Leah Chase was the "Queen of Creole Cuisine," the owner of the legendary Dooky Chase's Restaurant in New Orleans who fed presidents and made space for civil rights leaders to meet and plan the movement. She and her husband, jazz trumpeter Edgar "Dooky" Chase, took over his parents' sandwich and lottery shop in the Treme neighborhood, and she used her background of working in French Quarter restaurants to build it up into a fine dining establishment for the black community in the days when New Orleans was still segregated. Dooky Chase was a popular gathering place whose prominent customers included the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, and Nat King Cole, and Ray Charles wrote it into his song "Early Morning Blues." Credited with perfecting Creole cuisine, Chase was honored with the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and Food & Wine magazine named Dooky Chase one of their 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years. Chase was also an avid art collector with a notable collection of art by African-American artists, and her own portrait by Gustave Blache III hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

A public viewing will be held Saturday in the Xavier University Convocation Center, 7910 Storelitz St., New Orleans, Louisiana 70125from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and will be followed by a program to celebrate Mrs. Chase's life at 6 p.m.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held noon Monday at the St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, 1923 St. Phillip Street, New Orleans, Louisiana (70125). Visitation will be from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., followed immediately by the Rosary.

Seating at the church is limited,

Mrs. Chase died Saturday. She was 96.