Ella Brennan, the matriarch of New Orleans’ dominant restaurant family who built Commander’s Palace into an award-winning establishment renowned for its food and service and for the long list of eminent chefs who trained in the kitchen, died Thursday morning (May 31) at her Garden District home, her familty told the Times Picayune.
She was 92.
Ella Brennan, a lifelong New Orleanian who was passionate about doing whatever she could to boost the city and its indigenous cuisine, spent her career working in restaurants and succeeding in a male-dominated profession, the newspaper reports. At her death, she was the head of a branch of the family whose members operate 14 restaurants in the New Orleans area and one each in Houston and Disneyland, the paper reports.
To read the Picayune’s full story, click here.
