Brennan's | |
---|---|
Restaurant information | |
Established | 1946 |
Owner(s) | Terry White and Ralph Brennan |
Head chef | Ryan Hacker |
Food type | Modern New Orleans Cooking |
Street address | 417 Royal Street |
City | French Quarter of New Orleans |
State | Louisiana |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 29°57′22″N90°03′59″W / 29.9561°N 90.0665°W Coordinates: 29°57′22″N90°03′59″W / 29.9561°N 90.0665°W |
Website | Official Site |
Brennan's is a Creole restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Brennan's was founded in 1946 by Owen Brennan, an Irish-American restaurateur and New Orleans native. It was originally called the Vieux Carré restaurant and was located on Bourbon Street across from the Old Absinthe House until 1956 when it moved to its current location.
This building, a two-story French Quarter mansion at 417 Royal Street constructed in 1795, was built for Don José Faurie and later housed the Banque de la Louisiane, the first bank in Louisiana. From 1841 to 1891, the mansion had been owned by the Morphy family, with Paul Morphy, the celebrated chess player and unofficial world chess champion, living there until his death in 1884. In 1920 William Ratcliffe Irby gave the building to Tulane University [1] and it was initially leased by Owen Brennan in 1954 to open the following year as Brennan's. The restaurant purchased the building in 1984. [2]
Because Brennan's father owned a share of the restaurant, the restaurant was eventually inherited by Brennan's siblings as well as his children. In 1973, disagreement within the Brennan family over the expansion of the restaurant line led to a split into several different corporations, with the original New Orleans restaurant being wholly owned by Brennan's widow and children, and other restaurants in New Orleans, Houston, and Dallas, the Brennan Family Restaurants, being owned by Brennan's siblings and their children.
Although the section of Royal Street in the French Quarter was spared the flooding suffered by most of the city in the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Brennan's did suffer significant damage, largely due to the contents of second-story refrigerators melting and seeping onto lower floors. The restaurant's extensive wine cellar lost temperature control, ruining the entire wine collection.
Following an extensive renovation, Brennan's re-opened on June 8, 2006. Brennan's closed on June 28, 2013. [3] The new owners of Brennan's, Terry White and Ralph Brennan (a cousin of the former owners) purchased the building and the business at auction(s) after the former owners ran into financial trouble. For more than a year, the historic building (circa 1795) underwent an extensive renovation. [4] The new Brennan's was unveiled in the fall of 2014.
Brennan's was featured in a season two episode of Ghost Hunters in which the TAPS team investigated claims of paranormal activity. [5] [6] Rush Limbaugh once stated (in a New York Times interview with Maureen Dowd) that he would sometimes charter a jet and go somewhere for dinner, adding Brennan's was his "all-time favorite restaurant." [7]
Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and is often considered the unofficial World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he was called "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" because he had a brilliant chess career but retired from the game while still young. Commentators agree that he was far ahead of his time as a chess player, though there is disagreement on how his play ranks compared to modern players.
The French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the Vieux Carré, a central square. The district is more commonly called the French Quarter today, or simply "The Quarter," related to changes in the city with American immigration after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Most of the extant historic buildings were constructed either in the late 18th century, during the city's period of Spanish rule, or were built during the first half of the 19th century, after U.S. purchase and statehood.
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Owen Edward Brennan Sr., was a restaurateur in his native New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1946 he founded the original Owen Brennan's Vieux Carre Restaurant on Bourbon St. Owen relocated his operations to 417 Royal St. The Royal St restaurant would soon be known as "Brennan's Restaurant," and opened shortly after Owen's sudden death in 1955.
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The cuisine of New Orleans encompasses common dishes and foods in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is perhaps the most distinctively recognized regional cuisine in the United States. Some of the dishes originated in New Orleans, while others are common and popular in the city and surrounding areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta and southern Louisiana. The cuisine of New Orleans is heavily influenced by Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine, and soul food. Seafood also plays a prominent part in the cuisine. Dishes invented in New Orleans include po' boy and muffuletta sandwiches, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Bienville, pompano en papillote, and bananas Foster, among others.
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