Most British travellers’ experience of Louisiana begins and ends with New Orleans, but it’s well worth exploring the whole state. We took a road trip that started in the Big Easy, before taking in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and finishing up in Lake Charles.
To begin our tour, we holed up in the Hotel Saint Vincent in the Lower Garden District and from there set out to explore the French Quarter, the city’s most famous and earliest-established neighbourhood. With its grand cathedral and warren of historic streets, it is an essential tourist destination, and I’d recommend a guided tour.
True, these can be about as much fun as a history lesson given by a depressed supply teacher, but the one run by Michael Higgins is an exception. Higgins takes his guests on a two-hour wild ride through the history of New Orleans, revealing how it became the vibrant hub of music and culture it is today.
Gumbo in New Orleans
But we were here for the food for which New Orleans is famous. Gumbo is ubiquitous, but a tour of the city also features jambalaya, beignets, étouffé, po-boys, boudin and crawfish (that’s crayfish to us).
Start the day with beignets, little squares of featherlight doughnuts, at Café du Monde in the heart of the French Quarter, near the cathedral. If you can’t face the queues that can build up there, opt instead for the Criollo restaurant at the Monteleone Hotel, a favourite hangout for Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Truman Capote. Its beignets are served with praline sauce and fresh strawberries along with the traditional avalanche of powdered sugar.
Despite the big breakfast, the walking tour had given us an appetite for lunch so we headed for Napoleon House, a restaurant and courtyard that has served classic New Orleans food since 1914. We had Italian muffuletta, a huge sandwich stuffed with cured meats and cheese in a sesame-crusted light loaf, and red beans and rice – a Louisiana favourite traditionally eaten on Mondays when a big pot could be left to bubble slowly while everyone got on with their laundry day after the weekend festivities.
Along with a wealth of places for the traditional food New Orleans is famous for, the city is also home to modern restaurants offering updates on classic dishes. One standout example is the award-winning Pêche in the Warehouse District. Highlights from the menu include seafood gumbo with hushpuppies (a cornmeal fried ball), spicy ground shrimp and an outstanding crab rice, rich with seafood and cajun spicing.
Crawfish in Baton Rouge
Next up on our tour was Baton Rouge, the state capital. We stopped at the Red Stick Spice company to take a cooking class with founder, chef Anne Milneck. Showing a great deal of patience she taught us how to cook crawfish étouffée, a Louisiana classic consisting of crayfish smothered in a thick and spicy sauce. Milneck is also a tea aficionado, so it’s possibly the only place in Louisiana where we Brits are guaranteed to get a good cup of tea.
While here, be sure to check out The Chimes, a Baton Rouge institution serving Louisiana cajun and creole specials to locals. Crawfish features heavily on the menu, but we also had sautéed crab fingers with garlic butter and spinach and artichoke dip, a delicious but artery-clogging dish filled with cream and cheese and accompanied by deep-fried farfalle pasta.
On the way out of Baton Rouge we drove through the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation’s largest wetlands, covering almost a million acres of swamps, rivers, bayous and backwater lakes stretching to the Gulf of Mexico. Book in with McGee’s Swamp Tours for a trip through this remarkably biodiverse haven for wildlife.
Boudin in Lafayette
Once back on dry land, we headed to Lafayette, a historic town known as the heart of cajun and creole country, with a thriving food culture. We had lunch at Johnson’s Boucanière on the outskirts of Lafayette, set up in 1937 and still family-run. The boudins are made to the traditional family recipe and served with cuts of meat smoked on-site and the time-honoured ‘fixins’. I had a smoked brisket over rice with gravy, coleslaw and potato salad – moist and delicious with hints of the ubiquitous cajun spice rub and a delicate hint of smoke.
The restaurants in downtown Lafayette are anything but hidebound by tradition. Go to Spoonbill Watering Hole, a converted old-school petrol station now serving southern food with a Mexican twist, taking advantage of the abundant seafood of the gulf coast. The royal red shrimp tacos were outstanding, with zingy spicing that I washed down with a super-fresh minty mojito. Another must in Lafayette is Borden’s Ice Cream Shoppe, a wonderful piece of Americana opened in 1940 and serving a vast array of ice creams and sundaes with every topping you can think of.
The next day we went on the Cajun Food Tour, a whistle-stop trip of traditional eateries. We ended it with the Mardi Gras King Cake at Poupart, the legendary bakery set up in 1965 by a French pastry chef who still puts in a daily appearance at the shop.
Drive-thru daiquiris in Lake Charles
Finally, we headed for Lake Charles, southwest Louisiana’s version of Las Vegas, with glitzy resorts and casinos, and drive-thru daiquiri joints. We stayed at L’Auberge Casino Resort, a vast hotel with a lazy river swimming pool overlooking the lake. By now, the past days’ rich and spicy food had all but defeated me – pack loose clothes and plenty of Rennie – so we ate at the Salt Revival Oyster Company, where you can get sweet fresh oysters served as the food gods intended: freshly shucked with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and a dash of Tabasco.
Natasha Langan was a guest of New Orleans & Co; Visit Baton Rouge; Lafayette Travel; Visit Lake Charles. America As You Like It has a 10-night holiday from £1,910 per person, including direct return flights to New Orleans and car hire. Three nights at the Saint Hotel in New Orleans, two nights at the Origin Hotel in Baton Rouge, three nights at L’Auberge Casino Resort in Lake Charles and two nights at Maison Mouton in Lafayette.