To James Roberts, for bringing the Louisiana bayou to Buffalo in both flavor, and soul
Toutant chef-owner on taking care of your crew first, getting dad's recipes, and why he prefers muffulettas warm
At Toutant, named after his family's bayou fishing camp south of New Orleans, Louisiana native James Roberts has offered the hungry people of his adopted hometown a restaurant they can brag about.
“I had a really great food basis as a child,” he said in his Four Bites Show interview. “I didn't really realize until I moved out of Louisiana. I thought everybody had fresh shrimp for sale on the side of the road.”
At Toutant, Roberts brings a near-Michelin level of prep detail, tearing down recipes and building them back up. Not because of complaints from customers, just because Roberts or one of his crew thought of a better way.
That focus on daily improvement, and honoring the creative impulses of Toutant cooks, makes Roberts' cultivation of ingredient sources from Tsukiji Fish Market to Gulf of Mexico docks to the farms of Western New York.
Roberts, who operates Toutant with his wife and business partner Connie, joined me in February to talk about what he’s up to at Toutant. “Our only rule with buying and sourcing is: If we can buy it better, we will buy it, obviously cost effectively. But if we can make it better, we make it, period.”
Toutant’s combination of how-to and honoring Buffalo appetites led to Roberts making and smoking bologna, then knocking out bologna slab sandwiches as a nod to Buffalo’s tavern menu. At Toutant, an homage to Buffalo’s stinger beef-and-chicken-finger sub bore a Nashville-sauced chicken tender riding atop shaved smoked prime rib.
Offerings like the Toutant muffuletta - served warm, like Roberts’ favorite Louisiana version - keep it fun, Roberts said. So when getting the crackly po’boy bread right required plunking down five figures for a steam-injected combi-oven, Roberts did. Buffalo diners have benefited as a result of Toutant’s investment in its dining landscape.
Roberts also shared his perspective on restaurant leadership and teambuilding, the rise of Vietnamese-Cajun cuisine, and much more. Check it out at the Four Bites YouTube channel.
Researching recipes, experimenting, looking for daily improvements helps motivate him, after a lifetime of professional kitchen duty. “Culinarily, I built this restaurant because I like to cook, and that’s really the bottom line, is that I get to do it every day.”
Along with teambuilding, Roberts said, “that’s what fuels me.”
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