Chef Maurice Fitzgerald

Maurice Fitzgerald Jr., a flamboyant chef and restaurateur who for years ran the West End seafood establishment bearing his family's name, died Saturday of pneumonia at Brookwood Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala. He was 85.

Although he had been a lifelong New Orleanian, Mr. Fitzgerald had lived in Birmingham since he was rescued by boat from his second-floor condominium in Lakeview when Hurricane Katrina-related floodwaters surrounded the building, said Mauri Michel, a granddaughter.

Mr. Fitzgerald was best known as the owner and executive chef of Fitzgerald's Seafood Restaurant, where two generations of customers would gather to feast on seafood platters, crack open boiled crabs and drink ice-cold beer as they watched the sun set over Lake Pontchartrain.

Mr. Fitzgerald inherited the restaurant from his father, who founded the establishment in 1946. He sold the building and everything in it in 1989.

The restaurant had been closed for several years before Hurricane Georges lashed the New Orleans area in 1998. What was left was demolished shortly thereafter, Michel said.

Mr. Fitzgerald found a second career as a teacher in Delgado Community College's culinary arts program, where he taught from 1990 until Katrina hit.

"He was a character," said Karl Tipton, an associate professor in the Delgado program. "He must have known everybody in the city, and they knew him." Among the visitors to Delgado whom Tipton met through Mr. Fitzgerald were Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee; Marc Morial, in his first term as mayor; and mob boss Carlos Marcello, whom Tipton described as "a very nice gentleman." Mr. Fitzgerald, who could debone an entire leg of veal in 10 minutes, "loved New Orleans and could tell you everything about it," Tipton said.

"He was born to cook and born to the restaurant business," said Peggy Bruno, one of his daughters. "My grandfather was, at one time, a fisherman, and daddy said his first job as a child was to catch the crabs when they ran off the oilcloth."

Mr. Fitzgerald worked in a series of restaurants that his parents operated in Lakeview. At the West End restaurant, which sat on pilings in the lake bed, he once told an interviewer that he used to catch sheepshead through a hole in the kitchen floor, using a French fry for bait.

Among his signature dishes there were broiled stuffed lobster and broiled stuffed flounder, both of which were stuffed with crabmeat, Bruno said.

To indulge a desire to go upscale, Mr. Fitzgerald opened Le Chateau Phylmar in Bucktown in the 1970s. The restaurant, where the menu meshed Creole and European influences, was named for him and his wife, Phyllis.

"That was when he could really get fancy," Bruno said. "After my mom died in 1980, Daddy kept it open but lost interest." The restaurant has since closed, Michel said.

Mr. Fitzgerald was a smartly dressed man who traveled widely and could regale listeners with tales of his culinary exploits, friends said.

"He'd tell stories about cooking in Japan or Spain," Michel said. "Was it true? I don't know, but it was a great story."

Mr. Fitzgerald, a graduate of Metairie High School, was a self-taught cook who became a certified executive chef, Bruno said. The local chapter of the American Culinary Federation named him chef of the year in 2002.

Survivors include two daughters, Peggy Fitzgerald Bruno of West Palm Beach, Fla,. and Penny Fitzgerald Kovatch of Birmingham; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. A funeral will be held Wednesday at 1 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will start at 11 a.m. Burial will be in Lake Lawn Park Mausoleum.

Maurice Fitzgerald Jr. [3928524]