Writer, editor, and owner of St. Pizza and Patron Saint: Leslie Pariseau
Our latest edition of Living in Lekha features our friend Leslie Pariseau, a true multihyphenate. Leslie is a writer, editor, and occasional producer, in addition to owning two of our favorite local spots: St. Pizza and Patron Saint.
Leslie wears Lekha in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photography by Alex Marks.
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You’re a Midwesterner who has found a home and community in New Orleans. What drew you to the city and why did you decide to grow roots here?
The idea of home, before New Orleans, was always a bit opaque for me. From the time I was conscious of where I was from, I wanted to leave. And, it’s funny, New Orleans was one of the first places I ever felt truly at home after leaving Ohio. I went to school in Ann Arbor, spent my last year in Paris, moved straight to Miami, and, in the disorientation of culture shock, came to New Orleans for a week in 2007 at the tender age of 21. I wandered around in the swampy July humidity with a film camera and a paper map attempting street names with a French accent and getting chided by cab drivers. It was wonderful. New Orleans got inside of me in a way no place else ever has. In between that first trip and moving here, I lived in New York for 12 years becoming a journalist, co-founding a magazine, editing for magazines, getting an MFA, rueing the MTA, always thinking about how to get back to New Orleans.
Your background is in writing and editorial. How did you decide to branch out into owning a business in hospitality?
Writing—and actually earning a living doing it— is to learn how to run a small business. If you’re writing in New York City and don’t have a financial cushion, you’re hustling to pay the bills. In high school and college, I worked in hospitality to pay tuition, and when I moved to New York I got a job with the Momofuku group at Ssäm Bar back when the national dining scene was experiencing a massive shift in style. At the time, we were the city’s only three-star restaurant with paper napkins and throw-away chopsticks that didn’t take reservations. It was an education in producing a show every night, welcoming in millions of hungry New Yorkers, and paying rent in cash while doing a free internship at the food magazine Saveur. More than anything, I wanted to make it as a writer, and, at the time, you could do that working in restaurants at night and editorial during the day. I’ve built a near 20-year career doing every kind of writing imaginable—ghostwriting books, copywriting for fragrance and spirits brands, cover stories for travel magazines, television treatments—and, in many ways, writing is a service. And all service is about fulfilling desire. At the end of the day, hospitality is about fulfilling desire.
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Tell us about the origins of Patron Saint and St. Pizza – two of our absolute favorite local spots!
Moving to New Orleans created for me some space both physically and intellectually, as did the pandemic. What emerged was a tangible hybrid of my interior creative landscape combined with the interest I’d cultivated in wine, a subject for endless conversation about politics, climate change, luxury, emotion, and history. The wine shop started as a daydream really, an idea to fill shelves with agriculturally beautiful things, supporting a small yet mighty cadre of producers, and creating a space that felt like a cornerstone of the neighborhood. While we waited for construction to begin, Patron Saint started as a little pop-up with two shelves of wine and a table at Here Today just a few blocks away. In the course of time, the lease for the space next to the forthcoming shop opened up and Tony started dreaming of a pizzeria and tavern. He couldn’t get the idea of a pizza sibling out of his head, so we just went for it. I wouldn’t recommend building two places simultaneously and opening both within four months while also raising a one-year-old and balancing other careers, but we did, and we love it. These places flipped my life inside out, literally and figuratively.
Your husband, Tony, is your partner in life and work. What is your advice for people who work with a spouse?
Go to couples therapy. Seriously. We’ll both yell from the rooftops about how it changed our lives and our relationship. We communicate in different languages, which requires a lot of translation and listening and patience. For us, working together is a daily calibration. We’re both alphas and we both have strong opinions. We wield energy in very different ways, and when those energies are working alongside each other, we can make wonderful things happen.
I’m still understanding how to hold and balance all of my roles, but what I am coming to see is that, for me, there is more power in subtlety than in force. Sometimes foregrounding support is better than having an opinion, and confident, clear-cut decision-making can be a very powerful means of support. I feel like I’ve been on a steep learning curve for the past few years—a place I feel very comfortable—and I’m learning from everyone around me. Tony has an amazing, weird brain that works through challenges in ways that would never occur to me. Abhi, our partner at St. Pizza, and front row witness to the shifts in my and Tony’s marriage, has been a real hinge in helping us both to be more supportive, more communicative partners. It’s a funny thing when your marriage is part of the dynamic of a business; sometimes it feels like everyone who intersects with the business—our teams, our regulars, our neighbors— is teaching me something about how to be a better partner, how to listen better, how to be more generous, how to shift energy in quiet ways that makes a little more room or provides clarity.
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You have both a restaurant and a wine shop–one would imagine you’re the ultimate host! What do you think makes a party or gathering a success? Any easy tips for people hosting at home?
Before we opened these places, we used to host so much more at home! We’ll get back to it soon. But, as we do at the wine shop and the restaurant, we think a lot about music and lighting. Tony has dozens of dinner party playlists, and we always have candles on the table so everyone looks and feels good. Before guests arrive, I like to have the bulk of the work done so I don’t feel or appear harried and can be present for conversation; Tony is better at working in the kitchen and entertaining simultaneously.
The first moments of a dinner party should feel celebratory, so there’s always a sparkling wine open, some caviar or tinned fish, and a spread of easy little things—olives, chips, salty nuts, cheese. I’m not sure if this is a good host tactic, but when the night is winding down, if it seems like people are ready to go, I’ll say I’m headed off to bed, and if people still seem like they’re having a great time and Tony’s up for hosting solo, I have no qualms about slipping out and letting everyone else close the night down while I head off to dreamland.
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What does your dream day in New Orleans look like, from wakeup to sun down?
Coffee and writing in bed, pastries at Lagniappe Bakehouse, playing with my daughter Olympia at Audubon, a tennis match with Tony, lunch at Houston’s, a check-in on the wine shop and restaurant to hang out with our teams and regulars for a bit, a bottle of wine in the backyard with our favorite neighbors while Olympia swims or runs around the garden, an hour of reading while Tony makes dinner, all the family cuddles while putting O to bed, dinner with Tony.
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How would you describe your personal style? What do you wear on a typical day vs. a special occasion?
Classic-former-New-Yorker-earth-mother. I almost always wear jeans and am always hunting for perfect, worn-in denim. I am drawn to black and terracotta/sienna, which is sated by so many Lekha pieces including my very favorite brown suede jacket. I like to mix soft and crisp textures, along with a balance of coverage and reveal. On a typical day, I’m in denim, a button-down in cooler weather, and a structured black tank in warmer weather. I almost always wear a chunky necklace (Susannah Lipsey’s Freda has amazing pieces) and a pair of leather sandals from No. 6 or Mari Giudicelli. On special occasions, I’ve got a dozen black dresses in lots of different textures—linen for summer and silk for winter—plus a new cache of Lekha slip dresses. I wear a lot of early No. 6 heels in great textures, red suede, snakeskin, and brocade.
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What drew you to the Lekha pieces you’re wearing?
I’m in a phase of life where I’m seeking a balance between clarity and dreams. In clothing, this manifests in grounded pieces—jeans, linen, button downs, leather—mixed with what I think of as a soft edge, which feels so beautifully embodied by Lekha’s organza. Rough silken texture, sheer to show some skin, softly structured. The slip dress has this same feeling for me; it’s a sensual, soft shape, but in a color that has depth and texture. I go nowhere without my brown Lekha suede jacket.
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