Running two popular Baton Rouge restaurants doesn’t stop chef Russell Davis from taking time to cook dinner for his family. Three or four nights a week, you can find him peering into his home fridge or kitchen garden and concocting spontaneous meals for his wife, Sally, and their two teenagers, Charlotte and James.
“On weeknights, it’s something really simple, like throwing (proteins and vegetables) on the grill, tossing them with a little olive oil and finishing with salt and pepper, and maybe mixing in pasta or some couscous or something like that,” says Davis, who credits an expanded support staff at his eateries for allowing him to spend more evenings at home. “On Sundays, when Eliza is closed and JED’s is open only for lunch, I like to do a slow braise or a beef stew, or red sauce.”
The Davises balance running Eliza Restaurant and JED’s Local with the long list of obligations that families with active kids know well. To combat the frenzy, they’ve put a lot of thought into their culinary home life. The do-it-yourselfers renovated the kitchen of their Old Goodwood house in 2021, the same home that Sally and her five siblings grew up in.
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The new space, outfitted with cool mint green walls, white quartz countertops and a white subway tile backsplash, features a large square island used for both prep and casual dining. It’s a peaceful refuge that leads to a back patio and kitchen garden overflowing with herbs, flowers and seasonal vegetables.
“We grow enough herbs to supply the cocktail program at Eliza,” Sally says. At the moment, the Bocage restaurant’s bar uses fresh mint in its Eliza Greyhound, and basil and mint in its cucumber basil mojito.
The garden’s vegetable patch includes cherry, roma and slicing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, eggplant and other heat-loving crops. The veggies are helped along by a new addition of flowers this year, deliberately planted to draw pollinators, Sally says.
It’s common practice to send the kids to the garden in the evening to harvest what’s fresh, the couple says. Tomatoes are used for making homemade pizza, while squash and eggplant are usually roasted. The family’s annual bumper crop of cucumbers is prepared in all sorts of ways. Russell makes endless jars of pickles, he says, and often serves raw cucumbers cut into sticks with rice wine vinegar and chopped herbs.
Using the garden haul creatively is a personal challenge for her husband, Sally says.
Davis’ favorite finishing salts
Hover over the image for more about each salt.
“Russell can look in the fridge and see all these raw ingredients, and three different meals will spring to mind,” Sally says. “If it were me, I’m ordering out.”
Along with homemade pizza, typical family meals include riffs on taco Tuesdays using garden veggies and peppers in enchiladas and burritos. An “all American” night features grilled burgers or steak. And fish usually makes an appearance on Fridays.
Generally speaking, proteins are grilled or pan sautéed, and combined with fresh vegetables and a small amount of carbohydrates. The Davises don’t fry foods at home, they say, preferring to keep the menu as healthy as possible.
As a chef who’s worked in New England, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Davis is no stranger to sophisticated techniques and equipment. But now, he says he prefers simpler cooking with quality ingredients. That’s especially true at home, where a few key tools help bring dinner to life.
The kitchen’s cornerstone gadget is an all gas, five-burner Bertazzoni convection oven that includes a power-burner for boiling water quickly. The Davises installed it during their 2021 renovation (enduring a par for the course five-month shipping delay).
Along with the range, Davis says he relies on his Le Creuset braiser, chef’s sauté pans and MAC knives, an extra sharp, lightweight Japanese brand. And while his knife kit goes back and forth between home and his restaurants, it’s the chef’s and paring knives he says he uses most.
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One last component helps animate Davis’ home cooking: a variety of finishing salts. Davis’ aunt, former chef Didi Davis, owns the Ipswich, Massachusetts-based Salt Traders and keeps her nephew plied with a variety of salts to try.
“A little bit of this flake salt on top of a piece of anything—it’s just perfect,” Davis says. “Simple preparations of high-quality foods and letting the flavors shine through are what I’m all about.”
This article was originally published in the July 2022 issue of 225 magazine.