In the Land of Cocktails

About

Want to get in touch with the Cock­tail Chicks? Visit our Con­tact page.

Wel­come to The Land Of Cock­tails!
The ulti­mate insider’s jour­ney into the dynamic cul­ture of cock­tails, wine and food from America’s first party town, New Orleans.  The brain­child of Ti Mar­tin and Lally Bren­nan, the “Cock­tail Chicks,” own­ers and pro­pri­etors of Commander’s Palace, Zagat’s 17-time top-rated restau­rant in New Orleans, and authors of the best-selling book “In the Land of Cock­tails.”

No More Bad Cock­tails! This des­ti­na­tion site is for any­one with an appre­ci­a­tion for fine liv­ing and din­ing.  If you want to Join the Rev­o­lu­tion this is your place.  Ti and Lally serve as your ambas­sadors of cock­tail excel­lence around the world, intro­duc­ing you to the top bar chefs, authors, and per­son­al­i­ties as their guests.  Come back often! 

Bios

Ti Ade­laide Mar­tin
Restau­ra­teur

Food, fam­ily, tra­di­tion and the New Orleans restau­rant world were the early launch­ing pads for
Ti Ade­laide Martin’s diverse and suc­cess­ful career. Indeed, this would be the world to which she would ulti­mately return after study­ing and prac­tic­ing busi­ness else­where. Today, Ti applies her eclec­tic past and raw busi­ness acu­men to co-running her family’s leg­endary restau­rant – the his­toric Commander’s Palace – back on her home turf in New Orleans.

Ti cred­its  her mother, Ella Bren­nan,  the “grande dame” of  her family’s restau­rant dynasty (which cur­rently includes Commander’s Palace, Commander’s Palace & The On The Rocks Bar in Des­tin, Florida, Café Ade­laide & The Swiz­zle Stick Bar and Brennan’s of Hous­ton), for set­ting the stage for her even­tual love of the restau­rant busi­ness. “When I was a child, she was always host­ing these lav­ish, and I mean lav­ish, par­ties at our house. Most were catered by Brennan’s (then owned by her par­ents) and there were lots of inter­est­ing peo­ple and food pro­fes­sion­als there from around the coun­try. I spent a ton of time in the restau­rant as a child – dish wash­ing, print­ing sou­venirs on the menus – what­ever was needed,” Ti describes.

Ti attended New­man High School in her home­town before spread­ing her wings to attend South­ern Methodist Uni­ver­sity in Dal­las, Texas, where she received a degree in busi­ness. Though Ti orig­i­nally con­tem­plated a career in law, she ulti­mately pur­sued busi­ness stud­ies at Tulane University’s grad­u­ate school where she attained an MBA in Finance and Mar­ket­ing in 1984. Ti applied her knowl­edge to a real estate career in Hous­ton, Texas, before return­ing to New Orleans in 1986.

Again, her mother Ella, this time due to health rea­sons, was the pri­mary impe­tus for com­ing home and get­ting into the busi­ness of the fam­ily restau­rants. “She had a triple bi-pass and I said, whoa, she’s my men­tor and my best pal. Let me go home now and enjoy work­ing with her,” says Ti.

Ever the entre­pre­neur, Ti launched a food prod­ucts com­pany called Cre­ole Crav­ings in 1986, which she even­tu­ally sold to McCormick. Ti then got on the fam­ily restau­rant band­wagon with cousins Dickie and Brad Bren­nan to open Palace Café restau­rant in 1991, which Esquire mag­a­zine sub­se­quently named one of the top ten new restau­rants in America.

By 1997 Ti became full time co-proprietor of Commander’s Palace, a title she shares with her cousin Lally Bren­nan. “We run the joint,” Ti says with a gig­gle. Seri­ously, Ti directs the bulk of her ener­gies towards the food and busi­ness end of things at the restau­rant. In addi­tion, she has penned three cook­books includ­ing James Beard Foun­da­tion nom­i­nated Commander’s Kitchen, which she co-authored with Commander’s Palace Exec­u­tive Chef the late Jamie Shan­non. Pub­lished in 2001, it was fol­lowed by In the Land of Cock­tails, a hit recipe book of 75 cock­tails, their his­tory and why they’re impor­tant to New Orleans. Co-authored with her cousin Lally Bren­nan, released on Novem­ber 1, 2007 (Harper­Collins). Also look for Commander’s Wild Side, an ode to the hunt­ing and fish­ing lore of life in Louisiana inspired by Commander’s Palace’s “Off the Menu” tele­vi­sion series, in autumn 2008.

Of Commander’s Palace, her pro­fes­sional home of the past decade, and the seat of her soul for much of her life, Ti speaks with pride and nos­tal­gia. “We may hold the keys to Commander’s, but the restau­rant really belongs to New Orleans. We try to live up to what peo­ple expect and want it to be even bet­ter and to rep­re­sent what the city is all about – not just the food, but the way of life, the soul and the atti­tude that is New Orleans.”

A lov­ing and active aunt to her “big, won­der­ful Irish clan of nieces and nephews,” Ti also pur­sues sev­eral civic and restau­rant indus­try activ­i­ties including:

• Board Mem­ber, New Orleans Avi­a­tion Board
• Com­mence­ment Speaker, Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity New Orleans May 2005
• Co-founder, New Orleans “Proud to Call it Home” Campaign
• Past Mem­ber, Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of Metrovision
• Board Mem­ber, Bureau of Gov­ern­men­tal Research
• Co-Chair, 1997 Louisiana Human Rights Campaign
• Louisiana Board Mem­ber, United Negro Col­lege Fund
• Past Board Mem­ber, Young Lead­er­ship Council
• Past Board Mem­ber and Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, Greater New Orleans Met­ro­pol­i­tan Tourism and Con­ven­tion Bureau
• Les Dames d’Escoffier
• Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Professionals
• IAWCR – Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Women Chefs and Restau­ra­teurs (found­ing mem­ber, New Orleans Chapter)
• Inter­na­tional Women’s Forum

Awards:

• 2005 Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity New Orleans – Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate, Business
• 2000 City Busi­ness – City Busi­ness’ Women of the Year Award
• 1999 Nation’s Restau­rant News – 50 New Tastemakers
• 1999 Gam­bit – Top 40 Under 40
• 1998 New Orleans Mag­a­zine – Iberville Award Winner
• 1997 Restau­rants and Insti­tu­tions Mag­a­zine – Ivy Award “Restau­ra­teur of Distinction”
• 1997 Women Busi­ness Own­ers’ Award

Lally Bren­nan
Restau­ra­teur

For restau­rant vet­eran Lally Bren­nan, work and fam­ily are inex­tri­ca­bly linked. Lally counts as fam­ily not only the eight mem­bers of the Bren­nan brood that suc­cess­fully steer the Commander’s Palace Fam­ily of Restau­rants, but also the patrons of the lauded restau­rant group (which includes flag­ship prop­erty Commander’s Palace and Café Ade­laide & The Swiz­zle Stick Bar in New Orleans and Brennan’s of Hous­ton), and the restaurant’s col­lec­tive staff. “It’s cru­cial to like what you do and the peo­ple you serve and work with. I con­sider all of them fam­ily. I truly respect and admire every sin­gle one of our patrons and the peo­ple that work with us. Just like fam­ily, we always want them to earn our respect,” Lally explains.

Lally’s pro­fes­sional life hasn’t always revolved around restau­rants, but the plea­sures of food, fam­ily tra­di­tion and restau­rants run through her veins. The daugh­ter of second-generation Amer­i­cans with respec­tive roots in Italy and Ire­land, Lally was lit­er­ally raised on good food. “It was our lifestyle. My mother always had big fam­ily din­ners at our house. She’d cook and have some­thing fab­u­lous and Ital­ian or maybe corned beef and cab­bage for my Irish Dad. It’s the stuff I grew up on.” At the age of 13, Lally received her first intro­duc­tion into the family’s bur­geon­ing restau­rant busi­ness work­ing the front door at Brennan’s on Royal Street and help­ing with paper­work in the attic upstairs.

Des­tiny and an inter­est in art his­tory and design would ulti­mately deliver Lally to the hal­lowed halls of South­ern Methodist Uni­ver­sity in Dal­las, Texas for col­le­giate stud­ies, tem­porar­ily remov­ing her from her home­town and fam­ily in New Orleans. But by the time she was near­ing 30, her father gen­tly asked her to come back to help with the grow­ing fam­ily busi­ness. Never one to say no to her “true South­ern gen­tle­man” Dad, Lally jumped in, ini­tially over­see­ing the front of the house as a floor man­ager at Mr. B’s, a New Orleans-style cui­sine restau­rant then owned by her father. “I did a bit of every­thing. My three days a week turned into five days a week with split shifts. I got pulled into the lifestyle of the busi­ness and I loved it,” she recalls.

Within two years, Lally was trans­ferred to the family’s leg­endary restau­rant star, Commander’s Palace, which she cur­rently co-owns with her cousin, Ti Ade­laide Mar­tin. Over the past two decades, Lally has put her tire­less energy, busi­ness acu­men and artis­tic tal­ents to work in many capac­i­ties, includ­ing play­ing an active role in the post-Katrina redec­o­ra­tion and design of the restau­rant – an ele­gant look she describes as “cur­rent and whim­si­cal”. But, she doesn’t approach her work with heavy-handed whimsy.

“I feel a major respon­si­bil­ity to carry on the work that my fam­ily has done and to strive for per­fec­tion on a daily basis. I expect it of myself and New Orleans and the world expects it of us,” says Lally.
When she’s not at the restau­rant, Lally enjoys spend­ing time with her seven nieces and nephews which range in age from 4 to 23. Recently, she’s become involved in a New Orleans-based orga­ni­za­tion called Girls First. Its prin­ci­ple mis­sion is to build self esteem and improve the lives and futures of inner city girls. Lally’s other con­sid­er­able civic, char­i­ta­ble and indus­try activ­i­ties include:

• The Audubon Institute
• Pre­vent Child Abuse Board Member
• Longue Vue House & Gardens
• Con­tem­po­rary Arts Cen­ter, Past Board Member
• New Orleans Cen­ter for the Cre­ative Arts
• Junior League Sustainer
• Her­man Grima Foundation
• Co-founder, Les Dames d’Escoffiers, the New Orleans Chapter
• Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Culi­nary Professionals
• James Beard Foundation
• Louisiana Restau­rant Association
• New Orleans Met­ro­pol­i­tan Con­ven­tion and Vis­i­tors Bureau
• Women’s Chefs and Restaurateurs

Geor­gia Rags­dale
Exec­u­tive Pro­ducer
Geor­gia wishes she knew as much as Ti Mar­tin for­got about cock­tails!  She is the cur­rently the Pres­i­dent and CEO of Water­mark Finan­cial, Inc., a bou­tique com­mer­cial mort­gage bro­ker­age com­pany in Los Ange­les.  Geor­gia per­son­ally over­sees nearly $100M in financ­ing each year through­out the com­mer­cial sec­tor.  A native Texan and South­ern Methodist Uni­ver­sity grad­u­ate, Geor­gia has a back­ground in the arts as well as busi­ness and enjoys the mar­riage of com­merce with enter­tain­ment, food and beverage.

Nan­cylee Myatt
Writer/Producer
Nan­cylee Myatt has been writ­ing and pro­duc­ing prime­time tele­vi­sion, fea­tures and plays for the last 15 years. Some of Ms. Myatt’s tele­vi­sion cred­its include, “Night Court,” where she worked the last two sea­sons of its eleven-year run and ended up writ­ing the series finale. She was the only female writer on the staff of “The Pow­ers That Be” with Nor­man Lear, as well as pro­duc­ing and writ­ing on “The Five Mrs. Buchanans” and “Liv­ing Sin­gle” for which she won a NAACP award. Ms. Myatt cre­ated and pro­duced the teen sit­com “Social Stud­ies” for UPN. For two sea­sons she pounded out episodes of “Recess,” “Lloyd in Space” and “Teacher’s Pet” from Dis­ney TV ani­ma­tion and ABC for which she won an Emmy for 2001. For the last two years Miss Myatt launched and served as the Co-Executive Producer/show run­ner, Writer and Direc­tor for “South Of Nowhere” which is head­ing into its 3rd sea­son on the N (MTV net­works). The show was recently nom­i­nated for its 2nd year in a row for a GLAAD Media Award for Best Out­stand­ing Drama.

Paige Bern­hardt
Writer/Producer
Raised in North Geor­gia, Paige found her way first to New York Uni­ver­sity and ulti­mately to Los Ange­les to be a writer/producer, play­wright and film­maker. Some of Ms. Bernhardt’s writ­ing cred­its include “Two Guys and A Girl,” “Yes, Dear” and ‘What About Joan” with Joan Cusack. Among her pro­duc­ing cred­its are “The Ride: Seven Days to End Aids” (Logo) and “Rol­ler­girls” (A&E). She is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Sit & Spin at the Com­edy Cen­tral Stage or any­where else they’ll let her talk about her­self for ten min­utes. Last sea­son she wrote for the pop­u­lar and crit­i­cally acclaimed show “South of Nowhere” on The N (MTV Networks).

Court­ney Rowe
Direc­tor
Court­ney earned a film degree from the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.  After grad­u­a­tion she applied her skills to work­ing as a 1st AD on “Fash­ion­ably L.A.” and 2nd assis­tant direc­tor on such series as “Scrubs,” “Dirt,” and “South of Nowhere” as well as many oth­ers. In 2002, Court­ney wrote and directed “On the Outs,” an audi­ence award-winning short film which was shown at fes­ti­vals in San Fran­cisco, New York, Paris, Tokyo and approx­i­mately twenty other fes­ti­vals across the globe.  When she’s not work­ing on film, tele­vi­sion and inter­net projects, you can find her drink­ing wine heav­ily.  In 2004, Court­ney took a wrong turn off the free­way and set­tled in partially-sunny Ore­gon where she began work­ing at a win­ery.  In between stomp­ing grapes and con­vinc­ing tourists that Ore­go­ni­ans can bot­tle a killer vin­tage, Court­ney pub­lished arti­cles in mag­a­zines for snobby wine peo­ple. She also worked at cor­rect­ing the mass amount of wine dis­in­for­ma­tion while teach­ing wine classes.  She con­tin­ued to put her taste for grapes to good use by becom­ing a Cer­ti­fied Som­me­lier with the Inter­na­tional Som­me­lier Guild.