Iconic Biloxi restaurant makes its own gumbo z’herbes every Lent

Austin Sumrall was a young chef working in New Orleans when he stepped into Dooky Chase’s Restaurant one Sunday morning, still bleary after a long night out.

Sumrall, then 22, started to turn around once he noticed the white tablecloths, black ties on servers and crowds dressed in sophisticated attire — until he was stopped by Leah Chase, the restaurant’s matriarch. She insisted he stay.

“She told me it didn’t matter what I looked like,” Sumrall said. “We were all beautiful.”

The interaction happened nearly two decades ago, yet Sumrall recalled it clearly on a recent Wednesday afternoon at his Biloxi restaurant, White Pillars Restaurant and Lounge, seated at a dining table near a window overlooking the Gulf.

In front of him sat a bowl of gumbo z’herbes he had prepared in the kitchen minutes earlier, surrounded by five other cooks who moved quietly with practiced hands — slicing fish, peeling garlic, cutting shallots. The dish, deep green and rooted in the Catholic faith, spiritual renewal and community, was popularized by Chase, whose restaurant serves it every Holy Thursday in observance of the abstinence from meat on Good Friday.

Sumrall, who has familial roots in Louisiana, began making his own gumbo z’herbes 15 years ago, sometime after his encounter with Chase. Since White Pillars opened in 2017, he has served it every Lent — a reflection of New Orleans traditions no longer bound to the city alone, but extending well beyond it, crossing the Gulf and into restaurants like his own.

He views the dish, with its West African, French and Germanic roots, as a symbol of Louisiana.

“You’ve got three different cultural influences coming in, which is what gumbo is,” Sumrall said. “It’s also like what Louisiana culture is, too.”

Like the cultures that shape it, gumbo z’herbes blends several varieties of greens, traditionally an odd number for good luck. Legend holds that for every green cooked in the pot, you’ll make a new friend in the coming year.

You can expect to make seven new friends after eating his gumbo z’herbes.

While preparing the dish, Sumrall slipped on his chef’s coat and dropped collard greens, kale and other herbs into a blender, adding parsley in last. The hardiest greens go in first, he said, followed by the more delicate ones. The mixture is then braised and layered into a gumbo base made with shrimp stock.

Sumrall poured the gumbo into a bowl filled with a spoonful of potato salad, an addition he knows is controversial in some households. Seared housemade andouille sausage, four pickled shrimp and a sprinkle of chives were the finishing touches.

It tastes how it looks: earthy and light, complementing the fresh shrimp, with a leafy texture softened by the potato salad.

With every Lent comes a new way of making gumbo z’herbes. One year, White Pillars served a version featuring perloo, a Lowcountry staple with roots in West Africa. And another year, crab fat fried rice.

“Just wherever the mood takes us,” Sumrall said.

Kale and collards are almost always in the recipe, given they’re in season during Lent, while the other herbs rotate depending on what the restaurant has on hand.

But no matter the version, gumbo z’herbes is ritualistic and symbolic — a metaphor for togetherness, new chapters, and, if there is such a thing, luck.