The late Gunter Preuss, former chef and owner of Broussard’s.
Photo by Cheryl Gerber / The AP
Beginning next weekend, Oktoberfest will draw thousands of people to Deutsches Haus on Bayou St. John for the annual celebration of German food, beer and music. This week, we honor two noted local chefs known for celebrating their German heritage through their cuisine.
Wilhelm “Willy” Coln was a native of Cologne, Germany, whose career as a hotel chef took him around the world before settling in New Orleans in 1972 for a position as executive chef at the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street. Four years later, he opened his own restaurant in Gretna, called Willy Coln’s Chalet.
According to the late restaurant critic Tom Fitzmorris on his nomenu.com website, German specialties were a highlight of Coln’s menu, from wiener schnitzel and potato pancakes to beef roulade and a sausage and sauerkraut platter. He offered a special Oktoberfest menu each fall, in addition to a menu that featured other continental fare.
Coln closed his restaurant in 1989 and moved to the Inter-Continental Hotel, where he was executive chef of the Veranda restaurant and continued his tradition of offering an annual Oktoberfest menu. He retired two months before Hurricane Katrina and died in 2022.
Gunter Preuss, a native of Breslau, Germany, began his culinary career in Europe and rose through the ranks as a hotel chef in New York, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City. He came to New Orleans in 1967 for a position as executive chef at the Fairmont (now Roosevelt) Hotel and its legendary Sazerac Restaurant.
In 1972, he and his wife Evelyn opened their own restaurant, The Versailles, inside The Carol condominium complex at 2100 St. Charles Ave. It earned rave reviews and frequently featured German specialties during October, although its menu offered much more. It closed in 1985.
The couple also owned and operated Broussard’s in the French Quarter before selling it in 2013.
The Teche Transfer Co. initially offered bus service between Jeanerette and New Iberia.
Dining and Cooking