In our ongoing “unprecedented times” that have now just become the precedent, culture has dove into nostalgia like never before. Reboots of movies, TV shows, even early aughts pop stars are in the news every other week (and yes, I am amongst the Millennials seeing Hilary Duff’s comeback tour this summer).
And while these pop culture returns act as our emotional security Beanie Babies, there’s a deep need to recognize the history that has shaped us and bring that into our zeitgeist. The generations before us that made the first iterations of our favorite recipes, the base of the music we blast to get through our silly little spreadsheets, or even just the lessons of how to better treat our fellow human beings.
They laughed and sang and struggled for us to have the livelihoods we have now. This is where innovative leaders and restaurateurs like Emery Whalen come into play.
Emery grew up in the Big Easy of New Orleans, falling in love with cooking and food as she helped her grandmother in the kitchen. As she got ready to leave for college at Princeton, she pictured a future that included a stint living in Paris. Then, Hurricane Katrina hit.
Emery quickly recognized that New Orleans is not only home, but a huge part of her identity. Her work since has focused on helping the city rebuild after tragedy, and also finding ways she can help fuel the future while respecting the past that got her and the region where it is today.
From public school teacher incorporating food into her lessons, to scholarships sending New Orleanians to culinary school and micro loans to farmers, to now nine restaurants throughout the South under her hospitality group QED, Emery has poured her heart and soul into the place that has given her so much. She and her cofounder Chef Brian Landry even took a step during COVID to keep their staff working while helping others that actually left me speechless—and for a semi-professional yapper, this is quite the feat.
I hope that you’re inspired by Emery’s story and the singular mission she brings into her work and life. To honor the history and people that came before you while building a legacy and future you can be proud of.
So yes, we may be living through chapters of the history book that are really hard in the moment and for us to look back on. But I ask that you think of the days ahead and how you can make them better. That’s the real comeback story. Hey, maybe they’ll even make a TV show about it.
Emery Whalen’s Perfect Bite
Some guests walk into an interview and immediately make you feel like you've known them forever. Emery Whalen is one of those people, and man, did we have a lovely conversation!
Emery is the CEO and co-founder of QED Hospitality, a nine-restaurant group with locations across New Orleans, Nashville, and Kentucky that is doing something increasingly rare in the hospitality industry: Putting people first, actually meaning it, and building a business around that belief that has lasted a decade.
QED stands for "quod erat demonstrandum,” Latin for "Thus it has been proven." It's a punctuation mark at the end of a mathematical theorem, and for Emery and her co-founder Chef Brian Landry, it was a declaration: They weren't going to talk about doing things differently. They were going to prove it. It’s the only time I’ve ever wanted to talk about math again.
We chat through Emery’s journey falling in love with food and recognizing she needed to be the one who made a different kind of hospitality group, why New Orleans cuisine is so special and the history that has shaped it, and what people still get wrong about Southern food and why it deserves more respect.
She even gives tips on how to deal with rude patrons and those who underestimate her, which still happens on a regular basis. In fact, she takes great pleasure in doing it in the most polite way possible.
Enjoy this chat with Emery—we can all learn many lessons from this great teacher!
🎧 Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts
🎧 Listen to the episode on Spotify
📺 Watch the episode on YouTube
Find QED Hospitality + Emery:
Instagram: @emerywhalen, @qedhospitality
Website: www.qedhg.com
Venues throughout New Orleans, Nashville, and Kentucky
Storytelling Secret Ingredient: Cultural Caretaking
Emery didn't describe New Orleans cuisine as an inspiration for her restaurants. She believes it is a responsibility. A way to honor the generative collision of French colonists, Spanish governors, West African culinary knowledge, Native American land wisdom, Haitian refugees, and Sicilian and Irish and German immigrants, where no single tradition won and all of them fused into something completely new. And then a land so particular, so demanding, that European cuisine had to adapt just to survive the humidity.
That history didn't just shape the food, atmosphere, and hospitality at QED’s venues. It shaped the entire philosophy behind it, from how to pivot in dark times to create opportunities for the team to how guests are treated at the door. For Emery, honoring culture isn't a brand strategy. It's a way of being in the world.
As Emery and I spoke about, she’s building an empire, but one that is full of love, kindness, and fun. She’s taking the culture of New Orleans and asking herself what she can do to push through that sense of creativity and caring for others every day.
That's this week’s storytelling secret ingredient: The most powerful food and beverage brands don't use culture as a backdrop. They treat it as the foundation, and they feel a genuine responsibility to leave it better than they found it.
Here’s how you can do the same:
Know the history and borrow with credit: Before you describe what your brand is, understand where it comes from. Who grew the ingredients? What techniques are you drawing upon? Which community shaped the flavors, the rituals, the recipes you're building from? If your brand draws from a culinary tradition or community that isn't entirely your own, name it. Honor it. Make it visible in how you source, who you hire, and who you partner with and invest in.
Let place speak for you: Emery never makes abstract points. Everything she says is anchored in somewhere real and specific: The mouth of the Mississippi, the Louisiana humidity, City Park on a Sunday morning, her grandmother's kitchen with her French onion soup. When you root your brand story in a specific place with a specific history, your audience doesn't just understand what you're building—they feel it. Ask yourself: what is the specific place or region that made this brand possible and am I letting it speak loudly enough?
Build on the culture, don't just reflect it: A Cultural Caretaker isn't a preservationist. Emery is using everything that her grandmother and her kitchen taught her to build something new that honors and extends that tradition. QED’s Jack Rose is a love letter to New Orleans, not a museum of it. Think about how your brand is actively contributing to the cultural story it draws from. And then make sure your operations back it up. Because the most powerful signal that a brand truly honors its culture isn't the language on the website. It's who they hire, how they treat their team, and where their money goes.
Storytelling secret ingredient: Be a Cultural Caretaker. The most powerful brand stories don't just borrow from culture. They honor it, build on it, and leave it richer than they found it.
Heritage Honorers
Culture and history is everything to these F&B brands, and they excel at honoring it while figuring out how to make it even better.
Norman Van Aken: The godfather of fusion cuisine didn't coin the term by accident. Norman has spent decades studying, honoring, and crediting every culinary tradition and history lesson he draws from, proving that the best fusion isn't borrowing from cultures, but building bridges between them. Listen to our chat here!
Diaspora Spice Co.: Sana Javeri Kadri didn't just build a spice company. She built a platform that traces every ingredient back to the farmers, regions, and histories that most spice brands erase entirely. I can’t wait to read more in her new “The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook”!
Zubair Mohajir: Zubair doesn't just honor his Indian heritage on the plate. He actively seeks out collaborators from different cultures and backgrounds, weaving multiple heritages into a single menu that couldn't exist without all of them. Just head to any of his venues in Chicago, including Lilac Tiger, Mirra, Sarima Cafe, and Coach House—you’ll see what I mean! You can listen to our episode together here.
Thanks so much for being part of The Perfect Bite’s journey and supporting these founders’ stories. Feel free to respond to any of these messages with thoughts on how I can improve my storytelling in the future or if you have any guest ideas!
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