Leah Chase, legendary queen of Creole cuisine, dies at 96

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans chef and civil rights icon Leah Chase, who created the city's first white-tablecloth restaurant for black patrons, broke the city's segregation laws by seating white and black customers and introduced countless tourists to Southern Louisiana Creole cooking, died Saturday. She was 96.

Leah Chase transformed the Dooky Chase's restaurant from a sandwich shop where black patrons bought lottery tickets to a refined restaurant where tourists, athletes, musicians and even presidents of all races dined on fare such as jambalaya and shrimp Clemenceau. The restaurant and Chase's husband were both named after her father-in-law.

At a time when other black Creole women were working in the city's garment industry, Chase worked as a waitress in the French Quarter, which exposed her to the segregated city's pricey restaurants frequented by white people. During the civil rights movement, Dooky Chase's became known as a place where white and black activists could meet and strategize about voter registration drives or legal cases. Although Chase and her husband were breaking the law by allowing blacks and whites to eat together, the police never raided the restaurant.

"It was a haven for them to refresh themselves with wonderful gumbo and it was a place where they could strategize after a hard day's work," Morial said.Hurricane Katrina devastated her restaurant in 2005, leaving 5 feet of water in the dining room for weeks. When the waters receded, mold was everywhere.

Dookie Chase a New Orleans legend. You’ll live on!

Leah will be missed! New Orleans treasure forever RIP NOLA

flitedocnm

Sad

paratrooper315 RIP 🙏

drawandstrike RIP Ma’am. God Bless.

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