“I’m listening, I’m listening. Michael Sichel bounces around the kitchen at 7 on Fulton, where he took over as Executive Chef in October. Tall, thin, with a crop of tight black curls, he’s dressed in a plain white T-shirt. I chase him with my tape recorder in one hand and a notebook in the other.

“I’m a Pavlovian dog,” Sichel says. “I put things together in my brain, and once I start salivating, I know it’s a perfect dish.” His menu might include cool slices of cured salmon wrapped around warm sweetbreads and gribiche sauce (herbs, vinegar and hardboiled eggs) spiked with candied jalapeños. He can make an impossible sounding pairing of scallops and short ribs work with a sauce of hearty spiced wine. He serves a miniature baked Alaska along with half an eggshell full of flaming liquor.

Sichel (pronounced SICH-el or See-CHEL—“It’s weird, because my family says it both ways”) grew up outside Manhattan, graduated from Connecticut State and, in the mid-’90s, enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. He met his wife, Kerry, while cooking at Kean’s Carriage House in St. Francisville, Louisiana. They moved to California, where Sichel rose to executive sous-chef at the well-regarded Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley.

After four years in California, Kerry decided they were coming home. “I married a Southern girl. I stole her away immediately, and she stole me back.” Sichel stops, leans in, puts a hand on my shoulder and a smile crosses his face. Then he’s off again.

They bought Restaurant Indigo in Mid-City and opened the summer before Katrina. By August, the restaurant was making money. And then the storm came: “The place got badly looted. It was lived in for like two months and destroyed.”

Searching for a new kitchen, he opened a restaurant last summer at Culinaria, a cooking school in the Lower Garden District with only a residential kitchen. “It wasn’t a restaurant; it was just passion,” he says. “That’s all it was. Just passion. It was me cooking, shaking cocktails behind the bar, greeting guests.” The phones rarely worked, but word spread.

In mid-August, Sichel and his wife went on vacation. When they returned, his partner, Alton Doody, decided to close the restaurant. “No money lost, a lot of love gained and I was very happy with the experience.”

Vicky Bayley, who lost her original chef, David English, at 7 on Fulton in the Riverfront Hotel, persuaded Sichel to take over the restaurant’s kitchen.

“I’m not complacent. I mean, everyday I’ve got to be better,” Sichel says. “I’ve got to be better, I’ve got to do something stronger, I’ve got to be more focused. You know? When I turn 80, I may be a superstar.”

I take a breath, stop my tape recorder and close my notebook.

“Was that good? I’m a machine, man.”

Emeril in Gulfport

Emeril Lagasse hopes Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House in Gulfport’s Island View Casino will bolster the economic recovery of the area. The restaurant, opening this summer, will be Lagasse’s 10th. He expects the high profile restaurant will draw visitors to Gulfport, but he’s aware of the challenge to running multiple restaurants.

“In the community, you get the sense of having a kicked-up restaurant” he says. “But I’m not going to be in that restaurant every night.” Lagasse tapes his Food Network show, Emeril Live, one week a month. The rest of the time, he travels between his restaurants in New Orleans, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Florida. When Lagasse isn’t there, at least one member of his New Orleans-based staff keeps on an eye on each place.

“Unfortunately, I’m just one person, so I have to rely on my core guys and gals. I learned that from the Brennans. They always had a Brennan in the house. If it wasn’t Dick it was Dottie. If it wasn’t Dottie it was Ella. If it wasn’t Ella it was Ti or Lally,” he says. “We used to call it a BOD, Brennan on Duty.”

Other News

Lorin Gaudin hosts “All Over Food,” a new food talk show, every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 99.5 FM…Through January, the Rib Room will serve a special menu featuring Spanish dishes and wines…The St. James Cheese Company opened at the corner of Robert and Prytania streets…Galatoire’s raised $54,000 for Children’s Hospital and Covenant House of New Orleans by auctioning off reservations for the Friday before Christmas… Sortez Café cooks the Green Plate Special all month at the Tuesday Crescent City Farmers Market and Gregory Thompson plays a free concert at the Saturday market on January 20.

Final Thoughts

1) Any crawfish sightings? 2) The candied rosemary nuts from Revista at the Crescent City Farmers Market are my new favorite snack. 3). Here’s hoping the New Year brings meals at Gautreau’s, Mandina’s, Dooky Chase and the Crescent City Steakhouse.