They would order the dish but ask that it be served without the snails. inflation since then, seem stunningly low: $3.50 for the Escargots Bourguignonne (snails in herbed garlic butter) that became a signature dish $7.50 for Coq au Vin (chicken in red wine sauce) $9.35 for Entrecote Frere Jacques (New York strip steak sauteed with herb-butter sauce) $3.15 for the restaurant's legendary Les Souffles Chauds (Grand Marnier or Chocolate Rum).īash remembers that escargot were off-putting to some Arkansas diners. The video includes a glimpse of Jacques and Suzanne's original menu, which featured some dishes finished by flaming at tableside or some other theatrical touch. Today I would put our restaurants up against the finest in any other similar sized or even larger city."
The fact that so many of the principals came from Europe and made Little Rock their home benefited our culinary scene. It was also about the American Dream and the immigrants who came and made their home in America. "It became more than just the story of a fancy restaurant. On the day of the anniversary dinner, we set up in the old Jacques and Suzanne space to interview those who had come to town for the dinner or still lived here."Ĭranford says the production developed an undertone he hadn't anticipated: "So along with our friend Drake Mann, we decided to capture the legendary restaurant on video. "Tony Poe told me that a Jacques and Suzanne menu would be served on that special night," Cranford says. That restaurant at 1620 Market Street is named for Petit and entrepreneur Jim Keet. They stayed only about a year before selling their namesake restaurant to a consortium including Bash, Petit, Ed Moore and Kathy Goss.Ĭranford's video was inspired in part by the Jacques and Suzanne Legacy Celebration staged in September 2021 at Petit & Keet (and repeated this year). The formality of attire was instilled by Swiss husband-and-wife proprietors Jacques and Suzanne Tritten, who came to Little Rock for the business opportunity on the top floor of the new bank tower. The tie mandate was later loosened, but men were asked to don a jacket right up to closing night in 1986. In a rule almost unheard of today, male diners were required to wear a tie and jacket. "Every night was like a symphony." He cites "the expectation of getting beautifully dressed. "People loved that coming here meant it would be a very special occasion," Petit says. The rest of us, as we enjoy today's panoply of decent dining choices in Little Rock, can marvel at the rarefied splendor of Jacques and Suzanne - not only the quality of its food but also the elegance of its setting and service. There the dining room's chandeliers still hang in high style above a long-empty space, casting a tinge of melancholy.
The audience can return, visually at least, to the 30th-floor eyrie of what was then the First National Bank Building and is now Regions Center. Among the video's stars are Paul Bash, Louis Petit and Denis Seyer. Viewers of a certain age with distant but delectable memories from the city's first temple of haute cuisine will relish revisiting the restaurant. Produced by filmmaker Chris Cranford, the video can be savored at. Now the fabled dining room is passing our way again, courtesy of a half-hour documentary titled "Elevated: How Jacques & Suzanne Lifted Little Rock's Cuisine." It departed 11 years later, trailing in its wake a flotilla of descendants. The restaurant landed in 1975 like a fantasy from outer space at the top of what was then Little Rock's tallest building.
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