On this day celebrating the great experiment known as America, three fitting examples that the American dream is alive and well are interwoven in the New Orleans culinary landscape. You’ve almost certainly crossed their paths, and you’re just as likely to know them well.
One is Danny Millan, who in two weeks will open his gourmet-ish sports bar Azul in Lakeview. He just sold Cava, which he owned and operated for six years. Octavio Mantilla runs the Besh Restaurant Group, having partnered with John Besh back in 2005 when they opened August. And Tommy Andrade is retired on his horse farm, after selling his restaurant Tommy’s and other real estate holdings in the Warehouse District.
Besides tremendous success in the New Orleans restaurant world, they have other things in common. They are all immigrants from south of the border, and all came here in their teens.
Danny arrived from Mexico City in time for his seventeenth birthday, knowing not a word of English, with only $500 in his pocket and carefully written instructions for cab drivers and others Danny might run into. These instructions, written in English by his father, would guide his path to his ultimate destination - Tommy Andrade at the Fairmont Hotel.
Danny’s father knew Tommy, who was older, and was already a Maitre D at the Sazerac. Danny’s father was comfortable that his son would be looked after. Tommy assigned Danny another busboy from the Fairmont as a roommate in Mid-City, where he would finish high school at Warren Easton. And Tommy sent him to work with his brother Robby at the restaurant in the Lafayette Hotel. Robby had Danny work as a busboy for 6 months before sending him back to the Sazerac where he spent 2 years as a back waiter.
And then Henri opened in the Le Meridien Hotel, as fine a gourmet establishment as was ever seen here. The assistant Food and Beverage Director at the Sazerac left to be Maitre D, taking Danny with him as a food runner. It was a lot more money, but Danny, still learning English, now had to learn French.
It didn’t last long. Neither the restaurant nor Danny, who was poached again, this time by James Weller from the Sazerac, who was moving to Jimmy Moran’s at the French Market. Danny said yes to a job as a waiter. It was here that he would meet Octavio Mantilla, someone whose upward trajectory mirrored his own. Both young men were going to school and filling the remainder of their days working. Danny was now at Delgado in the Food and Beverage program for three years. Octavio, who at 17 came from Nicaragua right after the revolution, graduated third in his class from Grace King High School and got a scholarship to Tulane. Octavio started his classes at 7am, but left to work the lunch shift at Pastore’s where both worked, then both guys did the dinner service at Jimmy Moran’s. Between lunch and dinner services they were back in school for more classes. So the entire day for both was: school, lunch service, school, dinner service. And maybe some sleep if they were lucky. For ten years. At some point the Pastore’s lunch service was replaced by lunch service at the Freeport-McMoRan club.
Danny’s father opened a place called Le Moustache on St. Charles at Melpomene, and Danny ran the front of the house while his dad was in the kitchen. His dad became sick after two years and the restaurant was sold. Emeril’s called, and Danny went to open up Emeril’s Orlando. His father moved with him because they have a lot of family there.
Meanwhile across town, Danny’s friend Octavio stayed in the Jimmy Moran’s location after Jimmy died, and the Freeport-McMoRan chef Horst Pfeifer and his wife Karen opened Bella Luna. Octavio was GM at Bella Luna, and worked on his MBA at UNO.
After getting his MBA, Octavio tried to break away from the business, using the education that he had worked so hard to acquire. It didn’t last long. He missed the excitement. After about two years he began to open casino restaurants for Caesars, always traveling. He missed New Orleans, and returned home to Harrah’s as their Food and Beverage manager. He opened the steakhouse, where he met a young chef just returning from the service. His name was John Besh. These two worked together well, and when August wanted out of the restaurant business, John and Octavio took out a loan to buy him out. They were terrified. It was April 2005. Only months later, they would learn what real terror was, when the Katrina diaspora scattered their customers, devastated their business, and left them with only a mortgage. These two were used to hard work, so they were one of the first places to be up and running again, endearing them to the restaurant community and a loyal customer base. These people followed them as opportunities came for them to open up new restaurants.
Hurricane Katrina also changed the fortunes again for Danny Millan. When Clark and Blake Brennan were displaced outside the city, Ted Brennan called Danny back to New Orleans from Orlando to work as GM at Brennan’s. One night Octavio and John Besh came in for dinner, and soon after that Danny got an offer from Octavio to open Luke. Danny decorated the space and hired a crew of people that seemed to follow him around. One of them, Mario, will join Danny soon at his new place, Azul. But Danny worked for Octavio and Besh for 6 years, opening La Provence after Luke.
And then a businessman asked Danny to partner with him for a restaurant, and for Danny to find a location. The space that became La Foret was an old bar that had been vacant for 30 years. It was a fantastic building that they refurbished into a beautiful fine dining establishment. A divorce a few years later for Mike finished off the restaurant, and Octavio and Besh stepped in to buy it, turning it into a glamorous venue.
Soon another businessman was wooing Danny. This time to Lakeview, where he opened a fine dining establishment on Harrison in the building where Drago Cvitanovich shucked his first oyster in New Orleans. Cava was the go-to place for fine dining in the neighborhood. One night a lady at the bar was telling Danny how beautiful the restaurant was. He joked that she should get her husband to buy it for her. A few weeks later they made an offer.
Danny was thrilled to leave the world of fine dining behind. He had wanted a casual sports bar for a long time. That dream becomes a reality in two weeks, with the opening of Azul.
His old friend Octavio remains in the world of fine dining, spending a lot of his time on the road to Houston, where their new restaurant Eunice has made quite an impression on our neighbors to the west. The company now has nine restaurants since they opened August, coincidentally, in the same location as Pastore’s where Octavio and Danny worked as busboys.
All through these years, Tommy Andrade has had a maybe calmer but no less successful career. He came from Guatemala at 7 with his parents, went back at 14, and came back to America at 17 alone, heading straight to the Fairmont for a summer job. After serving in the Air Force, he worked his way all around the hotel, from front desk to Food & Beverage, settling there. He wound up Maitre D at the Sazerac, and his summer job turned into twenty years. He feels deeply that there were always people around who saw something in him and moved him along. Maybe it was that same quiet sophistication and such a passion for service that made him a legend around town. He was the very epitome of what a Maitre D should be. (Our words, not his.)
At the Sazerac Tommy met Irene DePietro, and together they opened Irene’s Italian cuisine. This is a wildly popular restaurant that could legitimately be called a phenom at its height. Tommy stayed with Irene for thirteen years. He took the money after Irene bought him out and opened Tommy’s in the warehouse district.
Tommy’s was successful enough for him to acquire substantial real estate in the developing warehouse district. When he sold to the Creole Cuisine people a few years ago, he traded the glamorous business that made him wealthy for a horse farm. His two passions as a kid were horses and flying, since his dad worked for Pan Am. And that is how he is enjoying his retirement. Tommy feels philosophical about his career path, believing that destiny guided his steps. There was always someone to help him when it was time to move forward. He’s always loved the glamour of the business, and was much beloved. And he is grateful for it all.
From Mexico, and Guatemala, and Nicaragua, these three restaurant success stories are just like countless others before and after them. In all walks of life, immigrant or not, America is still the land of opportunity. What you do with it is up to you.
