Louisiana chefs make the rounds last week in New York to promote the state’s culinary chops

Louisiana has been making news lately, but fortunately, it’s not all about football. The state’s emblematic food scene has been getting its due.

On Monday, several south Louisiana restaurants, including two in the Capital Region, were among 228 restaurants across the Southern U.S. named in the Michelin Guide’s inaugural 2025 Recommended List for the American South.

And last week, Louisiana chefs were on the road showcasing the state’s culinary culture at two events in the Big Apple. Eleven chefs, including Baton Rouge’s Russell Davis, prepared signature dishes for the Taste Louisiana event at Chelsea Market on Oct. 28, organized by the Louisiana Travel Association. On Oct. 29, Chef John Folse and a team from his Restaurant R’evolution in New Orleans served a Cajun and Creole menu at the storied James Beard House. The six-course dinner was part of a media push organized by Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and the Louisiana Office of Tourism to promote the state’s unique foodways.

The Taste Louisiana event at Chelsea Market included live music by Wayne Toups and bites from Alon Shaya of Saba and Miss River in New Orleans, Cory Bahr of Parish Restaurant in Monroe and others. Davis, the chef and owner of Eliza Restaurant, JED’s Local and the forthcoming Mid City Italian restaurant, Josephine’s, prepared Gulf shrimp remoulade with green tomato and tasso maque choux. He said the ingredients that participating chefs used were flown up separately a few days earlier. The chefs prepared their selections at e.terra, a commissary kitchen in Harlem, and served them at Chelsea Market.

The James Beard dinner was the first domestic event in a new series called A Louisiana Table, intended to showcase the state’s gastronomic tableau and convivial culture to major media markets, says Louisiana Office of Tourism Communications Director Jennifer Berthelot. The state has also sponsored a booth at the Toronto Food & Drink Festival in April and, in June, brought Louisiana chefs Jeremy Langlois from Houmas House and Tyler Spreen from Herbsaint Bar and Restaurant to the annual National Geographic Traveller Food & Wine Festival in London.

Folse is a longtime fixture in the culinary world of greater Baton Rouge, known for his “Stirrin’ It Up” cooking spots on WAFB, and his longtime Donaldsonville restaurant Lafitte’s Landing, which operated from 1978 to 1998 at Viala Plantation at the base of the Sunshine Bridge before a fire destroyed the property. Folse reopened Lafitte’s at Bittersweet Plantation in downtown Donaldsonville in 2001. In 2012, he opened Restaurant R’evolution at the Royal Sonesta in New Orleans.

Folse is also a well-known Louisiana culinary ambassador, having cooked for the 1988 Presidential Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, and in 1989, was the first non-Italian chef to create a Vatican State Dinner in Rome.

His James Beard House dinner began with roasted pork belly with butternut squash puree and Steen’s Cane Syrup. It continued with Death by Gumbo, a signature dish with whole bobwhite quail, oysters and andouille that Folse has prepared for past dignitaries and appears in his cookbook The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine. The meal continued with his oyster Lafitte salad, Gulf shrimp and grits, venison tenderloin with chicory chili rub and honey-roasted fig with ice cream and pecan crumble.

“I’m excited to be working with the Lieutenant Governor and the Office of Tourism on this project and to bring Louisiana flavors to the James Beard House,” Folse said in a statement. “It’s always been a passion of mine to share our special culinary traditions with the world and I hope the menu inspires them to explore even more of Louisiana.”