Trivia

She was a member of a New Orleans family that owns more than a dozen restaurants. She helped the careers of many prominent chefs including Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse, although she herself was not a cook.

She started out in the 1940s as co-manager, with her brother Owen, of the Vieux Carre Restaurant on Bourbon Street. She had the menu printed in English instead of French, added local Creole dishes, and became an authority on wine. In 1954, they bought an 18th-century building in the French Quarter and opened Brennan's Restaurant. In 1969, she and a sister, Adelaide Brennan, bought a run-down place called Commander's Palace and improved it to the point of national fame and reputation.

Her father was a shipyard supervisor and her mother was an accomplished cook.

Winner of the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.