That turquoise-and-white Victorian with the striped awnings — that's Commander's Palace. One of the most important restaurants in American culinary history.
It's also a restaurant that got its own birthday wrong for over a hundred years.
The plaques said eighteen eighty. The tile floor said eighteen eighty. Every published history said eighteen eighty. Then a local historian went and looked at the actual records. The real date was eighteen ninety-three. Thirteen years off. The restaurant's response was to create a cocktail called The Oops.
The founder's real name wasn't even Commander — he was an immigrant from the Italian island of Ustica named Pietro Camarda, who wanted a more American-sounding name and picked Commander. His son Emile opened the restaurant and died of tuberculosis in England at forty-nine — only thirteen years after opening.
The family that made this place legendary was the Brennans, and the Brennan story is essentially a revenge plot.
Owen Brennan opened Brenna
n's on Royal Street and put his younger sister Ella in charge when she was just twenty. She had no formal culinary training — she had opinions, and that turned out to be enough.
Owen died of a heart attack at forty-five. His widow and their sons seized control, and Ella was essentially thrown out of the place she'd helped build.
So Ella walked across town, took over Commander's Palace, and turne
