Over the Top Preux & Proper Executive Chef Sammy Mansour & The Colonel

(Gerry Furth-Sides) In every picture taken of him, Chef Sammy Monsour, seems to look different.  I’m talking about photos years and also weeks apart.  Just look at the three below.  His own current bio stays the same and focuses on his southern background, Lebanese heritage, CIA training and sustainability advocacy.   But the story here is really about how well a second generation immigrant chef moving to LA will do when LA has not only always been riveted on celebrity.

We did not even recognize him from the Cochon 555 era picture – but we loved the sausage!

Chef Sammy has great “bad boy” stories from his Lebanese father’s kitchen  “joint” his father (with a parent being one of 15 children, like my mom), and his raucous southern upbringing that contrasted to the French technique in culinary school that laid his professional groundwork (his dad in a resigned manner offered to send Sammy to culinary school instead of steering him into the family business because he recognized his son’s calling).  The stories hint at how this cmulti-talented, storytelling, third generation eccentric creates a dazzling array of dishes that often baffle the critics and please us diners enormously. I know I’m in good hands when a chef leads me to the dishes he is most proud of on the menu. “I’m a talker,” he shrugs.  Each dish has a story, and we are ready to listen.  For a sample, please see //behindthepass.com/2013/05/17/201337samuel-monsour-of-jmcurley-in-boston/

Chef Sammy Monsour, winner of Guy’s Grocery Games and $20,000! (photo courtesy of Food Network)

It is so telling of the  whole of the Preux & Proper story here is more than the sum of its parts.  In this day when certain restaurants have no phone number (!) and others have only email or messaging alternatives, at the southern Preux & Proper, there is a friendly voice at the other end, and it may just be one of the two partners.  The partnership and the customer appreciation is key.

It really was like being in a movie to be hosted by what turned out to be the famous partner owner and chef at a “down-home”party at Preux & Proper

Preux & Proper, in fact, found its way after owner-founder Joshua Kopel  partnered up with Executive Chef Sammy Monsour.  As wickedly handsome as any riverboat gambler on the silver screen, just as charming but much better-intentioned, owner-founder Joshua Kopel “hails from humble beginnings” in Baton Rouge, LA. and at a successful point in his hospitality career, decided to bring a little bit of The South to Southern California.  And he has always been a determined sort.

In 2010 he opened Five0Four, a New Orleans style bar, in Hollywood. Four years later, Kopel broadened his focus to The South as a whole, and opened up Preux & Proper in The Fashion District’s newly vacant flat-iron building.  After a dismal beginning, Kopel was ready call it quits.

Then, according to the story, in walks Sammy Monsour, a third generation chef who grew up with roots in his father’s kitchen, considered a “neighborhood joint” in Chapel Hill, NC and by then was a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. Chef Sammy by then was also a “big deal.”  He had recently left the hit restaurant  JM Curley Boston, weather being a big factor he told the press.  It was not an LA kind of place.   Included in  the USA TODAY top ten Boston places the review read:  “When a restaurant lists their rules and those rules include, ‘the customer is NOT always right, and don’t be a douchbag’, you know you’re in a true Boston spot.

Kopel and Monsour hit it off instantly. Monsour’s new refined menu reflected his classical training at the CIA, his Lebanese ancestry, and his Southern roots. Monsour became Chef/ Partner of Preux & Proper and South City Fried Chicken down the block.  And soon the acknowledgment and acclaim from James Beard Foundation and the American Culinary Federation, as well as national guidebooks – and a exhalted spot in the Cochon 555 competition.

So, while the image changes,  Chef Sammy’s current bio remains the same in his own words.  “Sammy resides in Los Angeles where he is the Executive Chef / Co-Owner of Preux & Proper and South City Fried Chicken.   Sammy’s advocacy toward sustainability has positioned him as the LA Locals Leader for Chefs Collaborative and member of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Blue Ribbon Task Force. The two advocate for the Southern ideals of working with love, care and integrity, this includes sourcing from farmers and ranchers who do the same.  His passion for sustainability, application of modern technique and devotion to cooking with soul are staples throughout his interpretation of regional Southern cuisine.   //www.southcityfriedchicken.com

Sammy has also appeared on Viceland’s The Untitled Action Bronson Show, Travel Channel’s Food Paradise and been the victor on several of Food Network’s popular reality cooking shows, including Alton Brown’s Cutthroat Kitchen.  And he won $20,000 on guy Fieri’s Grocery Games.