Jean-Marie Monfort Hebert Georges Fils Laguerre is out to lend his considerable name to efforts to revive "Haitian Bleu," a specialty coffee from the Caribbean island nation.
Laguerre is also putting his nickname — Tigeorges — behind the cause.
Both names have special meaning in this campaign, because Laguerre is a native of Haiti and also the owner of Tigeorges Chicken, which does a brisk business inside its modest quarters at 309 N. Glendale Boulevard in the Echo Park district northwest of Downtown.
The restaurant is one of several business lined up in row, occupying spaces in a workmanlike building that fronts the traffic zooming down Glendale Boulevard enroute to the Westlake district and Downtown. The interior is a different story — colorful, unique, aromatic. Then there's Leguerre, who remains as passionate about cooking as the day his grandmother began to show him around the family kitchen in Haiti.
Turns out that Laguerre is just as passionate about the organic coffee beans he brings from Haiti to roast, brew, and serve to customers at Tigeorges.
"When people come to the restaurant, I want them to feel at home," says Laguerre. "I am actually taking Haiti from Haiti and bringing it to California. And I am the only Haitian for the last 40 years who has managed to hang on to a Haitian restaurant" in the area.
Customers have long come from all over the city and region to enjoy the rotisserie chicken and other specialties at Tigeorges. The Haitian Bleu Cafe Au Lait is just as popular lately. Laguerre whipped up a cup for a customer on a recent afternoon, insisting that she add sugar in order to bring out the flavor. He didn't hesitate to tell her that Haitian Bleu is "the best coffee in the world."
The young lady took a sip, smiled — and agreed.
The tasty delight traces its roots to a country that has a tortured history in many respects, with nearly non-stop political tumult and foreign interference since slaves won their freedom by overthrowing Haiti's colonial masters in 1803. The history also includes the development of a coffee industry, although that page has been blotted out of the minds of many by the most recent cycle of political and economic problems that have washed over the land in the past few decades.
"When I was a child in Haiti, there were three countries in the world known for the best coffee: Brazil, Columbia and Haiti," Laguerre says, offering some insight on the potential he sees in Haitian Bleu as a comeback candidate.
He should know, too — his father was a coffee grower who also owned a coffee mill on the island. That background no doubt helps when Laguerre travels to Haiti and personally picks out the coffee from the local farmers, importing the stuff back to Los Angeles for roasting.
The history of Haiti is inescapable for Laguerre, though. His restaurant prominently displays a Haitian flag alongside miniature models of French colonial style homes with symmetrical facades and cable roofs. The models rest amid colorful paintings of Haiti and its people.
The nation's rugged journey through history plays a backhanded role in the coffee that Laguerre serves. French traders of yesteryear brought slaves to work on the plantations in Haiti and returned to Europe with their ships filled with valuable timber stripped from the country's mountain slopes. Colonial landowners could often make more money on the timber and other crops grown for export — such as coffee — compared to food raised for local consumption.
So agricultural production for Haiti itself got short shrift, and the chronic food shortages remain part of the country's living history. Many other downsides of colonial times remain in Haiti — but so does the coffee, offering at least a silver lining for the country's difficult history.
Laguerre honors Hatian history, but he's also fully engaged in the present. He takes great pride in his cuisine and his business, as well as his role as a prominent member of small-but-vibrant Haitian emigre community in the Los Angeles area, a group that numbers 3,000 or so.
"I started telling family and friends that I was going to open a restaurant in 1997," Laguerre says "I built a rotisserie in my backyard and began preparing different foods and invited neighbors to sample the Haitian experience."
Tigeorges Chicken became a reality in 2002, and folks have been getting information on Haiti served up with their Haitian food ever since.
Now Laguerre is committed to Haitian coffee, so just stand by.
Or sit down and have a cup while Laguerre gives you the background.
"Haiti was the guru of producing coffee, before Jamaica was crowned supreme," he says. "Somehow Haiti ended up being on the back burner. I'm working to bring Haiti to the front burner."
Sheannette Virtue is a writer for Carib Press.
Photos by Carib Press
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