Eric Cook trained as a chef from John Folse Culinary Institute Thibodaux, Louisiana. His first restaurant, Gris-Gris, has received many accolades including Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year in 2018 by Eater New Orleans. Cook has appeared on Top Chef New Orleans and was featured in 2020 on Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted. A combat veteran who served six years in the United States Marine Corps, Cook founded the First to Fight Foundation, which supports military veterans and their families.
Before I worked in one, I had probably sat in two restaurants my entire life. I wasn’t the kind of kid who wanted to go to restaurants. I was the kind of kid who wanted to be a soldier.
I grew up one town over from New Orleans, and I knew I was going to be a Marine by the time I was nine years old. You can’t enlist that young, so I waited until I was 17. In the meantime I was a typical 70s kid—an athlete, a Star Wars junky, and a class clown who teachers said wasn’t living up to his potential. But I had a plan. My potential wasn’t going to be realized in algebra or college. It was going to be realized as a lifelong soldier.
You know what they say, though, about the best-laid plans. I graduated high school and joined the Marine Corps on the same day. It was exactly what I hoped it would be. The structure and discipline were great for me. Then, after the Gulf War ended, a new president decided to downsize the military only six years into what was supposed to be a lifetime of service.
Like many soldiers at that time, I was honorably discharged. I came back to New Orleans, this time with no plan and a lot of anger.
Eric Cook at Gris-Gris in New Orleans. Photo: Cory Fontenot.
I spent a bunch of months seeing how long I could grow my beard and how much I could drink. Very long and a lot, it turned out. People close to me were worried. We had a lot of tough “what are you doing with your life?” conversations. While I didn’t have an answer, my older sister had an idea. Her husband was friends with someone from the Brennan family, one of New Orleans’ legendary food names. They offered me an entry-level job as a cook.
The thing I liked about the restaurant industry right off the bat was how paramilitary it was. There was structure, chain of command, rank, and camaraderie. It was still pretty violent and vulgar back then, too, and it all kind of reminded me of what I loved …….
Source: https://stories.zagat.com/posts/eric-cook-good-soldiers-make-great-cooks