My grandmother was born in Saint-Mandrier, a fishing village on the southern shore of Toulon harbour, in 1928. She married my grandfather Olivier in 1956 and they opened the pension on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in 1962 — fourteen rooms, fourteen breakfasts, two services for dinner, one menu.
She cooked the menu of the pension herself, almost without help, for the next thirty-six years. The recipes were the food of the coast: bouillabaisse on Fridays, ratatouille whenever the aubergines were good, pissaladière the moment the onions came in. The Lou family pension closed in 1998.
She kept the recipes — in a single folio book, in her handwriting, with annotations in three different inks and at least one tomato stain — until she died in the spring of 2021. The book is now in my kitchen.
I trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, then for five years in Marseille — Le Petit Nice with Gérald Passédat, Une Table au Sud, and a year on the pass at AM par Alexandre Mazzia. I learnt how to cook from very good chefs.
The recipes I really wanted to cook, however, were Lou's. In 2024 I took a lease on a former wine shop on Bedford Street in the West Village — six tables, eight bar seats, a kitchen the size of a small closet — and opened Maison Lou in October. The restaurant is named for her, and it serves her food, almost exactly as she made it.
We do not freeze. We do not vacuum-seal. The market changes the menu, not us.
A single ingredient, cooked properly, served on a plate of the right size. Lou's standard, every single time.
A meal at Maison Lou is meant to take ninety minutes. We do not turn tables hard. The fourth course should never feel like a fifth.
Chef-owner
Lou's granddaughter. Trained at Le Cordon Bleu and then through five years in Marseille kitchens — Le Petit Nice, Une Table au Sud, AM par Alexandre Mazzia. Opened Maison Lou in autumn 2024, in a former wine shop on Bedford Street. Cooks the recipes Lou taught her, almost exactly as written, except for the bouillabaisse, where she has made one quiet change Lou would have allowed.
Sous chef
Joined Maison Lou from a year at L'Arpège. Runs the line on Friday and Saturday nights, presses the panisse, and has memorised the names of every regular within their first three visits.
Sommelière
A Provençal native who studied at the Université de Toulon. The wine list is almost entirely her — eighty bottles, mostly natural, almost all from south of Lyon.
Pâtissier
A Catalan baker who joined to make the bread (every day, from a 19-year-old starter) and the desserts. The tarte tatin is his. The île flottante is Lou's.
The cuisine of Provence and the Côte d'Azur is the cuisine of a small triangle bordered by Marseille, Menton, and Aix-en-Provence. Olive oil instead of butter, sun-dried herbs instead of cream sauces, the daily fish from the morning's market.
We import most of our pantry — anchovies from Collioure, olives from Nyons, saffron from Valensole, herbs from Provence. The rest comes from the Union Square greenmarket, the Fulton Fish Market, and a small farm in Hudson Valley that grows Niçoise vegetables for us at half a dozen restaurants.
Tuesday through Sunday, lunch and dinner. The recipes are Lou's. The welcome is mine.
