E.J. and Emeril Lagasse. Credit: Laura Steffan

E.J. Lagasse’s Long Way Home

10 Minute read

28 Jul 2026

David Morris

Journalist

Copy link

At his father’s landmark restaurant, success means developing cooks, refining traditions, and building toward another 35 years in New Orleans.

Before Emeril’s reopened in 2023, E.J. Lagasse wanted to retire one of the restaurant’s most recognizable traditions: its skillet cornbread. After training at Le Bernardin in New York, Core by Clare Smyth in London, and Frantzén in Stockholm, he wasn’t convinced it belonged in the restaurant’s new tasting-menu format. His father disagreed.

That conversation resurfaced in May during North America’s 50 Best Restaurants events in New Orleans. Speaking onstage, Emeril Lagasse recalled how his son had pushed for a more elaborate bread service as they prepared to reopen Emeril’s. The audience laughed. E.J.’s proposal had already met resistance: over dinner the night before, César Ramírez had advised him not to change the cornbread.

Later that afternoon, E.J. conceded that the argument had finally been settled. “We’re not going to change the cornbread,” he said, laughing. “I’ll find some new method of adding to it, so we’ll enhance the cornbread.”

Opened in 1990, Emeril’s helped redefine modern New Orleans dining. In 2025, it became the only restaurant awarded two stars in the inaugural Michelin Guide American South. E.J. never believed he could simply inherit that legacy. “You kind of got to go do the thing to eventually do the thing,” he said.

At 15, E.J. moved into an apartment his parents rented a short walk from Le Bernardin in Manhattan. His father dropped him off, then left E.J. there to work under Éric Ripert. Sending his son away had always been part of Emeril’s plan. “You got to leave,” he said. “You got to leave the nest, and you have to go learn from some other people.” Ripert quickly became, in Emeril’s words, “like his second dad.”

E.J. arrived with one request. “I asked Chef not to tell people who I was,” he recalled. “That lasted like two days.” The request didn’t last, but the reason behind it did. He wanted to earn credibility before anyone judged him by his last name. He created his own benchmarks. Clean the floors faster than anyone else. Pack away the fish more efficiently. If a chef asked him to do something, do it better than anyone else. Today, he applies the same standard at Emeril’s. “My fish cook needs to know that I know how to cook a piece of fish,” he said. “Otherwise, why would they listen to me?”

After graduating from his father’s alma mater, Johnson & Wales University, E.J. moved to London to work at Core by Clare Smyth. While he was there, his conversations with Smyth turned to the restaurants she believed were setting the standard elsewhere in Europe. Two names came up repeatedly: Plénitude in Paris and Frantzén in Stockholm.

By the time Smyth offered him a sous chef position, E.J. had already decided he wasn’t finished learning. “I just... wanted to go see something else,” he said. “Cooking is one of those things; it’s like languages, it’s like art. You can’t know it; you can’t see it all.”

Frantzén was next, though getting there took some persistence. E.J. first reached out hoping to stage in the Stockholm kitchen, only to learn there wasn’t room. A recommendation from Ripert eventually opened the door. What E.J. found inside surprised him. “It was such a relaxed kitchen,” he said. “Nobody was freaking out... you’re listening to Dua Lipa.”

As he moved from one kitchen to the next, E.J. began assembling what he described as a mental “sketchbook.” “I like this. I like this. I like this. I didn’t like this,” he remembered thinking. “If Dad and I ended up doing this together, we’ll do it like this.”

“I finally called him and said, ‘Okay, E.J., it’s time to come home,’” Emeril recalled. “We’re going to do what I’ve been wanting to do for 20-some years.” E.J. returned to New Orleans. “He didn’t come in as, ‘Okay, I just got back from London. I’m the big chef,’” Emeril said. Instead, he learned the brigade, got to know the team, and immersed himself in the day-to-day rhythm of the restaurant before the two began imagining what came next.

When Emeril’s closed in July 2023 for a 14-week renovation, construction crews gutted the interior, reduced the dining room to about a dozen tables, and rebuilt the kitchen to support tasting-menu service. They debated everything from china and stemware to linens, acoustics, and the flow of the dining room. The dish room was relocated to reduce noise during service, while a floor-to-ceiling glass wall opened the kitchen to the dining room. “We dreamed together,” Emeril said.

Dinner now begins with an invitation into the kitchen for an opening bite. Back in the dining room, guests at nearly every table can watch the cooks at work. Emeril and E.J. periodically step out to greet guests before returning behind the pass as service continues.

The collaboration carried over to the menu, where E.J. found himself balancing his own ideas with dishes that had long defined Emeril’s.

Asked whether there was a single dish that finally felt like his version of Emeril’s, E.J. didn’t hesitate: “Oyster stew.” The dish had been on the menu for decades. Drawing on techniques from his years in New York, London, and Stockholm, E.J. layers Louisiana oysters and roasted foie gras over tapioca cooked in a dashi made with the holy trinity, then finishes the bowl with the sauce from the original recipe. “I want the original idea to remain intact,” he said. “The original flavors to remain intact.”

E.J.’s involvement with the menu can begin long before an ingredient reaches the kitchen. He recalled buying a quail farmer a flight pen after learning he needed one to raise the birds Emeril’s wanted. “I want them to be in a field,” he said. “I don’t want them in a cage.”

E.J. also draws on his peers, often texting fellow chefs the morning after they dine at Emeril’s to ask what they liked, what they would change, and what he might have missed.

Peer feedback, Michelin stars, and restaurant rankings all give E.J. ways to assess the restaurant’s progress. But his ambitions for Emeril’s reach decades into the future. “I think the biggest misconception, because of my age, is that people are like, ‘In 15 years, you’ll be the greatest one to ever do it,’” he said. “I have absolutely no desire to be considered the greatest chef to ever do that.”

For E.J., the question is what happens between now and then. “What can we do from 35 to 40 years? What can we do from 40 to 45 years?” he said. “How many sous chefs can we bring through and teach them how we cook things, and how Dad and I perceive restaurants, and how many of them can go on and open a restaurant?” He wants Emeril’s to become, in his words, “a stepping stone.”

Those five-year increments add up to the number E.J. cares about most. “If we do another 35 years, we’re in New Orleans 70 years at that corner,” he said.