They Thought They Could Reinvent The Way We Buy Appliances. They Were Wrong.

In 2016, when Architectural Digest called to ask if I’d write about a new kitchenware store that was aiming to “reinvent the entire retail shopping experience,” I was skeptical. But the store’s ads featured a number of high profile people (among them the 94-year old fashionista Iris Apfel, chef Geoffrey Zakarian and Padma Lakshmi), and I figured if it was good enough for them I should give it a try. Then the editor casually mentioned that the store had a La Cornue stove I could play around with. I was hooked; what kitchen-obsessed person isn’t intrigued by the idea of a $100,000 stove? Would it make me a better cook?

Maybe the timing was wrong. Perhaps the retail shopping experience did not need reinventing. Last year Pirch filed for bankruptcy.

I’m glad I went while I had the chance.

I first encountered the Patout family of New Iberia when Paul Prudhomme called me in California to say, “I want you to come out to Lafayette and judge a hot food contest.” Having fallen madly in love with spicy Louisiana food, I was thrilled. This was my chance to burn my throat and visit Cajun country.

Paul picked me up at the airport and drove me and the other judges to Lafayette in a van equipped with a bar: many dirty martinis were consumed. Which was a good thing because we arrived in Lafayette to discover that the contest had nothing to do with spicy food. It was hot food as in classic French haute cuisine: expecting gumbo and jambalaya we got gigot d’agneaux and poulet en demi-deuil..

But it was a small price to pay. We were in the heart of Cajun country, driving through the bayou where every gas station sold homemade boudin while blasting the music of Clifton Chenier and Queen Ida .

I was not alone in my passion for that food; when Prudhomme took his entire staff to San Francisco for a month in 1983 people stood in line all night to snag a seat at his table. It was probably the first pop-up restaurant. Paul later took the restaurant to New York (he took over the soon to open Bud’s). So it was no surprise when Mitch Patout showed up in Los Angeles a couple years later.

Incidentally, Michael Franks’ prediction was correct; Patout’s restaurant opened in Los Angeles in 1986.

I love dried