Cajun: The Apple of His Eye in New York

Is Cajun cooking dead? Maybe so--but the man who launched (however unwillingly) the Cajun craze, Paul Prudhomme, is still very much alive--and still cooking very lively Cajun. In fact, he has just opened a new version of his legendary New Orleans restaurant, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen--on lower Broadway in New York City.

Prudhomme says that the goal of the Manhattan K-Paul’s--which is a joint venture between himself and the Ark Restaurant Corp.--is “to show off Louisiana cooking as we know it in Louisiana.” To that end, Prudhomme has closed his New Orleans restaurant until Aug. 28, and has moved some 45 employees to Manhattan to help set up the new place. A number will remain permanently--including K-Paul’s mainstays Andrew Humbert as chef and Sandy Torres as dining room manager.

Prudhomme will remain in New York until Aug. 26, he says, and then plans to return at least one week out of every six. The menu? “In New Orleans,” says Prudhomme, “whatever we find every day by noon goes on the menu for that night--and we plan to do the same thing here. We already have a wholesale seafood business set up, so we’re able to ship whatever we buy in New Orleans up to New York every morning. And, we’re also going to look for products unique to New York and ship them back in the other direction.”

The restaurant is open Monday through Friday only. Lunch isn’t served, but Prudhomme offers what he calls a “neighborhood theater menu” from 4 to 7 p.m., followed by a regular dinner menu from 7 to 11 p.m. As at the New Orleans restaurant, service is strictly first-come, first-serve, with no reservations accepted. Prudhomme adds that he hopes to be able to keep prices to something approximating their New Orleans level--with entrees priced at about $12-$18 until 7 p.m., and $22-$28 afterward. “People in New York tell me I can’t do that and make money,” he says, “but I don’t believe ‘em.”

But why a New York restaurant now? Isn’t the timing a bit off? Won’t jaded Gothamites yawn at the thought of another hunk of blackened tuna? “There’s no doubt that a lot of restaurants that call themselves Cajun are closing down,” Prudhomme answers, “but that makes me happy, because most of them were pretty bad to begin with. At the same time, there are still two or three Cajun dishes on menus all over the country today. I think a lot of people who can’t really handle a whole Cajun restaurant can still make two or three dishes pretty well. And I think that, if we’re ever going to have a real American cuisine, that’s the way it’s going to be built--with two or three dishes from here and two or three from there.”

SECOND HELPINGS: In the matter of the obligatory service charge at Michael’s in Santa Monica, recently lowered from 18% to 15%: Jimmy Schmidt, chef-owner of the Rattlesnake Club in Detroit and former partner of Michael’s boss Michael McCarty in that restaurant and two more Rattlesnakes (now called Adirondacks) in Denver and Washington, D.C., has dropped his own obligatory service charge completely. “Our customers want to figure out the tip themselves,” he says. He adds that when the Denver Rattlesnake first instituted a service charge, about a year-and-a-half ago, business dropped 27% in the first month. (McCarty disputes Schmidt’s figure, incidentally--and points out that, anyway, December is almost every restaurant’s busiest month while January is traditionally a slow one, so a drop in business at that time of year would be normal, and not necessarily a response to other factors.) . . . And in describing Jean Bellordre merely as the chef at the just-closed Le Cellier in Santa Monica, I did him a disservice: Since the restaurant’s opening almost 20 years ago, he has been both head chef and a partner in the restaurant’s management.

WHAT’S COOKIN’: Next Sunday, Noodles in Glendale hosts a Summer Wine and Food Tasting evening, from 5 to 9 p.m., on the patio. Tickets are $25 per person. . . . UCLA Extension presents its annual Division of Culinary Arts Open House on Aug. 26 at 10 p.m. The institution’s many professional and extracurricular food-oriented classes will be discussed. Admission is free. . . . And also on Aug. 26, the Second Annual Brazilian Festival--featuring music, dance, arts and crafts, and foods of Brazil--will be held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Hours are 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., with admission starting at $15 (advance) and $18 (at the door). Advance tickets are available from Cafe Connection--which also supplies food for the event--at (213) 271-9442, or from the auditorium box office, (213) 393-9961.