Charles Rhodes (1812-1894)
The presiding spirit at Moreau’s one of New Orleans’s most famous restaurants from the 1850s to the 1890s, Charles Rhodes embodied most of the virtues found in successful restaurateurs. He had an infallible memory for names, an aura of civility that quelled even rambunctious drunks, an exquisite taste for foods and wines, and a sense of the menu. Born in Baltimore in 1822, he learned tidewater cooking as a teen, arriving in New Orleans in 1838 intent on attaching to a Restaurant. Baptiste Moreau hired Rhodes as a waiter at his restaurant on Chartres Street. When Moreau departed to take charge of the cuisine at the St. Louis Hotel, Rhodes partnered with chef Francoise Murlin to keep Moreau’s restaurant in operation. Instructed by Moreau and Murlin, Rhodes skill in kitchen craft became the equal of any in the city in the 1850s.
When the Civil War broke out, Rhodes joined the Panola Guards, and fought at Shiloh. The War and the waves of disease that swept through the city in 1867 and 1868 had thinned the ranks of the great restaurateurs of the antebellum period—Lucien Boudro, Victor Martin, and Baptiste Moreau were dead. Rhodes stood in the forefront of the culinary reconsolidation after the War. He reopened the old restaurant in 1866 and labored mightly to restore the joie de vivre of earlier times. In Christmas of 1867, for instance, Rhodes invited toymaker Hypolite Damia to stuff the dining rooms and greeting hall with gimcracks, dolls, and fancy goods. Most of the dignitaries to have visited the city, from Russian Grand Duke Alexis to President U. S. Grant, enjoyed a testimonial banquet in Moreau’s great room. In June of 1873 a movement of about 100 persons of mixed race met and dined at Moreau’s “to take steps to establish a better understanding between the white and colored people than now exists.”
In 1875 years of hard use told on the building at 123 Canal Street. Rhodes shut the business down and did a thorough renovation. The result inspired rhapsody: “As it now stands Moreau’s restaurant is about the most elegant establishment of the kind in the country, while its fare continues unsurpassed, as well as in dainties as in the regular dishes of the daily table.” In July of 1880, after 40 years of performing hospitality, Charles Rhodes sold Moreau’s restaurant to Madam Eugene (Sophie Dorn Fleche), the great Alsatian Chef, who ran the restaurant until her marriage in 1886, when she sold the premises back to Charles Rhodes. Rhodes intended to train his son William in the art of being a restaurateur. In 1888 Charles became the nominal head, and in 1892 withdrew from any connection with his restaurant at all. A fire scorched the façade of Moreau’s in 1892. Rhodes died two years later, and shortly thereafter William sold the building for a fortune, since the redevelopers of Canal Street reckoned it a prime location. He was remembered upon his passing as a pillar of the city’s culinary arts.
Sources: “The Great Exhibition at Moreau’s,” New Orleans Commercial Bulletin (December 23, 1867), 4; “Moreau’s Restaurant,” Times-Picayune (October 3, 1876), 1; “Charles Rhodes—Death of a Famous New Orleans Restaurateur,” Times-Picayune (March 22, 1894), 3.