When Sydney Harkins and Jamie Brown met, it was love at first sight.
“I swear she can read my mind,” Harkins says.
The pair met through their mutual friend and mentor Sean Rivera by participating in his chefs’ collective Gastreauxnomica. They immediately hit it off, and when Harkins decided to start her own catering company two months ago, she asked Brown to join her. The decision was a no-brainer.
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While only in business for a few months, BouillaBabes has already secured a regular gig making unique bar food at Corporate Brew and Draft alongside catering for clients. Harkins attributes their quick takeoff to the two having already established themselves individually on the local food scene.
Brown is the chef for Southern Oaks Athletic Club and works with Chef Kevin Black at The Crown bistro in The Royal Standard, and Harkins is a personal chef and caterer. Both work on BouillaBabes when they’re not cooking for their day jobs.
Harkins and Brown’s CBD menu specializes in sandwiches, but they’re not your standard bar food. Among their most recent dishes are the Daphne, a sandwich with red curry pulled pork, apple coconut slaw, vidalia onion jam and peanut butter on a toasted kaiser bun; and the Isla, a tikka marsala beef meatball sub with fried shallot, burrata and torn basil on toasted french bread.
BouillaBabes thrives on quality ingredients, experimentation and trying new combinations of flavors to create a dish that’s not just elevated, but totally their own.
“We always have to say: what can we take that’s a classic and add our spin to it to, where it’s still approachable, but we know that every essential part of a good, cohesive dish is going to be there,” Harkins says. “It’s always going to be something no one else has done, especially in Baton Rouge.”
The chefs are also expanding their presence by networking with local creatives. The duo won People’s Choice at Bite & Booze’s Tacos and Tequila event last week, and they’re also catering upcoming events for AltBR and Women in Leadership.
Harkins and Brown say they want to make catering more approachable to the average person, using a pricing model where they don’t charge by head, but by working with a client’s individual budget. They also don’t have a standard catering menu—they believe it limits them, Brown says. The pair usually does a consultation with a client to plan a menu, effectively creating a new lineup for every event.
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Their unorthodox method isn’t the only thing that sets BouillaBabes apart—it’s the women themselves. Harkins and Brown’s easygoing, comfortable dynamic is instantly likable, and the duo complement each other perfectly.
Long-term, Harkins and Brown want to make BouillaBabes a full-time venture. With the direction they’re headed, it doesn’t seem like it’ll take long.
Find Harkins and Brown on their Facebook page or slinging sandwiches at Corporate Brew and Draft every Thursday, Friday and Saturday after 6 p.m.
