Tailgating season has arrived in Southwest Louisiana. And if you know anything about tailgating, it means not only great football games and the company of friends, but lots of delicious food and drinks. You also know that cheering for your favorite team, be it UL, LSU, or another, can get heated — and so can the weather!
Locally born and raised, cooking practically runs in this restaurateurs’s blood. Timmy Credeur grew up working alongside his mother cooking and bussing tables at Don’s Seafood and Steakhouse, where his parents also met. In 1973, he teamed up with Donny Landry II to open Don’s Seafood Hut. In 1975, they expanded their menu and moved to their current location on Johnston Street, with himself as chef and his mother as partner. Five years later, he would kickstart (and win) the first-ever gumbo and chili cookoff.
Easy to find - impossible to forget. Among the shared wall buildings on Bridge Street in beautiful downtown Breaux Bridge — almost hidden in plain sight — Café Sydnie Mae sits on a corner and welcomes patrons to come in and enjoy life for a while. Café Sydnie Mae is the result of a collaboration between Chip Durand — son of the restaurant’s namesake, Sydnie Mae Durand — and the present owners, David and Cheryl Puckett.
Whether you call it farm to table, pasture to palate or just a place to get really good food, Scratch Farm Kitchen is thriving in downtown Lafayette. Owners, masterminds, chefs, farmers and hard-working ladies, Jamie Harson and Kelsey Leger have never taken the easy road, and the diners that fill their restaurant for breakfast and lunch are grateful. Their journey began with overambitious group dinners at their farm, then a tent at the local farmers market, then a food truck. Two years ago they shifted to a bricks and mortar setting, where the duo has continued to stay true to themselves.
The new Kimpton Hotel Fontenot is in the heart of New Orleans’ Central Business District (CBD), where Executive Chef Chris Lusk and Bar Supervisor Paula Echevarria head up a show-stopping cocktail lounge and stylish corner café. Peacock Room is an elevated, energetic hotspot where cocktails are sipped and bites are shared, while Gospel Coffee and Boozy Treats caters to an on-the-go crowd with imaginative offerings.
Jared Doise always knew what he wanted. “I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “I had a bachelor’s and a graduate degree. But I wanted to open a sports bar.” Doise credits his years working at LaFonda’s for his inspiration. “Man, I learned so much about the bar business from them,” he said. “It was really a springboard for me.”
Folks go out of their way to dine at The Little Big Cup. Perched on the banks of Bayou Fuselier in the tiny town of Arnaudville, La. (population: roughly 1,000). The restaurant serves up eclectic Cajun and Creole fare in simple, yet sophisticated, surroundings. The venue features a dining room with high ceilings and curtained clerestory windows, as well as a cozy buffet line and a bar with ample elbow room for sipping a Fifth Avenue or an Arnaudville cosmo.