Who: Nina Compton, chef-owner of Compère Lapin
Where: New Orleans, Louisiana
You might already know about Nina Compton from BRAVO’s hit television show Top Chef; the 38-year-old St. Lucia native was the Season 11 runner-up and the fan favorite. But if you don’t, my guess is you will soon.
Less than two years ago, Nina and her husband, Larry Miller, moved from Miami, where she worked at Scott Conant’s Scarpetta, to New Orleans to open a restaurant of their own: Compère Lapin in the Old 77 Hotel & Chandlery. With Nina in the kitchen, turning out Caribbean-inspired dishes like conch croquettes with pickled pineapple tartar sauce, tuna tartare with crispy bananas, and curried goat with sweet potato gnocchi and cashews, and Larry running the dining room, the restaurant quickly got attention.
(Image credit: Tara Donne)
Local restaurant critic Brett Anderson tapped it as one of the top five openings of 2015 and named it Restaurant of the Year in 2016. Not bad for someone who isn’t from New Orleans and isn’t serving gumbo or étouffée!
Right now, her job is pretty much her life: Last year, the couple had taken off for Mardi Gras to watch the parades and the restaurant was so busy Nina jumped into the kitchen — with her purple wig on. Her apartment in the Rice Mill Lofts in the Bywater is her retreat — and her kitchen is, she admits, mostly for making coffee and eating takeout.
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