Back

  ›

  The Emeril Lagasse Foundation was founded in 2002. It supports nonprofit groups and educational programs that help children, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, reach their potential. It has distributed more than $6 million in grants to children's charities.

  Projects it has funded include an outdoor classroom, gardens, a fresh foods cafeteria and a teaching kitchen at Edible Schoolyard New Orleans. It also supported the Orlando Junior Academy's Edible Schoolyard. At St. Michael Special School, it paid for a new culinary kitchen house and an accessible learning kitchen for students with special needs. Other beneficiaries include a four-year culinary arts program at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. The Emeril Lagasse Foundation Hospitality Center at Cafe Reconcile and hospitality training at Liberty's Kitchen, which prepares healthy school meals and trains at-risk youth, were funded as well.

  Each fall, the foundation holds its signature fundraiser, Carnivale du Vin. Wine Spectator ranks it among the Top Ten U.S. Charity Wine Auctions. In 2011, the foundation added a food and music festival called Boudin, Bourbon & Beer. In 2013, the James Beard Foundation named Lagasse its Humanitarian of the Year.

  His activism reached beyond the foundation. In 2010, he appeared in a commercial raising awareness of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It also starred Sandra Bullock, Peyton and Eli Manning, Jack Del Rio, Drew Brees, James Carville, Blake Lively and John Goodman.

  353637

• 8. Parody and Family

  ›

  Chef Elzar, a recurring character on the animated series Futurama, is a four-armed alien celebrity chef. His catchphrase, "Knock it up a notch," closely echoes Lagasse's own.

  Other shows borrowed the chef's shout directly. In a pilot episode of Codename: Kids Next Door, titled "Kenny and the Chimp," Kenny catches Swine Flu. A chef resembling Lagasse bursts from a box marked "In case of Swine Flu" and says, "Bam! Look at that bacon sizzle!" In Casino Night, episode 22 of season 2 of The Office, Michael says "Bam!" to Jan. Family Guy has a parody chef use the same line in the season 4 episode "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire."

  Lagasse's own life was less tidy than his catchphrase. He met his first wife, Elizabeth Kief, while working at the Venus De Milo Restaurant in Swansea, Massachusetts. They had two children and later divorced. His second wife was a fashion designer, Tari Hohn. They had no children and also divorced. On the 13th of May 2000, he married real estate broker Alden Lovelace, and they have two children. In 2011, the family moved to Destin, Florida.

  Loss has marked recent years. His mother, Hilda Medeiros Lagasse, died on the 24th of August 2016. His father, Emeril Jr., died in March 2024.

  His son with Lovelace, E.J. Lagasse, followed him into the kitchen. In 2023, at the age of 19, E.J. took over Emeril's in New Orleans, the flagship restaurant his father opened in 1990.

  45445