A food lover's guide to dining in Louisiana

Telegraph

31-03-2025

At Brennan's, the pan on fire is all part of the theatre. This New Orleans French Quarter fine dining joint was where Bananas Foster – bananas and vanilla ice cream in a sauce made with rum, brown sugar, banana liqueur and cinnamon – was invented. And it's not done properly if it's not flambéed.
While it would be tempting to call this decadent dessert New Orleans' signature dish, in truth there are many heavyweight contenders for that title. Because of all the US states, Louisiana arguably has the most distinctive food culture. A rich and unusual history has ensured dining is done differently here. Bananas Foster, for example, originated in New Orleans because massive amounts of bananas arrived at the port from South America and needed using. But the food of Louisiana is influenced by where the people came from as much as the journey of the ingredients.
Louisiana's Creole and Cajun cuisines have considerable overlap, with dishes like gumbo, a thickened stew usually served over rice, straddling the divide. However, these two cuisines have different backstories. Creole tends to mean a lot of seafood, but also strong African influences and a wider range of ingredients – notably tomato and okra.
Cajun comes from the large wave of immigrants from the one-time French colony of Acadia in Canada that then settled in rural Louisiana. They brought with them French cooking techniques, such as using a roux to thicken stews. Limited ingredients in the rural areas meant a heavier use of pork sausages and crawfish in Cajun cuisine, and there's also a considerable kick of spice.
The city of Lafayette is generally regarded as the heart of Cajun country, and its strength is family-run restaurants serving authentic cuisine. Don's Seafood is a wonderful example, using passed-down family recipes and locally sourced seafood. Its crawfish étouffée, with crawfish tails smothered in a spiced, buttery gravy, is particularly well-regarded.
Saturday mornings are the best time for food lovers to visit Lafayette. That's when dozens of local producers get together at the Lafayette Farmers & Artisans Market to sell their goods, whether that's honey, meat, coffee, cakes or pecans.
State capital Baton Rouge also has its fair share of hearty home-style cooking. Elsie's Plate and Pie offers a highly tempting range of sweet and savoury pies, often with unusual fillings such as blue crab. However, Baton Rouge is also carving out a reputation for fusion restaurants. Cocha has a truly global outlook, with Venezuelan corn cakes, Thai curries and Japanese miso bowls sharing the same menu. There's a strong commitment to sourcing ingredients from local farms – then applying worldwide ideas to them.
Cocha also hosts wine-tasting events, which is a good opportunity to try wines from Louisiana's ever-growing band of wineries. Many of them are in the north of the state and have tasting rooms. Landry Vineyards in West Monroe and On Cloud Wine in Shreveport are both part of the Louisiana Libations Trail, which strings together wineries, craft breweries and small-batch distillers from across the state. Some, such as Bayou Rum in Lacassine, offer tours as well as tastings.
The archetypal Louisiana drink, however, is the Sazerac. Widely believed to be the world's first cocktail, the Sazerac was first served in New Orleans in the 1850s. The museum at Sazerac House tells of how rye whisky became the prime ingredient, with absinthe, Peychaud's bitters and sugar rather than the original Cognac.
Another speciality closely associated with New Orleans is the beignet. This doughnut-like deep-fried pastry has French origins, but the bakers of Nola have made it their own. To try the powdered sugar-covered treats, Café Beignet has several locations in New Orleans, including one on the famous Bourbon Street bar strip. Cafe Du Monde is another beignet magnet, spanning nine Nola locations, with the original coffee-and-beignet house set in the French Market near Jackson Square. For a more formal dining experience, Emeril's Brasserie does a sterling job of making classic, French-inspired Louisiana dishes contemporary with its carefully selected tasting menus.
It's not all about the local classics in New Orleans, though. The rest of the world gets a strong opportunity to shine, too. Nowhere is this more true than Tacos Del Cartel, which has attracted a fervent fanbase for its take on Mexican dishes. Taco fillings here include wagyu beef and duck in spiced tamarind sauce. It's unexpected and takes its influences from far afield. But that's what Louisiana's cuisine has always done. This is a place where culinary culture absorbs the ideas of outside influences and turns them into something indisputably homemade.