Du Jour: Craig Harrington, Harrington’s Cafe

Crawfish pie is one of the most emblematic dishes in the Cajun/Creole culinary canon, but it’s not easy to find on local menus. Craig Harrington tapped into its subsurface popularity when he made it the standing Wednesday special at his eponymous downtown restaurant. “That really got us going, and helped put us on the map,” says Harrington, a Lafayette native. “The recipe came from my wife’s aunt down in Pierre Part, and you know, they know how to cook down there.”

Harrington’s Café on Florida Street opened in 2000, and was the realization of a longtime dream. As a young man, Craig Harrington worked in Cajun butcher shops, including like Helo’s (Heleaux’s) Grocery in Youngsville and Earl’s in Lafayette, where he learned to confect thrifty plate lunches and boudin with speed and aplomb. Later, he signed on as a fry cook at Ralph and Kacoo’s in Lafayette, working his way up over the years through the restaurant’s regional locations, including two in Baton Rouge. The idea of his own place kept gnawing, however, and by the late nineties, he went for it. “I really wanted to open a lunch-only restaurant that had great food,” he says. “We found the perfect spot downtown on Florida.”

That storefront, however, was leased to another restaurateur while Harrington was learning how difficult it was to secure a loan for a first-time restaurateur. Six months later, it seemed fate was on his side. Not only did he find funding, but the restaurant that had beaten him to the punch, Three Potato Four, bailed out.

Harrington’s draws crowds with a spicy, seafood-centric menu that includes sturdy dishes like eggplant Terry, fried eggplant medallions over rice topped with crawfish etouffee and the Bienville, blackened fish topped with crabmeat cream sauce, both of which stem from family recipes. It’s also one of the few restaurants where you can still find the Capital City side, spinach Madeline.

“We’ve really had a lot of fun with it,” says Harrington.