‘Cooking Culture’ video series showcases Baton Rouge chefs

An image from one of the promotional videos, featuring (from left) Nathan Gresham, Traci Vincent, Stephany Novoa and Ryan André.

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The Louisiana Culinary Institute, Visit Baton Rouge and Bite and Booze recently teamed up to create a stunning video series highlighting local chefs and what they do in the Capital Region.

Blair Loup of Bite and Booze says the idea for the series is to tell the stories of Baton Rouge’s culinary masters.

“We found a great cast of chefs ranging from fine dining to casual cuisines telling tales of how their journeys led them to the Capital City,” Loup says. “These chefs are all incredible people who have an incredible passion for what they do. That’s the real inspiration for these videos.”

Visit Baton Rouge, LCI and Bite and Booze starting organizing the project in January. The four videos, produced by tommysTV, were released as a whole in August.

Chefs featured include Ryan André of City Pork Brasserie and Bar, Stephany Novoa of Mestizo, Nathan Gresham of Beausoleil Restaurant & Bar and Traci Vincent of Le Creole.

Novoa, a business student at LSU and LCI graduate, cooks up authentic Mexican cuisine at Mestizo and has already made strides in the Louisiana culinary scene. At just 23 years old, she’s already been part of Fête Rouge and CrawFete.

“I hope to continue growing as a chef here,” Novoa says. “I love staying close to my Hispanic roots, cooking food I grew up with and bringing it to another level.”

Charlie Ruffolo of LCI says the videos are a good way to showcase the school’s graduates and show locals and visitors why they chose to stay, live and work in Baton Rouge.

Ruffolo says LCI and Visit Baton Rouge are considering making more videos of local chefs in the future.

Check out the videos: