A Taste of Home
Nina Compton
an award-winning chef adds Caribbean rum to her repertoire
“I use rums sometimes instead of red wine,” said Nina Compton, the chef and owner of Compère Lapin in New Orleans. MICHAEL DEMOCKER FOR ISLANDANDSPICE.COM
The day had been long, even by chef standards. Nina Compton didn’t complain – that’s not her style. With two award-winning restaurants in New Orleans, 14-hour days are, after all, what dreams are made of. Before retiring to bed, she poured herself a glass of fresh coconut water. Only a splash of Saint Lucian rum could make the moment any sweeter. So, she added a generous shot of Admiral Rodney.
She rarely drinks rum while she is in the United States. That pleasure is normally reserved for days spent back home in Saint Lucia. But on this night, for no reason and every reason, rum was the perfect way to end the day.
She adds coconut water to rum the way folks add water to Scotch – a technique that brings flavors forward. Plus, she loves the taste of water fresh from the tree, Ms. Compton said from an office located in a back corner of her restaurant Compère Lapin.
Ms. Compton opened Compère Lapin a few blocks from the French Quarter in 2015 with a menu that skillfully wove French and Italian cuisine into Louisiana’s culinary story. The place was a hit then and its popularity only increased after the James Beard Foundation named Ms. Compton best chef in the South in 2018.
On this night, walk-in seating was only available at the bar. All around, an orchestration of deliciousness circled: the cobia with passionfruit and yucca; curried goat with sweet potato gnocchi and cashews; spiced pig ears with smoked aioli. Eyes followed with envious curiosity as plates were set on tables. With everything going as planned, Ms. Compton got to finish designing a menu and processing food orders for a 400-person charity event taking place later that week in Napa Valley. Across town, the Bywater American Bistro, a restaurant she opened in 2018, was also in full swing.
Ms. Compton’s pan-seared red snapper in a lemony fish stock infused with aromatics that are toasted in a rum flambé. MICHAEL DEMOCKER FOR ISLANDANDSPICE.COM
She juggled it all with a calm demeanor that makes innovation look easy.
The week also marked the launch of a Caribbean dinner series that her team had been planning for weeks. The month-long event began with Cuba; the next week focused on Trinidad and then Haiti before ending with Saint Lucia. Each three-course meal cost $45 with an optional rum pairing for an additional $25. The rums were exclusive to the island of the week.
With less fanfare, Caribbean rum has always stood as a standard ingredient in her kitchen.
“When you see a lot of these old French recipes, where they say, ‘Oh, add brandy or cognac,’ I use rum instead,” Ms. Compton said. “It’s something that I grew up with.”
“I think that rums are now finally getting a little more recognition by people that drink alcohol,” she said. “There are so many great rums being produced right now. There’s more than Captain Morgan.”
Her go-to rums for cooking are the Chairman’s Reserve bottles of spiced and Forgotten Casks, both dark rums. She also uses Bounty’s white rum. The Saint Lucian brands vary in character with notes ranging from cloves to cooked banana, chocolate, golden raisin and spicy oak.
She once created a lobster dish where she made a sauce by reducing orange juice and habaneros before adding rum, coconut milk and Peruvian chile peppers. She has also gently marinated pork in rum. She likes how the sugars from the liquor make for beautiful searing.
The Times-Picayune called Compère Lapin restaurant of the year in 2016. James Beard Foundation named Ms. Compton best chef of the South in 2018. MICHAEL DEMOCKER FOR ISLANDANDSPICE.COM
“I use rums sometimes instead of red wine because it adds the sweetness and the alcohol burns off,” Ms. Compton said. “It also lends itself to a little bit of smokiness because it has the barrel age on the rum.”
This toasty flavor is a trademark of rum, which is predominately made from fermented sugarcane and molasses coming out of the Caribbean. And as Ms. Compton said, rums also get an extra lift of flavor from the charred oak barrels they’re aged in.
In a way, using Caribbean rum, which began as a mere nod to her heritage, became a harbinger of what was to come. Diners today are increasingly seeking Caribbean flavors. Her menu has welcomed this burgeoning appetite.
“There were a lot of things I was not able to serve because I didn’t know how people were going to approach it,” Ms. Compton said. Now she serves dishes like cow heel soup, which comes with smoked bone marrow and charred okra.
“When I made that dish, I said, ‘People are not going to get this dish, but I’m just going to try it anyways,’” she said. “I’m scared to take it off the menu now.”
On another day, and before the doors opened for the dinner rush, she plated a pan-seared red snapper atop delicata squash. Around it was a silky lemony fish stock infused with flavors from ginger, onions and with aromatics of cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, fennel seed and coriander that were toasted in a rum flambé.
“I’m bringing new things to the forefront,” she said about her desire to introduce Caribbean food to new audiences, “things I think they should try because they’re so delicious and so unique.”
Compère Lapin
535 Tchoupitoulas, New Orleans, LA | 504-599-2119 | Website
