Chef Biography
Armand Jonté was born in 1952 in New Orleans. In 1978 while attending Tulane University, he answered a blind ad entitled “Learn Creole Cooking?” which was placed by the well-known New Orleans restaurateurs at Commander’s Palace. The Commander’s team hired him as an apprentice for Great Chefs Tom Kovacs and Paul Prudhomme, and Armand was there for his entire tenure at Tulane, working his way up the kitchen ladder until 1982. Following graduation in 1982, he accepted a position as sous chef and opened the new restaurant in the Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. In 1983, he became the executive chef at Gautreau’s Restaurant for the next seven years. In 1990, he moved to Waveland, Mississippi to be the executive chef at the Bay-Waveland Yacht Club.
In 1992, on Bastile Day, Chef Jonté opened his own restaurant called Armand’s in Waveland, and a year later, the Great Chefs television team came calling to tape him for the Discovery Channel’s new television series, Great Chefs: the Louisiana New Garde, where he appears in episodes 3, 4, and 12.
In 2012, after closing Armand’s, he returned to New Orleans, survived Hurricane Katrina, and worked as executive chef at Johnny V’s in the uptown area. In November of 2016, Chef Jonté passed.
Recipes
Tournedos Louis Armstrong
Serving: 2 Print Tournedos Louis Armstrong By Great Chefs November 11, 2015 Here is yet another creative variation on the “surf-and-turf” theme: shrimp and tournedos. Chef Armand Jonte suggests a variation of placing the corn pancake on top of the tournedo, keeping the pancake crisper. Multiply the recipe as necessary for the number of servings […]
Coffee Toffee Pie
Serving: Makes one 8-inch pie Print Coffee Toffee Pie By Great Chefs November 10, 2015 Chef Armand Jonte’s recipe is user-friendly because the chef builds in shortcuts for the home cook. The crust is pressed into a pie pan rather than being rolled out. A rich coffee-chocolate custard is frozen in the crust, and the […]
Eggplant Eloise
Serving: 8 Print Eggplant Eloise By Great Chefs November 10, 2015 This is a dish that looks like Mardi Gras on a plate: fried eggplant stuffed with shrimp-crab meat filling, topped with a rosy Choron sauce and garnished with bright green snow peas, carrot, and shreds of red cabbage. This dish could serve as an […]