Every year, the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society partners with the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation to host Baton Rouge’s annual crawfish festival Crawfête. The Covid-19 pandemic brought the festival to a halt last year, but Crawfête will be returning with local restaurant catering, boiled crawfish and live music this Sunday, March 13.
Previous Crawfête festivals have been general admission events. This year, however, Crawfête will be a VIP-style, 400-person event, but with “the same exact format” the festival has used in the past, says Vice President of the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society Stephen Hightower.
“We were still battling Omicron and not sure, so we just decided at that point, we weren’t going to go full throttle,” says Hightower. “That’ll be back in 2023.”
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Chef Don Bergeron and Chef KD will serve as the judge’s for this year’s event as restaurants like Roux 61, Tony’s Seafood, Rouj Creole and Walk-Ons face off in the crawfish boiling contest. Gourmet crawfish dishes will be catered by Mestizo, Ruffino’s, Tallulah Crafted Food and Wine Bar, TJ Ribs, Cecilia Creole Bistro and more. And attendees will have the chance to vote for which restaurants receive the People’s Choice Award for Best Boiled Crawfish and Best Gourmet staff.
Restaurants won’t be the only caters at Crawfête. Three Roll Distillery will offer whiskey and rum tastings. Fred’s Bar & Grill will be providing alcoholic beverages and sponsoring live music from the Louisiana-based band Blue Crab Redemption.
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All proceeds from Crawfête will go directly to the local hospitality industry, such as Baton Rouge restaurants in-need and organizations supporting children’s health and education.
“Crawfête’s going to be awesome,” says Hightower. “We were probably one of the last events before the pandemic lockdown happened in 2020. We had close to 1,000 people there, and we have grown the event over the past two years into something that was truly an unbelievable spectacle.”
Crawfête is this Sunday, March 13, from 2-5 p.m., at Perkins Rowe. Tickets are available at https://www.bresbr.org/.