May 1, 2024 • 33 mins
James Clesi began serving his signature pop-up crawfish boils at venues around New Orleans in 2013 and expanded. Clesi’s Seafood Restaurant & Catering offers award-winning boiled crawfish, shrimp, fresh and chargrilled oysters and popular Louisiana fare like blackened redfish with dirty rice, jambalaya and fried catfish in a casual setting year-round. In 2024, Clesi’s was invited to be the official crawfish at NOLA JazzFest. Carlo Clesi runs the family business with siblings James and Sonya.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
(Show Name) Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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The topics and opinions express in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are
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or comments should be directed to thoseshow hosts. Thank you for choosing W
(00:21):
FOURCY Radio. Welcome to the ConnectedTable Live where your hosts, Melanie Young
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and David Ransom. You're insatiably curiousculinary couple. We enjoy traveling the world,
bringing you the amazing people we meetwho shape the world of wine and
food, and sharing some of thefindings we have and what we eat and
drink. We're joining you today frombeautiful and sunny New Orleans, Louisiana,
which is now our home, rightDavid, absolutely, Melani and we moved
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here just a little bit ago,and we're excited to kind of sync ourselves
into all the scenes here, includingmusic, food, art, et cetera.
It's just a great place to liveand we love it when people say
welcome home, which they've been sayingfor years, but we finally have made
it home. So we are broadcastingin the beautiful month of May. The
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first weekend of May, the showis airing and it happens to be New
Orleans Jazz Fest, which is oneof the great music festivals in the world.
And we have been hearing some amazingmusic not only during jazz Fest but
during the week and eating some amazinglygood food. Right David, it is
a great time to be in NewOrleans, but New Orleans is a great
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time year round. So everyone alwaysasks us, where do you go?
Where should we eat? And we'rereally excited today because one of our favorite
things to eat in New Orleans whenit's in season is crawfish. But we
love all great New Orleans fair andthe place we bline when we get to
the city is it's located in midCity. It's called Klesses Restaurant and Catering.
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It's an award winning family run organizationserving authentic New Orleans cuisine with a
great backyard to sit out and hangand kick back. It's really one of
our favorite weekend places to go.Right David sure Is, and we go
there during the week too because it'sthe less crowded and less of a wait,
and the crawfish is always just asgood during the week as it is
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on the weekend. So we're talkingabout you know, Klussies and their bull
crawfish is the best in the city. But you also get great bowl shrimp,
oysters in popular Louisiana dishes like blackand redfish with dirty rice, jambalaya,
boot and bites, great poor boys, just a lot of really good
food. So we James Klesse startedKlussis in twenty thirteen with pop ups,
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many wonderful restaurant starts pop ups,and it has become a leading catering operation
in New Orleans and has this restaurantit's today run by Carlo, James and
Sonia siblings who run Clussies, andjoining us to talk about the classes,
tradition, family food and flair isCarlo Klessi, and we're really honored because
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it is a busy time for thatbusy time of year for sure. They
also Clussi's also happens to be theofficial crawfish of the New Orleans Jazz Fest,
so they are super busy right now. So Carlo Klesi, welcome to
the Connected Table. Good morning guys, Thank you all for having me and
excited to be here. Well,we're excited to have you on the show.
You know, we've been going toclasses for a long time. When
we started coming to New Orleans afew years ago on a very regular basis,
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Carlo, we asked some friends wheredo you get the best crawfish?
Because it was in season, andeverybody said, at the top of their
list was your place, Clessies.Well, that's quite an honor to be
able to hear that, because youknow, in New Orleans, as you
can understand, it's very difficult tomake those choices. And Melanie in your
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intro, y'all are posed with avery difficult task of answering that question where
to go eat in New Orleans becausethere are so many great restaurants that we
have here in our city that it'ssuch a wonderful opportunity to go and try
and taste all these great toods thatwe have here. It's true, I
keep wanting to turn our kitchen intoa walk in closet. But anyway,
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Carlo, we love to start withfamily. How long has the Klessi family
lived in New Orleans and tell usabout your background of your parents. No,
that's great. You know, ourfamily were born and raised here in
New Orleans. My dad's family originallyis from Sicily, and he was born
raised in New Orleans and specifically inmid City, so it's not too far
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from from where our restaurant is currently. My mother's side of the family is
actually in Louisiana, down in thehome of Thibodeaux area, so we get
a little bit of our Cagun Creoleflair. And then as far as directly
raised myself and my brother and mysister, we're born and raised in Bucktown
area, just right over the parishline there in Medery. That's a fun
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area, it really is, andit's by the lake. So for our
listeners, New Orleans is a bigcity and people just think about the French
Quarter, the Garden District, Butthere's this amazing lake called Ponta Train and
it's huge, and there's a greatseafood tradition throughout the city. But you
see the Fishermd and you see theboats on that gorgeous lake, and then
the Bio's nearby. It's really beautifulSo Carlo, tell us about your childhood,
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some fun food memories, and whatyou aspired to be when you grew
up. Sure, of course,growing up here in the Bucktown area,
born and raised in the New OrleansGeneral area, We've always had the opportunity
to eat well here. We've beenvery fortunate for that. You know.
We grew up with a lot ofcrawl fish boils, a lot of Bob
cues, and everything revolved around food, just like every other family around our
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areas. And eventually, you know, I went off to college and sell
the miss start a hotel and restaurantmanagement. And then when I got my
degree, they were like, well, where do you want to go?
And I was like, where elseam I going to? I'm going to
move back home to New Orleans.And shortly after that, you know,
our family started the company together andwe moved on to hav an opportunity to
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service all our guests in the midcity area, and we continue to do
so. I'm very happy to doit. So, Carlo, let's talk
about the term crawfish boil. It'sa real tradition in New Orleans, but
a lot of people outside of NewOrleans and Louisiana aren't familiar with it,
So why don't you describe what crawfishboil is and how long the tradition has
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been going on, because I knowthe crawfish industry really just kickstarted itself in
the nineteen seventies and really became whatit is today at that time. So
give us a little history of that, and also the crawfish boil, well,
I mean the crawfish boil itself,it's really based like many other things.
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It's not even just the food,to be honest with you, it's
the family gatherings. It's the abilityto get your friends and your family together
in one area at one time andreally enjoy the company of each other.
And it's always celebrated around something fun. It's either a holiday, or it's
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just a weekend, or it's aparade, or it's Easter. It's it's
one of those things where it's anopportunity for family to get together and friends
and be able to do something andenjoy each other's companies. And the crawfish
boil happens to be the center ofit most of the time. And so
with that being said, after thefamily and all the connections that come with
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it, the crawfish boil is simply, you know, the opportunity for us
to have some live crawfish that weboil and season heavily with tremendous amount of
flavor. And then after we haveit boiled and we just do what we
refer to as a family poor,and a family poor is literally when we
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raise that basket out of the boilpot, we will just pour it across our
table, usually lined with newspapers,and all the steam just pours out,
and then everybody circled around one familytable, and then everybody just goes to
town. And then when you diginto it, you can see all the
smiles on people's faces. Everybody getsquiet all of a sudden because nobody's talking
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and everybody's just digging in to allthis wonderful seafood bounty that we have available.
And it's quite a tradition. It'sa traditional event. It's a spiritual
experience for many, it really is. So for media. Crawfish, So
I grew up in Tennessee where theyhave Memphis mud bugs. So is crawfish
a freshwater fit? What is acrawfish exactly? For a lot of people
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don't know what they are and they'rescared to eat them. Well, you
know what, It's funny because mostpeople are familiar with what a lobster is,
and the lobster and crawl fish areclose cousins. Uh So it's a
crustacean and it is a fresh it'sa fresh water crustacean. And they're they're
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harvested either either through ponds or throughrivers within the Louisiana. Most of the
Louisiana area and most of the countryis has provided Any crawl fish that you're
going to get is provided through ourLouisiana rivers and ponds. So it's a
it's a deep rooted family industries wherepeople just like shrimpers and fishermen and crawl
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fishers, this is their livelihood andthis is their their basis. Where they
have the nets out in the swampsand we'll collect all the crawlfish and then
there there sacked and then they're shippedout in sacks, usually about thirty five
pounds sacks, and then they're distributedto all the wholesalers and then ultimately either
to residents or to restaurants, andthen we boil them. They're kept cool
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until they're boiled and then once they'reseasoned, then they become that delicacy.
And you know, there takes alittle a little talent and a little skilled
to find out how to peel themproperly and get to that delicious meat inside.
But once you learn it then becomesa very skilled technique that you need
to learn how to do it fastbecause if you don't peel them fast enough,
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you neighbor, your brother, yoursister next to you is going to
get to them all before you do. So if you learn quickly how to
peel them, and that's probably howthe crawfish eating competition started, right That
is that is and that's I thinkthat's fun. I think it's important.
A lot of people we love gettingtheir hands dirty, peel and stamp,
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eat and crawfish, but there aresome people that you know, don't want
to do that. So what aresome dishes that Klesi offers through it's catering
in its restaurant that where you canenjoy the great pleasures of crawfish in some
of your dishes. Because we alsowant to underscore that Kless does a huge,
fairly extensive menu of wonderful original andLouisiana dishes. We do, and
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you know, it's it's important forme to to stress that because you know,
crawfish is a staple during crawl fishseason and then after crawl This season,
which I should add, is usuallybetween January to June towards maybe in
the June, so outside of that, you know, the crawfish needs to
reproduce and regenerate, so we'll haveabout the full season the following year.
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But we do have crawfish available inour dishes throughout the year. So we
do have dishes that are very traditionalones or Louisiana cuisines, such as our
crawlfish at fee, which is awonderful dish, and we do have crawlfish
and many of our other dishes,like a crawlfish caeso, I might add
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is an appetizer, but that isone of the most delicious appetizers I think
I've ever had. I could literallypour that crawlfish caeso on top of anything
and enjoy it, and I thinkwe do. So there's crawlfish available in
many of our dishes, in additionto other other seafood items that we do
have, like our shrimp dishes likejumbalaya, has some seafood in it.
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Our gumbo has seafood in it,but not everything. We do have dishes
that are non seafood as well,but those seafood platters and the pasta,
the crawlfish pasta is really good aswell. So we do have a lot
of great dishes. Well, Iam. We're on the website class C
C L E s I catering dotcom. And you know one of your
signatures is really decadent jambalaya cheese friest. Just talk about that. Yeah,
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that's a that's one of our veryoriginal dishes that we've actually started, and
it is our fantastic jumbalaya, andI would it's a family recipe that we
we've used since day one and itis a phenomenal recipe. And I never
realized how great our jumble aya wasgrowing up eating it until we started serving
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it to the public and and wehad some really good reviews from that,
and we simply got a little creativeone night and added the crawl the jumble
aya rather on top of some cheesefries, because it's probably just something people
decided to play around with, andthen topped it with some more cheese and
while out there you go, we'vegot a jumble aia cheese fries and that's
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been a heavy hitter and it's beenan original dish and it's a mainstay on
the menu. It's it's quite unique, but it's also very filling. Well,
it looks delicious and just so youknow, playing around with food is
how the Buffalo Wings started, soyou may be on the something. You
know. Another dish that's in whatwe call the iconic many iconic dishes of
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the region, and one that wediscovered in another restaurant called Mittendorfs is the
thin cut catfish. And you haveClessis has a catfish flatter. Talk to
us about it. It's won someawards and why the specific type of eating
catfish for people who again are notfamiliar with catfish, I am, being
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from Tennessee, explained what catfish isand why the thin cut, lightly battered
is so spectacular. That is,I'm so glad you brought that up because
our catfish is probably one of myfavorite personal favorite dishes on our menu,
the fried catfish. Regardless of howyou ordered, whether it's on a pow
boy or a taco or just theplatter, it's it's a It has one
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on Ward in twenty seventeen for bestfried catfish in New Orleans. And we
do a special marinade of the catfish. We seasoned the batter properly, we
coat it properly, and with itbeing the type of cut that we have
for the catfish, you just gotto make sure that you don't have too
much batter because you don't want tojust bite into batter. You need to
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have the appropriate amount of batter twocatfish ratio to make sure it's you know,
properly seasoned and battered. And itis. It's a great, a
great dish, and it's it isone of my favorites. It's the one
that I grab when I want thelunch at the restaurant. I usually gravitate
to the to the catfish. Proboy, it's my favorite, and the
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catfish, the catfish in general.It's it is it's a favorite because it's
great for the kids. We dohave catfish nuggets, so the kids love
eating that and it's a whole familyfriendly item. And it's it is probably
one that I generally to recommend topeople when they ask me, so what's
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good on the menu. And that'susually the top three things I would say
you got to try to catfish ifyou're here, one are the other two.
The other two would definitely be thejumble Aya, and then I believe
it or not, as the hamburgers. We really enjoyed the hamburgers at the
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restaurant, and for being a seafoodrestaurant, I think you're going to be
pleasantly surprised if you happen to geta one of the hamburgers at the restaurant.
Well, you have a picture ofthe Bienville Burger as you call it
on the website, which looks thatwe haven't had it yet, but we're
going to next time we go.That's for sure. It's a sausage patty
and ground beef all together. Andyeah, yeah, that'd been Wilburger is
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something that again you'd mentioned playing withfood and I created that one a couple
of years ago. To add alittle kick to it. We had some
candy jalapenos, some thin fried onionrings which were made we make in house
top a little a little pepper chapultinothat we use on there, and it's
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got a little kick with the hotsausage and extolicious that's it's a big one,
that it's a big burger, butit is. It's quite a flavor.
It's quite a flavor. Speaking ofbig, you've got your crawfish mac
and cheeseburger. Also two quarter poundground beef patties on a briochepun top with
crawfish mac and cheese and homemade barbecuesaue. I mean, you get like
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the best of everything in one dishand a handheld. And again it's important
to note because some people may notwant to eat the bowl crawfish because they
don't want to do the picking andsecond peel it and I love that,
but there's a lot of ways toenjoy your crawfish. Now we're broadcasting during
jazz Fest. What are you serving? What's it like to oh one,
thousands and thousands and thousands of peoplecoming? How do you get it all
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together? We know your caterers,so you're prosid it, But what do
you serve of it? And what'sit like back there behind the scenes?
I tell you, Melanie, thisis this is probably one of our things
that we're most proud of at thispoint in our history, is that we're
able to celebrate at this point tenyears in operation, and we're we were
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invited into JazzFest and we do alot of festivals, and but jazz nothing,
nothing is like Jazz Fest. Andthe amount of people that are there,
the people that come in from allover the country, all over the
world, the energy and the excitementthat our staff has makes it so interesting
too. Our staff is so happyto be there. The way that they're
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interacting with all the festival goers isso much fun to see. And of
course we are doing a bold crawlfishthere, but we do have our crawlfish
dirty rice, which is a dishthat is a traditional dirty rice, but
we're adding crawlfish tails to it,and we're adding sweet roasted corn in addition
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to the brown meat and additional creoleseasonings that are added to a traditional dirty
rice. So the dirty rice isselling really well. It's a fan favorite.
And then the crawlfish a too Fay, which is our root based seafood
stocked crawlfish stew, so to speak, and it's over white rice and it's
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delicious. And since we have bothof those dishes, we have a crawl
fish a towo fay, and wehave the dirty rice there is an option
out there at jazz Best where youcan have the crawlfish a too fay topped
over the dirty rice. And we'reactually calling that one the messy Clussy,
So that one seems to be afan favorite as well. I think it
should be the Maxi Clussy. Youmust be serving thousands of these, I
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mean, it's unbelieved. And jazzFest is like four days each weekend.
Now, yes, it usual it'susually seven days, but this year it's
going to be eight days. Wehave the addition of Rolling Stones this year,
so that's going to be a heavyhitter. And we're excited. We're
really excited and happy to be atjazz Fest. Yeah, it's a really
it's a real honor, we hear. Yeah, we're needed town. As
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you know, you have to beinvited. You have to be invited to
be a part of the food serviceat JazzFest. So it's a real honor
and you must be really proud ofthat. Yeah. Yeah. You can't
say, hey, I want tobe in jazz Fest and then put your
name on the list and then you'rein. You have to be asked.
And we were, we were onthe doorstep just waiting and then we were
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fortunate enough to be asked and weaccepted it with open arms and quite a
bit of internal celebration behind the scenestheirs. Yeah, you know it's and
at your tenth anniversity. That's likeso awesome, you know for our listeners,
jazz Fest really is the end allof festivals. But there, New
Orleans is Louisiana is festival country.We attended the French quarter Fest, which
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is like a prelude to Jazice andit's free and that's amazing when the French
quarter Fest, so being a freefest for anyone that you know can't do
the ticket for jazz Fest, butit is, it's a great it's it's
a great festival place to be.Now we talked, so you run classes
with your siblings. What is everybody'sroles there? Well, you know,
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we have a It's funny because meand and Sonya and James, we all
have our own special traits that weexcel in. But I would have to
say that we all have a handin a little bit of everything. You
know. Sonya does an excellent jobhandling our catering, our catering department along
with HR and our staff and keepinga high staff morale. You know,
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I tend to do a little bitbehind the scenes financials in numbers and some
social media and advertising marketing, andJames does James would does a lot of
the festivals and special events and isdefinitely out there with a lot of friends
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and family helping get our name outthere as well. So but it's hard
to say that, you know,this is what I do, and this
is what what Sonya does, andthis is what James does, because we
help each other out tremendously in allthe fields and we do have to,
you know, divide and conquer,and we do have our strengths in certain
areas. But it is definitely afull a full blown team effort, as
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all family businesses are. It's reallyreally important. So you know, it's
important to understand New Orleans is youknow this for us, it's not fall,
winter, spring and summer in NewOrleans like other parts of the country.
It's it's food season and festival season, and crawfish season and oyster season
and poncha toolis drobbery season. Sowe know it can be tough in the
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summer for many of our industry friendsbecause the high you know, the festival
season is high tourist season how andwhat is your message to our listeners about
visiting New Orleans in the summer,Because it's a wonderful time to visit.
It's hot, but it's also agreat time to get into a lot of
restaurants you can't get into, right, that's an excellent point. I mean,
you have the opportunity to come andenjoy many, many of our restaurants
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throughout the year, and especially duringthe summer. You don't have to fight
as many crowds. You still getthe same wonderful food all throughout the year.
The clouds are not there, soyou can get in and it's easy
to access things are Some foods areseasonal, as I mentioned earlier, crawfish
is a seasonal product, but thereare other things throughout the year that you
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have access to throughout the year.Boiled shrimp is another fantastic delicacy that is
available throughout the year. So areoysters. There's always been this misconception about
oysters that you know, the oldsaying is that you're not supposed to get
any oysters unless the month ins andour and those are your cooler months of
the year. But that's all wivestale now and everything. You have oysters
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available throughout the year, and weprovide oysters at the restaurant. We have
a charge gilled oyster menu. Wealso have raw oysters available. So the
oyster industry itself is available throughout theyear and a lot of people need to
understand that, and that's an industrythat we heavily support. You mentioned that
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you're doing some conservation efforts regarding that. Talk to us about the conservation efforts
that you're doing to support the community. Yes, so we work with We
really work closely with an organization calledc r CL and cr CL is it's
it's Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana andwe're very we work closely with them as
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partners to help restore the Louisiana seafoodindustry in general as a whole. But
it also they collect are used oystershells. So when we we have our
child old oysters or our raw oysters, they provide special bins for us to
drop those shells in and then theycollect those shells and then it goes through
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a cleaning process and then they're redistributedinto certain areas of the Louisiana coast to
help prevent coastal erosion, and it'sa habitat to also help other oysters grow.
So it's something that we we obviouslyhold dear to our hardware close to
because our coastal erosion is something inLouisiana that is something that we've been fighting.
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But if we can do anything tohelp the industry, we love to
help it. And see our cland US partner together and we've probably recycled
I think our number is over eightythousand pounds of oyster shells with this organization
that they've been able to put backinto a coastal and we've the opportunity to
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actually go on the boats myself,my brother and sister and our management staff
to ride the boats, the oysterboats and actually participate in the oyster shell
experience on how it's how it's helpingsave the coast. So that's quite it
was quite an experience and we're veryfortunate to be a part of that organization.
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That's a great project to be involvedwith because the coastal erosion really is
happening all around the eastern side ofthe United States, and especially with global
warming and with climate change and withthe seas rising you know, you've got
to fight for your land now inmany many ways, and that's a great
project to be involved with. Yeah, well really happy. Well, you
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know we would we wouldn't we remissif we didn't mentioned speaking of warm weather.
You do have some refreshments that youserve at clesses. What's what's in
the bar that everybody loves? Whatwas everybody drinking? Oh, that's great?
A full service ball at the restaurant, and we have all the traditional
drinks that you'd like. You know, we have the hurricanes for people who
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love to come in town and trya hurricane. We have some really refreshing
other popular drinks like a Pim's cup, which is really enjoyable, especially during
the hot summer months. Some ofmy favorites are are the family recipe of
my grandfather. He enjoyed the oldfashion. So everybody has a old fashion,
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and but we have a little bitof a special twist to our old
fashion the way that my grandfather usedto make it. So it's in all
lessons. It's to be honest withyou, it'd say it's a little bit
of a hybrid between a sazarak andan old fashion. So it's a special
little twist and it sells really well, and it's one of the ones that
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I tend to enjoy sipping on bothat work and at home. So but
definitely the We have a lot ofgreat local taps that we have from many
of our local microburries around the NewOrleans area, so those are always enjoyable
with some boiled seafood. Of course, we have a lot of wines that
do pair well with our oysters andsome of our entorees, so we do
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have quite a bit of opportunity atour bar there for our guests to enjoy
whatever their choices may be. Myfirst Pims Cup was in New Orleans.
Yeah, when I was in college. It was Sophie Newcombe then two Lane,
and my then boyfriend introduced me toPims Cup and it's probably one of
my most favorite warm weather sippers outthere. It really is terrific, and
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it's very prevalent in New Orleans,as are many amazing cocktails. So we
really wanted to undersco that we're kindof getting through the beers because you need
a beer at the end of theday here in New Orleans, Yes,
yeah, but no, you couldeasily sip on a Pims cup, especially
in the hots On and uh,you know, it's not going to beat
you up, and it's something that'sall that's almost refreshing, and it's it's
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something that you can really enjoy sittingin the sun with a nice little shade
hat and sip on your pim's cup. It was enjoyable. Sounds like a
plant. It sounds like a plantsets a planet on our patio or your
patio. Because we really want toalso underscore there's an amazing outdoor patio.
You know. One of the thingswe lamented in some of the other places
we've lived, uh, was notenough outdoor dining. And one of the
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things we love about New Orleans isthere's lots of great patios to sit in,
especially in New York when we wereliving there and they were carving off
pieces of the sidewalk to just letpeople. Yeah, it's nice to be
able to sit outside here in NewOrleans somewhere like Clessies and just have a
great time. And I love going. There's always children, right, It's
very family friend new place because wheneverwe're there, there's families having big meals
(29:53):
and children and and you said,you know, the kids love those those
nuggets and there's some fun desserts.So it's it's also family friendly and we
want to underscore that. And what'snice about it is, especially during CRAWFISD
season, obviously, the crawfish boilis outside. Oh yeah, really kind
of in the in the dining roomof the restaurant, so you get to
see the action going on right therein front of you, and they're sorting
the crawfish to size them, etcetera before they go in the go in
(30:15):
the pot. It's really a funthing to see. Yeah, and and
and so we you know, forall those people that want to get that
photograph moment for their social media,Uh, that Instagram is kless Catering and
it's c L E s I rightright, And we just want to get
that in so that people know togo to klessic Catering with the website and
(30:37):
there's Instagram and everything. Uh,you know, we know you're busy,
so we don't want to take toomuch of your time. But as you
know before, we let you gofor your incredibly busy day and we uh,
what is your favorite way to kickback in New Orleans when you're off
duty? Well, I usually Isaw it of spending time with my family.
(30:59):
I have very small children. Igot a son and twin girls and
my wife, so I try,I try to spend time with them.
We do spend a lot of timeat the restaurant in catering, uh so
we tend to like to go out. Well, we live close to the
lake and I spend time with thefamily. We tend to do a bike
(31:21):
ride on the lake or a walkon the lakefront and usually play outside with
them. And that's that's where mylife is outside of the restaurant industry,
outside of catering. Well, wecan't wait to do some biking on the
lake as well once we get settledin jazz Fest. We want to remind
everybody that classes is in mid city. There's a great catering operation. The
(31:44):
instagram is Klessi Seafood one s cl e s I Seafood, so you
can follow and see some great pictures. It's definitely a wonderful place to visit
and casual, low key, theway we like New Orleans. Carlo Klessi,
thank you for joining us on theconnected table. Hopefully we'll be clicking
glasses and peeling some shrimp or eatingsome crawfish with you sometime when we can
(32:07):
get together in person. Melanie David, thank y'all so much. I really
appreciate the opportunity to talk with y'all. It's been quite an experience and I
enjoyed it, and I look forwardto seeing y'all in person very soon,
and we look forward to it aswell. Practically neighbors. I know so
you've been listening to The Connected Tablelive from New Orleans. As you know,
(32:29):
we love to travel. We dodeeply love the city. We love
it so much we've made it ournew home. So if you are in
the New Orleans area plenty come pleasereach out to us. You can follow
us at the Connected Table on Instagram, Connected Table on Facebook. You can
hear all our shows and more thanforty six podcast platforms and always our message
(32:49):
is stay insatiably curious. No no, no, no
The topics and opinions express in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
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(00:21):
FOURCY Radio. Welcome to the ConnectedTable Live where your hosts, Melanie Young
(00:44):
and David Ransom. You're insatiably curiousculinary couple. We enjoy traveling the world,
bringing you the amazing people we meetwho shape the world of wine and
food, and sharing some of thefindings we have and what we eat and
drink. We're joining you today frombeautiful and sunny New Orleans, Louisiana,
which is now our home, rightDavid, absolutely, Melani and we moved
(01:06):
here just a little bit ago,and we're excited to kind of sync ourselves
into all the scenes here, includingmusic, food, art, et cetera.
It's just a great place to liveand we love it when people say
welcome home, which they've been sayingfor years, but we finally have made
it home. So we are broadcastingin the beautiful month of May. The
(01:26):
first weekend of May, the showis airing and it happens to be New
Orleans Jazz Fest, which is oneof the great music festivals in the world.
And we have been hearing some amazingmusic not only during jazz Fest but
during the week and eating some amazinglygood food. Right David, it is
a great time to be in NewOrleans, but New Orleans is a great
(01:48):
time year round. So everyone alwaysasks us, where do you go?
Where should we eat? And we'rereally excited today because one of our favorite
things to eat in New Orleans whenit's in season is crawfish. But we
love all great New Orleans fair andthe place we bline when we get to
the city is it's located in midCity. It's called Klesses Restaurant and Catering.
(02:08):
It's an award winning family run organizationserving authentic New Orleans cuisine with a
great backyard to sit out and hangand kick back. It's really one of
our favorite weekend places to go.Right David sure Is, and we go
there during the week too because it'sthe less crowded and less of a wait,
and the crawfish is always just asgood during the week as it is
(02:29):
on the weekend. So we're talkingabout you know, Klussies and their bull
crawfish is the best in the city. But you also get great bowl shrimp,
oysters in popular Louisiana dishes like blackand redfish with dirty rice, jambalaya,
boot and bites, great poor boys, just a lot of really good
food. So we James Klesse startedKlussis in twenty thirteen with pop ups,
(02:52):
many wonderful restaurant starts pop ups,and it has become a leading catering operation
in New Orleans and has this restaurantit's today run by Carlo, James and
Sonia siblings who run Clussies, andjoining us to talk about the classes,
tradition, family food and flair isCarlo Klessi, and we're really honored because
(03:12):
it is a busy time for thatbusy time of year for sure. They
also Clussi's also happens to be theofficial crawfish of the New Orleans Jazz Fest,
so they are super busy right now. So Carlo Klesi, welcome to
the Connected Table. Good morning guys, Thank you all for having me and
excited to be here. Well,we're excited to have you on the show.
You know, we've been going toclasses for a long time. When
we started coming to New Orleans afew years ago on a very regular basis,
(03:38):
Carlo, we asked some friends wheredo you get the best crawfish?
Because it was in season, andeverybody said, at the top of their
list was your place, Clessies.Well, that's quite an honor to be
able to hear that, because youknow, in New Orleans, as you
can understand, it's very difficult tomake those choices. And Melanie in your
(04:00):
intro, y'all are posed with avery difficult task of answering that question where
to go eat in New Orleans becausethere are so many great restaurants that we
have here in our city that it'ssuch a wonderful opportunity to go and try
and taste all these great toods thatwe have here. It's true, I
keep wanting to turn our kitchen intoa walk in closet. But anyway,
(04:24):
Carlo, we love to start withfamily. How long has the Klessi family
lived in New Orleans and tell usabout your background of your parents. No,
that's great. You know, ourfamily were born and raised here in
New Orleans. My dad's family originallyis from Sicily, and he was born
raised in New Orleans and specifically inmid City, so it's not too far
(04:47):
from from where our restaurant is currently. My mother's side of the family is
actually in Louisiana, down in thehome of Thibodeaux area, so we get
a little bit of our Cagun Creoleflair. And then as far as directly
raised myself and my brother and mysister, we're born and raised in Bucktown
area, just right over the parishline there in Medery. That's a fun
(05:13):
area, it really is, andit's by the lake. So for our
listeners, New Orleans is a bigcity and people just think about the French
Quarter, the Garden District, Butthere's this amazing lake called Ponta Train and
it's huge, and there's a greatseafood tradition throughout the city. But you
see the Fishermd and you see theboats on that gorgeous lake, and then
the Bio's nearby. It's really beautifulSo Carlo, tell us about your childhood,
(05:40):
some fun food memories, and whatyou aspired to be when you grew
up. Sure, of course,growing up here in the Bucktown area,
born and raised in the New OrleansGeneral area, We've always had the opportunity
to eat well here. We've beenvery fortunate for that. You know.
We grew up with a lot ofcrawl fish boils, a lot of Bob
cues, and everything revolved around food, just like every other family around our
(06:04):
areas. And eventually, you know, I went off to college and sell
the miss start a hotel and restaurantmanagement. And then when I got my
degree, they were like, well, where do you want to go?
And I was like, where elseam I going to? I'm going to
move back home to New Orleans.And shortly after that, you know,
our family started the company together andwe moved on to hav an opportunity to
(06:28):
service all our guests in the midcity area, and we continue to do
so. I'm very happy to doit. So, Carlo, let's talk
about the term crawfish boil. It'sa real tradition in New Orleans, but
a lot of people outside of NewOrleans and Louisiana aren't familiar with it,
So why don't you describe what crawfishboil is and how long the tradition has
(06:48):
been going on, because I knowthe crawfish industry really just kickstarted itself in
the nineteen seventies and really became whatit is today at that time. So
give us a little history of that, and also the crawfish boil, well,
I mean the crawfish boil itself,it's really based like many other things.
(07:08):
It's not even just the food,to be honest with you, it's
the family gatherings. It's the abilityto get your friends and your family together
in one area at one time andreally enjoy the company of each other.
And it's always celebrated around something fun. It's either a holiday, or it's
(07:29):
just a weekend, or it's aparade, or it's Easter. It's it's
one of those things where it's anopportunity for family to get together and friends
and be able to do something andenjoy each other's companies. And the crawfish
boil happens to be the center ofit most of the time. And so
with that being said, after thefamily and all the connections that come with
(07:50):
it, the crawfish boil is simply, you know, the opportunity for us
to have some live crawfish that weboil and season heavily with tremendous amount of
flavor. And then after we haveit boiled and we just do what we
refer to as a family poor,and a family poor is literally when we
(08:11):
raise that basket out of the boilpot, we will just pour it across our
table, usually lined with newspapers,and all the steam just pours out,
and then everybody circled around one familytable, and then everybody just goes to
town. And then when you diginto it, you can see all the
smiles on people's faces. Everybody getsquiet all of a sudden because nobody's talking
(08:35):
and everybody's just digging in to allthis wonderful seafood bounty that we have available.
And it's quite a tradition. It'sa traditional event. It's a spiritual
experience for many, it really is. So for media. Crawfish, So
I grew up in Tennessee where theyhave Memphis mud bugs. So is crawfish
a freshwater fit? What is acrawfish exactly? For a lot of people
(09:00):
don't know what they are and they'rescared to eat them. Well, you
know what, It's funny because mostpeople are familiar with what a lobster is,
and the lobster and crawl fish areclose cousins. Uh So it's a
crustacean and it is a fresh it'sa fresh water crustacean. And they're they're
(09:22):
harvested either either through ponds or throughrivers within the Louisiana. Most of the
Louisiana area and most of the countryis has provided Any crawl fish that you're
going to get is provided through ourLouisiana rivers and ponds. So it's a
it's a deep rooted family industries wherepeople just like shrimpers and fishermen and crawl
(09:48):
fishers, this is their livelihood andthis is their their basis. Where they
have the nets out in the swampsand we'll collect all the crawlfish and then
there there sacked and then they're shippedout in sacks, usually about thirty five
pounds sacks, and then they're distributedto all the wholesalers and then ultimately either
to residents or to restaurants, andthen we boil them. They're kept cool
(10:15):
until they're boiled and then once they'reseasoned, then they become that delicacy.
And you know, there takes alittle a little talent and a little skilled
to find out how to peel themproperly and get to that delicious meat inside.
But once you learn it then becomesa very skilled technique that you need
to learn how to do it fastbecause if you don't peel them fast enough,
(10:37):
you neighbor, your brother, yoursister next to you is going to
get to them all before you do. So if you learn quickly how to
peel them, and that's probably howthe crawfish eating competition started, right That
is that is and that's I thinkthat's fun. I think it's important.
A lot of people we love gettingtheir hands dirty, peel and stamp,
(10:58):
eat and crawfish, but there aresome people that you know, don't want
to do that. So what aresome dishes that Klesi offers through it's catering
in its restaurant that where you canenjoy the great pleasures of crawfish in some
of your dishes. Because we alsowant to underscore that Kless does a huge,
fairly extensive menu of wonderful original andLouisiana dishes. We do, and
(11:24):
you know, it's it's important forme to to stress that because you know,
crawfish is a staple during crawl fishseason and then after crawl This season,
which I should add, is usuallybetween January to June towards maybe in
the June, so outside of that, you know, the crawfish needs to
reproduce and regenerate, so we'll haveabout the full season the following year.
(11:48):
But we do have crawfish available inour dishes throughout the year. So we
do have dishes that are very traditionalones or Louisiana cuisines, such as our
crawlfish at fee, which is awonderful dish, and we do have crawlfish
and many of our other dishes,like a crawlfish caeso, I might add
(12:13):
is an appetizer, but that isone of the most delicious appetizers I think
I've ever had. I could literallypour that crawlfish caeso on top of anything
and enjoy it, and I thinkwe do. So there's crawlfish available in
many of our dishes, in additionto other other seafood items that we do
have, like our shrimp dishes likejumbalaya, has some seafood in it.
(12:37):
Our gumbo has seafood in it,but not everything. We do have dishes
that are non seafood as well,but those seafood platters and the pasta,
the crawlfish pasta is really good aswell. So we do have a lot
of great dishes. Well, Iam. We're on the website class C
C L E s I catering dotcom. And you know one of your
signatures is really decadent jambalaya cheese friest. Just talk about that. Yeah,
(13:03):
that's a that's one of our veryoriginal dishes that we've actually started, and
it is our fantastic jumbalaya, andI would it's a family recipe that we
we've used since day one and itis a phenomenal recipe. And I never
realized how great our jumble aya wasgrowing up eating it until we started serving
(13:26):
it to the public and and wehad some really good reviews from that,
and we simply got a little creativeone night and added the crawl the jumble
aya rather on top of some cheesefries, because it's probably just something people
decided to play around with, andthen topped it with some more cheese and
while out there you go, we'vegot a jumble aia cheese fries and that's
(13:48):
been a heavy hitter and it's beenan original dish and it's a mainstay on
the menu. It's it's quite unique, but it's also very filling. Well,
it looks delicious and just so youknow, playing around with food is
how the Buffalo Wings started, soyou may be on the something. You
know. Another dish that's in whatwe call the iconic many iconic dishes of
(14:13):
the region, and one that wediscovered in another restaurant called Mittendorfs is the
thin cut catfish. And you haveClessis has a catfish flatter. Talk to
us about it. It's won someawards and why the specific type of eating
catfish for people who again are notfamiliar with catfish, I am, being
(14:33):
from Tennessee, explained what catfish isand why the thin cut, lightly battered
is so spectacular. That is,I'm so glad you brought that up because
our catfish is probably one of myfavorite personal favorite dishes on our menu,
the fried catfish. Regardless of howyou ordered, whether it's on a pow
boy or a taco or just theplatter, it's it's a It has one
(14:58):
on Ward in twenty seventeen for bestfried catfish in New Orleans. And we
do a special marinade of the catfish. We seasoned the batter properly, we
coat it properly, and with itbeing the type of cut that we have
for the catfish, you just gotto make sure that you don't have too
much batter because you don't want tojust bite into batter. You need to
(15:22):
have the appropriate amount of batter twocatfish ratio to make sure it's you know,
properly seasoned and battered. And itis. It's a great, a
great dish, and it's it isone of my favorites. It's the one
that I grab when I want thelunch at the restaurant. I usually gravitate
to the to the catfish. Proboy, it's my favorite, and the
(15:43):
catfish, the catfish in general.It's it is it's a favorite because it's
great for the kids. We dohave catfish nuggets, so the kids love
eating that and it's a whole familyfriendly item. And it's it is probably
one that I generally to recommend topeople when they ask me, so what's
(16:03):
good on the menu. And that'susually the top three things I would say
you got to try to catfish ifyou're here, one are the other two.
The other two would definitely be thejumble Aya, and then I believe
it or not, as the hamburgers. We really enjoyed the hamburgers at the
(16:25):
restaurant, and for being a seafoodrestaurant, I think you're going to be
pleasantly surprised if you happen to geta one of the hamburgers at the restaurant.
Well, you have a picture ofthe Bienville Burger as you call it
on the website, which looks thatwe haven't had it yet, but we're
going to next time we go.That's for sure. It's a sausage patty
and ground beef all together. Andyeah, yeah, that'd been Wilburger is
(16:49):
something that again you'd mentioned playing withfood and I created that one a couple
of years ago. To add alittle kick to it. We had some
candy jalapenos, some thin fried onionrings which were made we make in house
top a little a little pepper chapultinothat we use on there, and it's
(17:11):
got a little kick with the hotsausage and extolicious that's it's a big one,
that it's a big burger, butit is. It's quite a flavor.
It's quite a flavor. Speaking ofbig, you've got your crawfish mac
and cheeseburger. Also two quarter poundground beef patties on a briochepun top with
crawfish mac and cheese and homemade barbecuesaue. I mean, you get like
(17:33):
the best of everything in one dishand a handheld. And again it's important
to note because some people may notwant to eat the bowl crawfish because they
don't want to do the picking andsecond peel it and I love that,
but there's a lot of ways toenjoy your crawfish. Now we're broadcasting during
jazz Fest. What are you serving? What's it like to oh one,
thousands and thousands and thousands of peoplecoming? How do you get it all
(17:56):
together? We know your caterers,so you're prosid it, But what do
you serve of it? And what'sit like back there behind the scenes?
I tell you, Melanie, thisis this is probably one of our things
that we're most proud of at thispoint in our history, is that we're
able to celebrate at this point tenyears in operation, and we're we were
(18:17):
invited into JazzFest and we do alot of festivals, and but jazz nothing,
nothing is like Jazz Fest. Andthe amount of people that are there,
the people that come in from allover the country, all over the
world, the energy and the excitementthat our staff has makes it so interesting
too. Our staff is so happyto be there. The way that they're
(18:41):
interacting with all the festival goers isso much fun to see. And of
course we are doing a bold crawlfishthere, but we do have our crawlfish
dirty rice, which is a dishthat is a traditional dirty rice, but
we're adding crawlfish tails to it,and we're adding sweet roasted corn in addition
(19:03):
to the brown meat and additional creoleseasonings that are added to a traditional dirty
rice. So the dirty rice isselling really well. It's a fan favorite.
And then the crawlfish a too Fay, which is our root based seafood
stocked crawlfish stew, so to speak, and it's over white rice and it's
(19:25):
delicious. And since we have bothof those dishes, we have a crawl
fish a towo fay, and wehave the dirty rice there is an option
out there at jazz Best where youcan have the crawlfish a too fay topped
over the dirty rice. And we'reactually calling that one the messy Clussy,
So that one seems to be afan favorite as well. I think it
should be the Maxi Clussy. Youmust be serving thousands of these, I
(19:48):
mean, it's unbelieved. And jazzFest is like four days each weekend.
Now, yes, it usual it'susually seven days, but this year it's
going to be eight days. Wehave the addition of Rolling Stones this year,
so that's going to be a heavyhitter. And we're excited. We're
really excited and happy to be atjazz Fest. Yeah, it's a really
it's a real honor, we hear. Yeah, we're needed town. As
(20:11):
you know, you have to beinvited. You have to be invited to
be a part of the food serviceat JazzFest. So it's a real honor
and you must be really proud ofthat. Yeah. Yeah. You can't
say, hey, I want tobe in jazz Fest and then put your
name on the list and then you'rein. You have to be asked.
And we were, we were onthe doorstep just waiting and then we were
(20:32):
fortunate enough to be asked and weaccepted it with open arms and quite a
bit of internal celebration behind the scenestheirs. Yeah, you know it's and
at your tenth anniversity. That's likeso awesome, you know for our listeners,
jazz Fest really is the end allof festivals. But there, New
Orleans is Louisiana is festival country.We attended the French quarter Fest, which
(20:53):
is like a prelude to Jazice andit's free and that's amazing when the French
quarter Fest, so being a freefest for anyone that you know can't do
the ticket for jazz Fest, butit is, it's a great it's it's
a great festival place to be.Now we talked, so you run classes
with your siblings. What is everybody'sroles there? Well, you know,
(21:18):
we have a It's funny because meand and Sonya and James, we all
have our own special traits that weexcel in. But I would have to
say that we all have a handin a little bit of everything. You
know. Sonya does an excellent jobhandling our catering, our catering department along
with HR and our staff and keepinga high staff morale. You know,
(21:42):
I tend to do a little bitbehind the scenes financials in numbers and some
social media and advertising marketing, andJames does James would does a lot of
the festivals and special events and isdefinitely out there with a lot of friends
(22:03):
and family helping get our name outthere as well. So but it's hard
to say that, you know,this is what I do, and this
is what what Sonya does, andthis is what James does, because we
help each other out tremendously in allthe fields and we do have to,
you know, divide and conquer,and we do have our strengths in certain
areas. But it is definitely afull a full blown team effort, as
(22:26):
all family businesses are. It's reallyreally important. So you know, it's
important to understand New Orleans is youknow this for us, it's not fall,
winter, spring and summer in NewOrleans like other parts of the country.
It's it's food season and festival season, and crawfish season and oyster season
and poncha toolis drobbery season. Sowe know it can be tough in the
(22:47):
summer for many of our industry friendsbecause the high you know, the festival
season is high tourist season how andwhat is your message to our listeners about
visiting New Orleans in the summer,Because it's a wonderful time to visit.
It's hot, but it's also agreat time to get into a lot of
restaurants you can't get into, right, that's an excellent point. I mean,
you have the opportunity to come andenjoy many, many of our restaurants
(23:14):
throughout the year, and especially duringthe summer. You don't have to fight
as many crowds. You still getthe same wonderful food all throughout the year.
The clouds are not there, soyou can get in and it's easy
to access things are Some foods areseasonal, as I mentioned earlier, crawfish
is a seasonal product, but thereare other things throughout the year that you
(23:37):
have access to throughout the year.Boiled shrimp is another fantastic delicacy that is
available throughout the year. So areoysters. There's always been this misconception about
oysters that you know, the oldsaying is that you're not supposed to get
any oysters unless the month ins andour and those are your cooler months of
the year. But that's all wivestale now and everything. You have oysters
(24:00):
available throughout the year, and weprovide oysters at the restaurant. We have
a charge gilled oyster menu. Wealso have raw oysters available. So the
oyster industry itself is available throughout theyear and a lot of people need to
understand that, and that's an industrythat we heavily support. You mentioned that
(24:22):
you're doing some conservation efforts regarding that. Talk to us about the conservation efforts
that you're doing to support the community. Yes, so we work with We
really work closely with an organization calledc r CL and cr CL is it's
it's Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana andwe're very we work closely with them as
(24:45):
partners to help restore the Louisiana seafoodindustry in general as a whole. But
it also they collect are used oystershells. So when we we have our
child old oysters or our raw oysters, they provide special bins for us to
drop those shells in and then theycollect those shells and then it goes through
(25:11):
a cleaning process and then they're redistributedinto certain areas of the Louisiana coast to
help prevent coastal erosion, and it'sa habitat to also help other oysters grow.
So it's something that we we obviouslyhold dear to our hardware close to
because our coastal erosion is something inLouisiana that is something that we've been fighting.
(25:38):
But if we can do anything tohelp the industry, we love to
help it. And see our cland US partner together and we've probably recycled
I think our number is over eightythousand pounds of oyster shells with this organization
that they've been able to put backinto a coastal and we've the opportunity to
(26:00):
actually go on the boats myself,my brother and sister and our management staff
to ride the boats, the oysterboats and actually participate in the oyster shell
experience on how it's how it's helpingsave the coast. So that's quite it
was quite an experience and we're veryfortunate to be a part of that organization.
(26:22):
That's a great project to be involvedwith because the coastal erosion really is
happening all around the eastern side ofthe United States, and especially with global
warming and with climate change and withthe seas rising you know, you've got
to fight for your land now inmany many ways, and that's a great
project to be involved with. Yeah, well really happy. Well, you
(26:44):
know we would we wouldn't we remissif we didn't mentioned speaking of warm weather.
You do have some refreshments that youserve at clesses. What's what's in
the bar that everybody loves? Whatwas everybody drinking? Oh, that's great?
A full service ball at the restaurant, and we have all the traditional
drinks that you'd like. You know, we have the hurricanes for people who
(27:07):
love to come in town and trya hurricane. We have some really refreshing
other popular drinks like a Pim's cup, which is really enjoyable, especially during
the hot summer months. Some ofmy favorites are are the family recipe of
my grandfather. He enjoyed the oldfashion. So everybody has a old fashion,
(27:32):
and but we have a little bitof a special twist to our old
fashion the way that my grandfather usedto make it. So it's in all
lessons. It's to be honest withyou, it'd say it's a little bit
of a hybrid between a sazarak andan old fashion. So it's a special
little twist and it sells really well, and it's one of the ones that
(27:53):
I tend to enjoy sipping on bothat work and at home. So but
definitely the We have a lot ofgreat local taps that we have from many
of our local microburries around the NewOrleans area, so those are always enjoyable
with some boiled seafood. Of course, we have a lot of wines that
do pair well with our oysters andsome of our entorees, so we do
(28:18):
have quite a bit of opportunity atour bar there for our guests to enjoy
whatever their choices may be. Myfirst Pims Cup was in New Orleans.
Yeah, when I was in college. It was Sophie Newcombe then two Lane,
and my then boyfriend introduced me toPims Cup and it's probably one of
my most favorite warm weather sippers outthere. It really is terrific, and
(28:42):
it's very prevalent in New Orleans,as are many amazing cocktails. So we
really wanted to undersco that we're kindof getting through the beers because you need
a beer at the end of theday here in New Orleans, Yes,
yeah, but no, you couldeasily sip on a Pims cup, especially
in the hots On and uh,you know, it's not going to beat
you up, and it's something that'sall that's almost refreshing, and it's it's
(29:07):
something that you can really enjoy sittingin the sun with a nice little shade
hat and sip on your pim's cup. It was enjoyable. Sounds like a
plant. It sounds like a plantsets a planet on our patio or your
patio. Because we really want toalso underscore there's an amazing outdoor patio.
You know. One of the thingswe lamented in some of the other places
we've lived, uh, was notenough outdoor dining. And one of the
(29:30):
things we love about New Orleans isthere's lots of great patios to sit in,
especially in New York when we wereliving there and they were carving off
pieces of the sidewalk to just letpeople. Yeah, it's nice to be
able to sit outside here in NewOrleans somewhere like Clessies and just have a
great time. And I love going. There's always children, right, It's
very family friend new place because wheneverwe're there, there's families having big meals
(29:53):
and children and and you said,you know, the kids love those those
nuggets and there's some fun desserts.So it's it's also family friendly and we
want to underscore that. And what'snice about it is, especially during CRAWFISD
season, obviously, the crawfish boilis outside. Oh yeah, really kind
of in the in the dining roomof the restaurant, so you get to
see the action going on right therein front of you, and they're sorting
the crawfish to size them, etcetera before they go in the go in
(30:15):
the pot. It's really a funthing to see. Yeah, and and
and so we you know, forall those people that want to get that
photograph moment for their social media,Uh, that Instagram is kless Catering and
it's c L E s I rightright, And we just want to get
that in so that people know togo to klessic Catering with the website and
(30:37):
there's Instagram and everything. Uh,you know, we know you're busy,
so we don't want to take toomuch of your time. But as you
know before, we let you gofor your incredibly busy day and we uh,
what is your favorite way to kickback in New Orleans when you're off
duty? Well, I usually Isaw it of spending time with my family.
(30:59):
I have very small children. Igot a son and twin girls and
my wife, so I try,I try to spend time with them.
We do spend a lot of timeat the restaurant in catering, uh so
we tend to like to go out. Well, we live close to the
lake and I spend time with thefamily. We tend to do a bike
(31:21):
ride on the lake or a walkon the lakefront and usually play outside with
them. And that's that's where mylife is outside of the restaurant industry,
outside of catering. Well, wecan't wait to do some biking on the
lake as well once we get settledin jazz Fest. We want to remind
everybody that classes is in mid city. There's a great catering operation. The
(31:44):
instagram is Klessi Seafood one s cl e s I Seafood, so you
can follow and see some great pictures. It's definitely a wonderful place to visit
and casual, low key, theway we like New Orleans. Carlo Klessi,
thank you for joining us on theconnected table. Hopefully we'll be clicking
glasses and peeling some shrimp or eatingsome crawfish with you sometime when we can
(32:07):
get together in person. Melanie David, thank y'all so much. I really
appreciate the opportunity to talk with y'all. It's been quite an experience and I
enjoyed it, and I look forwardto seeing y'all in person very soon,
and we look forward to it aswell. Practically neighbors. I know so
you've been listening to The Connected Tablelive from New Orleans. As you know,
(32:29):
we love to travel. We dodeeply love the city. We love
it so much we've made it ournew home. So if you are in
the New Orleans area plenty come pleasereach out to us. You can follow
us at the Connected Table on Instagram, Connected Table on Facebook. You can
hear all our shows and more thanforty six podcast platforms and always our message
(32:49):
is stay insatiably curious. No no, no, no
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