NEW ORLEANS — WYES will celebrate legendary chef Leah Chase in a new cooking series featuring her family. Chase, who was known as the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” died in 2019 after helming Dooky Chase’s restaurant for more than a half century.
The “Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah’s Legacy” series began shooting this summer on location in the Dooky Chase kitchen with Leah’s grandson, Edgar “Dook” Chase IV, who now oversees the restaurant’s kitchen; her niece Cleo Robinson, who joined Leah in the kitchen in 1980; and the restaurant’s newest chef, Leah’s great-granddaughter Zoe Chase. Paired with some of the menus are specialty cocktails crafted by Leah’s granddaughter Eve Haydel, who has updated drink recipes from the restaurant’s earlier days.
Each program in the 26-part cooking series will explore a different chapter of the restaurant’s history. On an episode about distinguished guests, the Chase chefs will share a recipe for grits and quail that Chase served at the restaurant in 2008 to President George W. Bush. Another episode will celebrate the restaurant’s place in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Chefs will talk about the preparation of Creole Gumbo, a dish Chase served to Martin Luther King Jr. and other social activists when they held strategy sessions in the restaurant’s upstairs dining room in the 1960s.
“The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah’s Legacy” will be ready for national release in Spring 2023.
Terri Landry is the writer and producer of the new series. She has led 16 national public television cooking series for WYES-TV, including five featuring Chef Paul Prudhomme and four with Chef Kevin Belton. The show is sponsored by the Melvin S. Cohen Foundation.
More details will be available soon at wyes.org.
