A look at Beausoleil’s new fall and winter menu

As Baton Rouge restaurants embrace seasonal crops and organic food trends, menus constantly change with the weather. Chef Nathan Gresham and his team at Beausoleil Restaurant & Bar recently launched their new fall and winter dinner menu for the year, and with rich flavors and hearty ingredients, this kitchen is ready to keep you warm.

We asked sous chef and menu co-creator Lauren Silvernail to choose five of her favorite dishes on the seasonal menu, and these were her picks.

Lamb meatballs with goat cheese polenta
“We kind of did a play on the Little Smokies you’d have at a party where you would mix barbecue sauce and grape jelly. So we have our lamb meatballs, and we make an in-house barbecue sauce and mixed it with fig preserves, and we serve that over a goat cheese polenta. That’s a great dish for wintertime.”

Fried oyster salad with asparagus 
“We always try to keep an oyster salad on the menu because it’s so popular, but this time we’ve changed it [with] a little roasted asparagus, bacon, goat cheese, sunflower seeds and cherry tomatoes. And we always keep our truffle vinaigrette on there. It’s a great combination, a lot of different flavors.”

Seared jumbo sea scallops on arugula
“We still have the three jumbo seared scallops, but it’s served over a bed of arugula with fresh satsumas and a spicy chili beurre blanc with fried shallot rings on top for a little crunch. Our last menu had scallops over risotto, so I wanted to go with a lighter direction, and I like to incorporate the satsuma because it’s satsuma season. So I just thought of a fresh salad bottom, and I knew citrus would go super well with the texture and the flavor of the scallops. The spicy beurre blanc just combines everything.”

Broiled whole shrimp with risotto
“They’re whole, broiled shrimp, head-on, and they’re served with a roasted red bell pepper risotto, and we have an andouille gravy on top of that. It’s kind of a little play on a shrimp and grits, so we’ve still got that Southern flair of the andouille sausage and a tomato-based sauce.”

Whole braised fish with puttanesca sauce
“We were doing a whole fish on our last menu, but we changed it to a puttanesca sauce this time. We roast eggplant and red onions with capers and olives in a tomato sauce, and then we serve it with just a little drizzle of basil oil on top. We braise the whole fish in the sauce, and then we just put the fish on the plate and pour the sauce right on top. It’s a real chunky, hearty, winter, warm-your-soul kind of a dish.”