Jean-David Groff-Daudet is no longer at the stoves of Marche Bacchus. Jean Paul Labadie is the restaurant’s new Executive Chef.* Labadie previously worked in various Emeril (Has He Jumped The Shark Yet?) Lagasse’s restaurants — including Emeril’s (New Orleans), Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House (MGM Grand) and most recently, Table 10 (Palazzo).
Labadie says his goal is not to come in and rewrite the menu that the restaurant’s clientele have come to love. ELV thinks he is being diplomatic — and that owners Jeff and Rhonda Wyatt (being good business people) are trying to appease customers who might balk at anything too interesting or creative on the menu (and those parsimonious folks who clutch their throats when anything exceeds fifteen bucks).**
ELV is sure Labadie has the chops to jazz things up, and, having worked under Emeril, that his talent has never been given free rein. With a few menu tweaks, and a few more interesting chicken and fish dishes, MB might finally get some food worthy of its wine store.
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* Through no fault of the owners, Labadie is the third chef Marche Bacchus has had in the past year. Hence the title of this post.
** Lest you think of Eating Las Vegas as the bastion of upper-middle-class, 40% Tax Bracket, yuppified, Republican-elitism (to which some would say: “What’s your point?”), we must point out that our contempt for restaurant cheapskates runs deeper than simple socio-economic snobbery. Because we see how indiscriminate and wasteful Amerikans*** are in everything from their crimes-against-nature SUV’s, to the stupid fashions we are slaves to (Another pair of shoes, cupcake?), to the pre-fab, fat-laden food we stuff our faces and grocery carts with. Amerikans waste more money and resources than any society on earth (and we’re talking about Joe Six-Pack as well as Ms. Investment Banker). We’re also the fattest, stupidest people on earth when it comes to what we shove in our pie holes. There’s no excuse for not eating sensibly and well….except laziness. So when some numbskull complains to me how much something costs in a restaurant, I always ask them what they drive and what their car payment is.****
*** When writing about those people in America ELV holds in low-esteem (e.g. fast food customers, SUV and McMansion owners, clubbers of baby harp seals, etc.), he always spells it with a “k.”
**** ELV wastes a lot of money too….but all of it on what he shoves in his pie hole.
When someone complains about the cost of specialty or higher quality foods I always remind them “Remember your going to put that in your mouth”. I rather spend a little more on my food than on my shoes or car.