Perriteaux’s Cajun Restaurant opened three weeks ago, but head chef Jason Miller has been in the kitchen for over 30 years. Learning to cook in New Orleans, he and co-owner Perry Sanders are bringing a casual Cajun and Creole spot to Colorado Springs.
Sanders, originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, moved to Colorado Springs and tasted a gumbo that rivaled his favorite from Louisiana. After insisting to meet the chef, Jason Miller, he found out that Miller was the same chef behind his favorite gumbo back home.
“That’s how distinct his gumbo style was and how distinct that restaurant was,” Sanders says. “So it was obviously kind of love at first taste.”
Sanders and Miller teamed up originally to create Springs Orleans at the Mining Exchange hotel, which Sanders had created and owned.
Nine years and several restaurants later, Sanders and Miller have teamed up again to bring Perriteaux’s to life in the former home of Zorbadillos Greek restaurant near Prospect Lake at Memorial Park. With the new restaurant came a whole new menu that includes Cajun concoctions from greater Louisiana and Creole cuisine from the heart of New Orleans.
Miller highlights the po-boys with Leidenheimer bread ordered straight from New Orleans. Seasonings on the table are house blends mixed in the kitchen, and beignets are made fresh with a recipe that took a month to perfect. Sanders says the whole menu emphasizes cooking from scratch.
“Some people are more into ‘Let me take it out of a box and throw it in the microwave.’ That doesn’t work in this kitchen,” Sanders says.
Miller’s personal favorite menu item is the gumbo, but he says you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu.
“That’s my go-to as far as I can eat it any time. I never get sick of it,” Miller says. “Same thing with the red beans though. Red beans are something I can just wolf down.”
Sanders hopes to launch a whole new breakfast menu, but that’s not all he is planning. In the building next door, he hopes to put in a wine bar, a space for live music and a New Orleans style snowball and ice cream shop.
“It’s really kind of the Miller and Sanders show here, back in motion after nine years of doing it together,” Sanders says. “It’s been very special.”
604 S. Union Blvd.
