Bartenders of NO - Home

INTERVIEWS
O’Neil Broyard
Greg Cowman
Gilberto Eyzaguirre
Paul Gustings
Gertrude Mayfield
Bobby Oakes
Michael Santucci
Martin Sawyer
Michael Smith
John Strickland
Floria Woodard

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This project was sponsored by a grant from Southern Comfort.

Interviews and photographs by Amy Evans

Gilberto Eyzaguirre

“We became famous for being the best drinks in New Orleans [at Galatoire’s]. As far as content, amount—and the quality of the drink, too… It’s like serving food. You know what people like. How they like the drink? And that’s, you know, and that’s what makes the relationship more deep, you know. Stronger.”

– Gilberto Eyzaguirre

For anyone familiar with the famed Galatoire’s Restaurant on Bourbon Street in the heart of the French Quarter, Gilberto’s reputation precedes him. It was during his twenty-five year tenure as a waiter at there that he made cocktails for his customers, which was part of the Galatoire’s tradition. The restaurant has seen quite a few changes in recent years, and the hiring of bartenders is one of them. But Gilberto is from the era of Galatoire’s service when waiters chopped ice from blocks, prepared Café Brulot tableside and became notorious for their generously mixed cocktails served to their devoted customers. And what customer wouldn’t be devoted to a waiter who could write their name in flames on the tablecloth in front of them as he prepared a Café Brulot? At Galatoire’s, beloved waiters not only gave excellent service, they poured excellent drinks.

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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

SUBJECT: Gilberto Eyzaguirre
DATE: April 1, 2005
LOCATION: New Orelans Athletic Club
INTERVIEWER: Amy Evans

Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s Friday, April first, two thousand and five at about two p.m. in the afternoon. And I am at the New Orleans Athletic Club on Rampart Street with Gilberto Eyzaguirre, um, who was a waiter at Galatoire’s and is now at Tommy’s Restaurant in the central business district on Tchoupitoulas Street. Is that right?

Gilberto Eyzaguirre: Right.

All right. And, um, Gilberto, if you wouldn’t mind stating your name and also your birthdate for the record.

Okay, uh, I’m name is Gilberto Eyzaguirre. I was born in, uh, August twenty-ninth, nineteen forty-five. In Lim, Peru.

And what brought you to New Orleans?

Well, uh, actually I went to school in New Orleans in the [nineteen] seventies. And, um, I had a lot of family. And my cousin-in-law, you know, persuaded me come—to come to New Orleans. You know, we were going through a—Peru was going through a terrorist groups at that time, so most of the people—everybody was trying to get out. So I had the opportunity to get—to leave, and, uh, I came to New Orleans and, uh, after a week my cousin-in-law says, “Well, before you wait—wait for a job, you know, with the government, why don’t you work, you know, until you get a job? Okay. So f—I start—start working. I [had] never worked in a restaurant so, you know, in that type of service industry. And, uh, I liked it. So, uh, I keep staying there. I always was quitting, uh, or doing other things but, uh, you know. Like the customers, uh, I established a relationship with them and so it was kind of hard to detach from that, you know, feeling.

What year was this?

That was in nineteen seventy-nine…October. So I stayed there until, uh, April, twenty-seventh, two thousand and two.

So the first—the first restaurant job you had was at Galatoire’s?

The only one.

The only restaurant job you’ve had in New Orleans?

The only one.

Oh, my goodness. So what was that application process like? Did they have—

Well, uh, Galatoire’s traditionally has been hiring waiters through the word of mouth…The waiters that work there bring other people. They have, uh, same family members working as waiters right now. Cajuns, you know. So they don’t advertise. They just bring people that are related or friends or [that] somebody recommended.

But you had no—

I didn’t have any—

—experience prior to this.

—experience at all. I had never worked in a restaurant.

So how did that work out for you?

Well, at the beginning it was a little nervous. Mostly because, uh—uh, I used to work for the Peruvian government. I used to represent Peru controlling grains in--in different ports. Like we buy grains from the U.S., the Gulf, Argentina, Canada. So it was different, so I had to overcome a few things. You know, the prejudice o serving tables, waiting on—[laughs], you know. But, uh, basically, I liked it and, uh, I developed like an osmosis with the customers. And, uh, that kept me going. And, you know, it last[ed] for a long time. [Short laugh]

Yeah, well and at Galatoire’s—it’s such a high tradition there.

Right.

What was the learning curve for you to get used to that kind of service?

Well [short pause] Galatoire’s—I started waiting on a lady that was like eight-five when I started working, so I was telling here, “Yeah,” you know, she’d start asking a question and said—she said, uh, “What, uh—yeah, you know”—and I tried to tell her that this is a restaurant. [She said], “No, this is not a restaurant. This is an institution in New Orleans.” So I learned the concept right away. And the culture was different probably at Galatoire’s than any other restaurant…You know, it’s—it’s a different deal. And, uh, which [short pause] a lot of things has to do with the ambiance, the food and the service. Which are the three fragile elements of success—a successful business. And well, the three look like they have, you know, they are placed right. [Laughs]

Right.

And that’s what makes Galatoire’s different from other restaurants, I think. You know.
Well and the focus on this historical piece is on cocktail culture in New Orleans and bartenders, specifically. But Galatoire’s is one of the unique places in that the wait staff serve drinks for—

Right—most of its existence until about—was it fifteen years ago?

[Nineteen] ninety-seven.

Ten years ago? Not even.

Yeah.

Okay. So can you describe, um, a little bit of what that was like, serving cocktails for customers?

When I started working, uh, you learn—learn through trials too. So it was just a practical—kind of quick. Because you do so many drinks. I mean, we used to—we became famous for being the best drinks in New Orleans. As far as content, amount—and the quality of the drink, too. But [clears throat] and, uh, it took me a while to learn all the drinks because there are many drinks. The regular drinks, you can learn it, but there are some sophisticated drinks too. [Laughs] That it takes time for—you know, to right it—to balance the right elements, you know, the amounts and all that.

And how did you learn to do that?

And, uh, just practice. As in watching other people, the amounts and seeing what they do. It’s just observation, you know. [Clears throat] But, uh, like one of the most famous drinks from Galatoire’s is Sazeracs, you know. Have a little accent, you know, because—it’s a must. You know, most people go there and no, they never have the drink. Have it. They even sell—sometimes they sell bottles. They make it, if the customer wants to buy? They make it. But, uh, it was exciting. Until nineteen—nineteen ninety-seven, that, uh, they have the new manager come in and do new ideas [short laugh] tried to change the place. So the computers and, uh, one of the key ingredients of the drinks—and that’s why Galatoire’s was different from any restaurant—was [clears throat] that we use to chop ice. For like two hours. And the—the—the drink would remain undiluted for a while [because of the quality of the ice]. You wouldn’t start losing the consistency, you know. And, uh, he changed it to the machine [that makes ice]. You know, everybody has it. Like, uh, if you don’t drink quickly it melts quick and you will lose, you know, the taste of [the drink]. Uh, and then he [hired] bartenders too…So that was, uh, made the difference. After that, we never served drinks anymore. We served them, but we didn’t make them.

What did the rest of the wait staff think about that? Was it—

Well [clears throat] actually, we were—people, uh, were disappointed, uh, some customers—well, they’d give me twenty dollars. I’d say, “What’s that for?” They would say, “Give this to the bartender, and tell him [to] let you make the drink.”…That’s how important it was, the drink for them. [Laughs]

Right.

The new bartenders—who knows. They weren’t making the way they used to. So—
Yeah. And it takes the—the personal interaction away—

Exactly! —from the making of the drink.

Exactly.

So you’re not making them for your customers, there’s an anonymous person—

Exactly, exactly. It’s like serving food. You—some—you know what people like. How they like the drink? And that’s, you know, and that’s what makes the relationship more deep, you know. Stronger.

Can you talk about, um, some of your regular customers? Not necessarily by name but, um, some requests for drinks that you served over the years or—

Well [short pause] Well most of the drinks, uh, actually, we don’t—we don’t, uh, do—we do the most common drinks. Anyway, the popular drinks. We—drinks that aren’t, you know, too sophisticated. Too complex. You see? Actually, sometimes they don’t even have some—some [of the] ingredients. You know? Like Hurricanes, things like that. The Mint Juleps. Things like that. But most of the drinks, you know, they were what people want, you know. They were there. So it’s—It’s not really a menu or anything like that. Just, uh, you make it like—

People come to New Orleans and they want—

Regular drinks, right. And they realized that I work in different restaurant. They serve the best drinks in New Orleans. For the portion too. You know. So that’s one of the reasons people go to [Galatoire’s] It’s not only the food, it’s the drinks. That we had the edge over the other places. We used to have…Until it was, eh—but, uh, it was, uh, very, uh, engaging experience. The waiters used to chop their ice and make their own drinks.

And would you say that, um, given the regular clientele that goes through there and people asking for specific waiters when they dine at Galatoire’s, do you think as much as that was—I mean it all falls under the umbrella of service, but do you think a certain way a certain waiter made a cocktail had a lot to do with that allegiance?

[I]t could be—it was an important factor. I mean, usually most, uh, I think the—the early ones was in the personal charm of each person. The waiter, you know, to the customers and [short pause]—and entertaining the customers, I think, is probably good business too. You go to a restaurant, you know, you get waited on, you drink, you [get] food but, uh, how do you feel good in the experience? That’s what makes a difference, I think.

And then the first bartender—full-time bartender that [Galatoire’s] hired, was that someone that had worked in lots of other New Orleans restaurants, or were they coming in kind of green?

Well, they, uh—actually [short pause] they had a—they had a bunch. It turned hands. They didn’t last too long…The first ones that I remember, uh, especially with the, uh—see we used to prepare our drinks. We w—we would do it fast because that’s a fast business there. And these bartenders are now used to that, you know? You’ve got three, four waiters waiting for a drink. “I need my drink!” you know. [Laughs] So—so it was a kind of uncomfortable with the—because of the idea of the bartender is to serve quick to the customers like they’re used to. And not waiting. I mean, we weren’t used to that, you know? So that created a lot of conflict with many bartenders. They quit. They didn’t stay too long because they were—they felt they were harassed or you know [laughs] so many characters and waiters that have been [there] thirty or forty years. It’s just they—they have seniority in other words, you know.

They’d go back and make their own cocktails anyway.

Right. Exactly. And so but, uh, they changed so many people as bartenders, it’s unreal. I think right now they don’t have anybody that I knew two years ago. Of course, that’s a difference, you know.

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What about things like Café Brulot? Can you talk about how that’s served and—

Yeah, that’s the most popular after-dinner drink—particular after-dinner drink. Uh, you kind of preheat it, you now, and you just, uh, do the flaming [cognac] at—at the table. And, I went [laugh] well, they used to—we created a system—well, not a system, a tradition of put—we put the flame on the—over the tablecloth. And, uh, they didn’t mind. The customer wanted, you know, to see some performance, you know, it’s just a little fame and dis—extinguish it. And I did, uh, I reached the point [where] I could use names—write names. You know, like you are Amy, I put “Amy” in flames, you know, in the tablecloth. But, uh, sometimes it was a little dangerous in the way—not burning anybody but, uh, [clears throat] like one of the waiters, uh, had ten people [and] they were drunk. [They] said, “Throw it in the—the flame on the table!” So they were too—too compact, everybody, so he kind of missed the line—the table, and he hit it here and there [motions to the arm and forearm]. The guy [said,] “Oh!” He didn’t get burned, but it was hot—you know, it becomes real hot…But, uh, that’s one of probably the only—probably the only place that really is famous for [Café] Brulot. You have to—it’s a must with the local people.

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Does Galatoire’s make a lot of other traditional New Orleans cocktails?

Well, besides—I would say the Sazeracs is—the—the—you know, they used to call it, uh, the Galatoire’s Special.

That was the Sazerac?

The—some people didn’t know, you know, and [they’d say,] “No, we want the Galatoire’s Special.” But, uh, after that [one]? No, all the drinks were [short pause] consistent. And most people now drink, uh, vodka, you know?

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Well do you have any thoughts or ideas about New Orleans as a kind of traditional cocktail culture and the history and tradition of cocktails that have come from New Orleans, specifically?

Well, uh [short pause] people in New Orleans drink a lot. I think they drink more than any city, I think. I mean, really. You have twenty-five hund—twenty-five hundred restaurants. Only—only in New Orleans. We’re not talking [about anything in] Metairie or anything. And, uh, basically they have—they have people that like to have a good time. Eat well, you know. They like eat—to live in other words. That’s one of the passions: to eat, drink, you know, and have a good time. That’s what makes it different—the city so entertaining, you know.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.