The restaurants of Besh Restaurant Group [August, Besh Steak, Lüke, La Provence] have seduced the palates of New Orleans locals and visitors for the past seven years, enticing diners with their delectable blend of intense flavors and the richness of New Orleans’ culinary culture.  Now home chefs across the Gulf Coast can bring those flavors home to their own kitchens with a new line of hand-crafted products from Chef John Besh, currently available at each of the four restaurants, and at Rouses, a specialty grocery store chain throughout Louisiana and Mississippi.  

At this time, the product offerings include vinaigrettes and sauces. The vinaigrettes, which include Pepper Jelly Vinaigrette; Louisiana Sugar Cane Vinaigrette; Wild Flower Honey and Creole Mustard Vinaigrette; and Spicy Young Garlic and Parmesan Caesar Vinaigrette, draw inspiration from the region’s country roots.  When it came to developing sauces and glazes, Besh and his chefs opted for complex, deeply flavored recipes, which you will find in the Sour Mashed Steak Sauce. This labor intensive sauce begins with a rich, dark base of caramelized shallots, onions, and garlic to which vinegar, a touch of tomato, and some fresh red pepper add bright notes of acidity and heat.  

“These products contain ingredients that we use in our kitchens and that we want people to take home and use,” says Besh. The process sounds easy, but it turned out to be quite complicated translating the freshly-made, small-batch recipes of Besh Restaurant Group’s kitchens into a hand-crafted commercial product line. “I’m used to adding a pinch of this and a little bit of that, but in the research and development kitchen, everything has been measured to perfection.”