Taste of New OrleansChefs bring spice of originality to Big Easy cuisineMay 5, 1998Web posted at: 1:15 p.m. EST (1815 GMT) NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- Think of food in New Orleans and naturally the sights and smells of Cajun and Creole come to mind. But two young chefs are taking the traditional Big Easy styles and adding a few tastes of their own. There's redfish fresh from Gulf waters at Peristyle, where chef Anne Kearney prefers to remove the scales and leave the skin on before sizzling the fish in a hot pan. "It's a Louisiana-French marriage -- uses many Louisiana products mixed with the French technique and style of flavors, colors and textures," she says.
Kearney, originally from Dayton, Ohio, brings a taste of her family's German roots to New Orleans. Beets and red onions pickled with coriander and orange are paired with Louisiana crab meat for what she says is Peristyle's most popular salad. "People who don't even like beets love to eat this salad," she says. Meanwhile, a few French Quarter blocks away at Dominique's in the Maison Dupuy Hotel, Dominique Macquet creates cuisine inspired by his homeland, the tropical island of Mauritius, off the coast of Africa. "I like fish to speak for itself, and garnish should be just simple and flavorful," he says. "I don't want to cover fish with heavy sauces."
A lighter style yes, but no skimping on flavor. The plump, head-on barbecue shrimp are plenty spicy. And here's a unique pursuit of flavor: Macquet cooks 250 pounds (112 kilograms) of onions for three days and mixes in balsamic vinegar and honey. Macquet also looks for ways to enhance dishes with the Asian and Indian flavors he learned to love in Mauritius. Seared sea bass on jasmine rice is finished with a wasabi-coconut broth -- another example of Macquet's fusion of global flavors, inspiring not only diners at Dominique's, but Macquet's colleagues as well. "I learn something new everyday," says one Dominique's chef. "It's great." Kearney's fresh style motivates her staff too, and it's dishes like redfish with saffron potatoes, roasted roma tomatoes and English peas that no doubt won her a place as Food & Wine magazine's top new chef of 1998. "It's pretty food, but it also tastes good," says Kearney. So two young chefs with distinctly different styles toil in the common pursuit of keeping New Orleans at the forefront of modern cuisine. CNN Food & Health correspondent Carolyn O'Neil contributed to this report. 
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