When Nina Compton first drew national attention by competing in a 2013 season of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” she fell just short of victory. Last May, she secured a far more prestigious prize: She was named best chef in the American South by the James Beard Foundation, the culinary world’s Oscars. Ms. Compton, 40, won for her work at Compère Lapin, her New Orleans restaurant, where the menu is inspired by the Caribbean comfort food of her youth in St. Lucia, and prepared with the technical expertise and mastery of Italian cuisine that she honed in the kitchens of Daniel Boulud, Scott Conant and Norman Van Aken over the past two decades.
Ms. Compton lives full time in New Orleans and oversees both Compère Lapin and a newer restaurant, Bywater American Bistro. In her professional life, she juggles two main men. Larry Miller, her husband of nine years, oversees the front of house at both restaurants. Levi Raines, her onetime sous chef, manages the kitchen at Bywater American Bistro, under her supervision, as she focuses on Compère Lapin.
Recently, I tracked Ms. Compton during a week that had her jetting from one high-profile culinary event to the next — while also sweating the small plates in her restaurants.
Monday
5:30 a.m. I am trying to get into the habit of taking 15 minutes to stretch, have coffee, watch the sunrise — but it’s hard to remind myself that those little things are important. Instead I check my email in bed, focusing on last night’s closing report and today’s incoming orders, which dictate my day. I don’t really eat breakfast, just coffee and a large bottle of sparkling water. I don’t often eat regular meals, actually. As a chef you’re always kind of tasting along the way.
6:30 a.m. I spend most days at Compère Lapin, our restaurant in the Warehouse district. It’s about a mile away, and I ride my Vespa.
7 a.m. We have people working various shifts from 4 a.m. until midnight every day, so pretty much as soon as I arrive each morning, I’m managing and delegating. I review the daily prep list and assign tasks, whether it’s breading coquettes or roasting chicken bones for the stock. When produce arrives, the first big order of the day, I triple-check it and start sauce production — a simple shellfish sauce, a cauliflower purée for the pasta. When the protein order arrives, I get to work butchering.
7:45 a.m. A cook calls and says she can’t come in — back problems. That means I’m now both butcher and line cook, too, not to mention kitchen expediter once lunch gets busy.
11:30 a.m. Lunch service begins and quickly gets busy. No one ever makes a reservation for lunch.
1:30 p.m. My dear friend Lee Schrager invited me to appear as part of a guest chef series at Hotel Faena in Miami Beach on Friday, and I have tons to do. For events like this, it’s always easier to bring some mise en place with you.
As lunch service winds down, I break away to check email, run a preshift meeting for the next day and then start prepping for Friday. I make a guava curry, which I’ll cryovac, and I also start the braised oxtail.
2:30 p.m. Time to start pasta production. My sous chefs know how, but I’ve been making it for years and it’s just faster if I do it; it’s not worth having someone spend four hours on one task if I can do it in 90 minutes. Before dinner I make 20 pounds of butternut squash ravioli, 80 pounds of sweet potato gnocchi and 40 pounds of scialatielli.
5:30 p.m. Tonight it’s busy off the bat, and we’re still short-handed. When you run a kitchen, no matter how crazy and chaotic it gets, you have to be the calm one. You cannot show any sign of fear — the guests pick up on it. The beauty of this kitchen, though, is that everybody helps everybody. We break down what needs to be done step by step, reassuring one another.
10:30 p.m. Service finally winds down. I go back to prepping more for Miami.
1 a.m. I head home and respond to emails. I like doing email late at night — not many people are up this late, which buys me time.
Tuesday
7 a.m. Sometimes the next morning just feels like the continuation of the previous day. I commute to Compère Lapin, do emails, start checking in orders.
11 a.m. I visit my purveyor, Michelle Posey, at Pelican Produce. She provides beautiful produce to every chef in the city, all of it grown right here in the Ninth Ward, and I like to go in person to see what’s coming. I almost want to cry when she comes in with these beautiful baskets of vegetables. Her radishes are so petite and round and clean. I love her produce.
3 p.m. Lunch service winds down, and after an hour of paperwork — setting staff schedules, reviewing protein, produce and dairy orders, more email — I head to Bywater American Bistro for a photo shoot for Nola.com. I like these photo shoots — I get to make a nice dish, and it’s a nice opportunity to build my repertoire with a professional photo. But personally I’m still awkward in front of the camera. I’m like: Really, just take a picture of the food.
5:30 p.m. I head upstairs to do laundry and start packing for Miami.
7 p.m. My chef partner, Levi Raines, joins me for dinner down the street at a place called Pizza Delicious. Yesterday was my birthday, and now we have a chance to celebrate. We get our usual: pepperoni, a Caesar salad, pitcher of beer. There’s bad pizza everywhere, but this place is pretty close to New York.
Wednesday
7 a.m. Wake up, pick up Levi, head to the airport.
1 p.m. After we land and check into the hotel, we eat lunch outside at Francis Mallmann’s Argentine restaurant, Los Fuegos, in Miami Beach. As a chef, I can never fully turn off when I eat at other restaurants — I’m always critiquing, always tasting stuff, checking stuff. And when I travel with Levi, we’re constantly bouncing ideas off each other. But today we’re starving. We get a lot of grilled meat, and it really hits the spot.
3 p.m. We tour the event space at Hotel Faena. Thankfully this one has its own fully equipped kitchen; often at hotel events you’re crammed in the same kitchen as the regular room service and dinner service.
7:30 p.m. We head to South Beach for dinner at Macchialina, the restaurant of my best friend from my days as a chef in Miami, Mike Pirolo. We always play jokes on each other — this time I didn’t tell him I was coming and just walked in. But we always pick up right where we left off.
Thursday
9 a.m. Heavy prep day: We receive all the product, start portioning fish and make items like pasta, sauces and stocks.
4 p.m. We finish prepping for the day. Time for a break.
5:30 p.m. Cocktails with my publicist. We’ve worked together since my days as the chef at the Fontainebleau in Miami. Our relationship now spans 10 years, and our goals have changed a lot since then: We are no longer the new kid on the block; we have to reconfigure things so we stay fresh in people’s minds. You can’t tell the same story over and over.
10:30 p.m. We call it a night and head back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s event.
Friday
9 a.m. I wake up and have an espresso on the hotel balcony and read my emails in silence. Sometimes a different setting allows me to focus a little better.
10 a.m. I check in with my sous chef back at Compère Lapin, Phil, to see how everything’s going: All staff have shown up, deliveries are on time and correct. I also follow up with the sous chef and general manager at Bywater American Bistro to go over any notes from the night before about guest satisfaction, food consistency training, staff morale. When a restaurant is only six months old, every small detail must be analyzed.
Noon As I’ve gotten older, I try to include some time to slow down and reset. (I’m also an island girl at heart, so any chance to go to the beach, I’m there.) I walk along the beach, relax in a lounge chair by the water and call my brother, whose birthday is today.
3 p.m. Final walk-through with the staff and a review of logistics — start time, guest count, special dietary needs.
8:30 p.m. Guests arrive. I give a welcome speech discussing the format: seven courses on the theme of “New Orleans meets Miami,” with a Caribbean twist. The guests got the true Nola feeling — Mardi Gras centerpieces, even a brass band. Dinner service flows nicely — having someone from your team there makes life so much easier.
11:30 p.m. We meet up with Mike for cocktails at a place called Sweet Liberty — he insists on continuing my birthday celebrations with some champagne. We dance the night away with an amazing band, Patrick and the Swayzees. I love dancing and letting loose, and before I know it, it’s 2:30 a.m.
Saturday
5:30 a.m. Time to head to the airport. Thankfully last night I didn’t get too crazy. I actually feel great.
9:30 a.m. I stop at home, change and head back to Compère Lapin.
10:30 a.m. After a trip I like to go through the walk-in cooler and get my hands on everything to make sure everything is up to par. This roughly takes two hours. (During the day you have 20 people in and out of the walk-in, and things can get messy — I tell staff to keep it looking like a Dean and Deluca, not a Save-a-Lot store.) Next I taste all the mise en place on the line. I spend time with the cooks to make sure everything is correct, and crack a joke or two.
3 p.m. I start making the night’s pasta.
5 p.m. Another line check before dinner service, then back to pasta production. Dinner service ramps up quickly, so I switch to expediting service, while my sous chefs on the line help the cooks get through the push.
11 p.m. I take a moment to walk into the dining room. I love doing this when I can — I love feeling the vibe of people eating, laughing, listening to music, the mood of a restaurant. I always make eye contact and smile at guests when I walk through. Their smiles are contagious.
Midnight I end the night at the new restaurant. Then head home, shower, drink a glass of wine, double-check for any emails I may have missed and call it a night. In a few hours I’ll be back at Compère, going through the daily prep list, checking with the pastry cook to make sure the pastries are displayed at the coffee shop and setting up for the rest of breakfast.
Interviews are conducted by email, text and phone, then condensed and edited.
