Gerard Thabuis & Chef Gerard, Inc.

Gerard Thabuis was born in 1947 in Annecy, France near the Swiss border, and was a member of the French ski team at age 14, but also began cooking at that age.  In 1963, he had a very bad accident on the slopes which ended his skiing career, and he signed on as an apprentice at Le Père Bis in Talloire, France, a Michelin three-star restaurant. In 1965, he served a stint in the French military, followed immediately by a position as executive chef at La Table du Roy in Paris. While there, the entire kitchen staff, including Chef Gerard, were hired by Aristotle Onassis, a regular customer, and flown for one month to cook at Mr. Onassis’ new hotel on a small Greek island.

Another customer of the restaurant was President Charles de Gaulle, who coaxed Chef to move into the Elysée Palace and be his personal chef.  It was there that he met his wife, Linda, an American from Houston, Texas.  After de Gaulle left office, Chef Thabuis fulfilled his long time desire to go to the United States. His luck in America came with the marriage to Linda, and an appointment as executive chef of Brennan’s Restaurant in Houston in 1971.  Four years later he took the position of executive chef of Brennan’s of New Orleans and in 1977, he received a call from Warner Le Roy to be the chef at his new restaurant in New York City, Tavern on the Green.

In 1979, Chef Thabuis returned to New Orleans to work as the executive chef of Broussard’s in the French Quarter until 1982, when he opened his own restaurant, La Savoie, in the suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. It was there that the Great Chefs television team showed up to tape him for their third series, Great Chefs of New Orleans II.

He closed La Savoie in 1984, moving further south to become chef/manager of a plantation near the Mississippi River.  Shortly thereafter, he moved on to Reno, Nevada to consult for the casino’s food and beverage industry.