Natchez’s grande dame of the kitchen, chef Regina Charboneau, shares the secrets of her decades of success and her best tips for being a gracious host
Words By: Nicole Letts
Chef Regina Charboneau is fresh off a trip from California. She tells of days spent at the Los Angeles farmers market noshing on unique bites and gathering farm-fresh produce. Of course, she laughs, this is in addition to the cooler full of prepared foods she brought with her. The “ice-chest,” she says, was filled with coq au vin potpie and shrimp and corn chowder, so her host could continue to eat well long after she returned home to Natchez, Mississippi. “You can’t shake off Southern hospitality, and I can’t travel without an ice chest full of food,” Charboneau says.
A seventh-generation Natchezian, Charboneau has been named the “biscuit queen” by the New York Times. She left Mississippi in the 1980s, eventually landing in San Francisco, where she became a key part of the American fine dining movement and owned several restaurants. She returned to Natchez 25 years ago, and today she teaches biscuit-making classes to those who travel to Natchez to learn from the queen herself. In Natchez, she’s doing what she loves—feeding folks.
What are some of your earliest cooking memories?
I’m one of nine children. My mother did a lot of amazing things, but she couldn’t cook. My father was from south Louisiana, so he had the cooking gene. When you’re one of nine children, whenever you have time with your mother or your father alone, it’s special. One day, my father was going to South Louisiana to buy oysters and satsumas. We went to three different vendors. They would shuck oysters, and he would taste them. He got a couple of sacks when he found the one he liked the best. I can taste the salty brine of those. Later, I remember looking at the satsumas and thinking they didn’t look very good because they were green and orange. My father said to me, “Fruit does not grow with a producer’s name written on it. This is what the real deal is.” That was an eye-opener at an early age about the quality of products.
How did you land in California?
Doug and I have been married 43 years, and I remember when we first started dating, he said, “I need someone who will follow me anywhere,” and I said, “Funny, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, too.” We were in Alaska. We knew we needed to move, so we looked at Hawaii, New York, and San Francisco. The food and weather were wonderful in San Francisco, and we moved cold turkey. Once there, I had this idea to open my first restaurant, Regina’s at the Regis. I was inspired by chefs like Jeremiah Tower, Mark Miller, Bradley Ogden, and Wolfgang Puck.
She returned to Natchez 25 years ago, and today she teaches biscuit-making classes to those who travel to Natchez to learn from the queen herself. In Natchez, she’s doing what she loves—feeding folks.
Tell me about Regina’s.
It was my lucky break in the restaurant business, especially because of the location in the theater district. It was a resurgence of the theater in San Francisco with the popularity of Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables. I had a captive audience right across the street from my restaurant. I wanted to be like a Sardi’s West. Actors from plays started coming in. You would see Tim Curry and Shirley McLean and all these different people.
Why do you think these huge celebrities were so comfortable at Regina’s?
I think it goes back to the Southern hospitality. It was innate for me. I remembered what they ate and the table they liked. They came because they felt at home. That’s been the key to my restaurants.
How have you continued that hospitality and reconnected with it in Natchez?
We have this cute French apartment about 30 seconds from my cooking school. There, I have a big, 500-square-foot porch that seats 12, so that’s where I entertain. I have a pizza oven and an outdoor bathtub where I ice down beer and wine for parties.
Considering you’re a veteran chef, what is something I should make a habit of adding to my shopping cart every week?
I have to have lemons and shallots. I think shallots are the most underused, flavorful thing that makes a perfect salad dressing. And mustard. That’s my trio, my trifecta. I can make something out of those.
A seventh-generation Natchezian, Charboneau has been named the “biscuit queen” by the New York Times.
REGINA’S BUTTER BISCUITS
Ingredients yields 22 – 2 inch biscuits
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1 stick (1/4 pound) salted butter – cut into 10-12 slices)
3 sticks (3/4 pound) margarine sticks (firm margarine is essential) Cut margarine into thirds.
Leaving the margarine in large pieces is critical to the process.
1 3/4 cups (14 ounces) buttermilk
3/4 cup of flour for flouring the fat each time before rolling
Tea Towel 2-inch biscuit cutter /Baking sheet (for freezing biscuits)
Muffin tin for baking frozen biscuits
Notes
I prefer Land O Lakes because it is firmer than most brands. Some well-known brands are often to soft and get incorporated into the dough too fast, making the biscuits oily and less flaky. Never use tub margarine or Crisco for this recipe.
Make sure to roll the dough out to 1 1/2 inches before cutting into biscuits. A common mistake is rolling the dough too thin. Thick is good, and it shows off all the layers. Tall biscuits work well in the essential muffin tin.
Do not put the dough in a ball after the first batch of cutting biscuits.
Cut and stack the dough to protect the layers; this will ensure the last biscuit is as flaky as the first.
Biscuits must be frozen before baking, and they must be baked in a muffin tin.
Directions
Put all dry ingredients into the stand mixer bowl with the paddle attachment. Blend dry ingredients for 10-15 seconds.
Add butter pieces, margarine cubes, and buttermilk. Mix slowly, ten seconds at the lowest speed, counting to ten. Count 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, etc. Do not over-mix; having large chunks of margarine and pieces of butter is vital. As you roll and fold (a process called laminating), the large pieces will get incorporated and create a ribbon effect that creates 24 layers of flaky biscuits.
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour on the tea towel. Scrape dough from the bowl onto the tea towel. Use the tea towel to shape the dough into a long vertical rectangle about 2 inches thick. The dough will seem rough and messy in the beginning, but it will come together each time you roll and fold thirds, adding a quarter turn each of the eight times.
Roll out to ½ inches in one direction, top to bottom (not sideways), using the tea towel edges. Pull the top of the dough to fold into thirds, then to the bottom, gently pressing the air out. Then turn clockwise—a quarter turn—to the right. You do this the same way seven times.
Now, on the eighth, roll and fold, but roll out to 1 1/2 inches. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, punch the cutter into the dough cleanly without twisting. Cut the biscuits and place them on a cookie sheet for freezing. After the first batch of biscuits are cut, cutting, and stacking the excess dough is essential to protect the layers. If you do this, the last biscuit will be as flaky as the first. Refrain from overworking the dough. Protect those layers you created.
