Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Food Trends and New Classics

The Red Stick Spice Market is a cook’s happy place. Aisles of spice mixes, high-quality condiments and prepared foods greet you. It’s a whole shop brimming with tastes of Louisiana that you can bring home, from locally-sourced honey and pepper jelly to sweet pralines and spiced nuts. In addition to shopping, you can plan for a session in the kitchen classroom, where owner Anne Milneck hosts her popular cooking classes. Sessions in the test kitchen cover everything from jams and jellies to bar bites and French bistro cooking, but out-of-town visitors gravitate toward the Cajun Classics lesson. Anne shares insight into Cajun-style cooking, teaching that it’s comprised of local vegetables, rich smoked meats, seafood, rice and bold flavor from a mix of spices. Early Acadian settlers to Louisiana were forced to adapt traditional recipes to their newfound local resources. Similarly, you can return home and modify Cajun recipes like Corn Maque Choux (a popular side dish) to your own region’s ingredients.

Taco enthusiasts will gravitate to Gov’t Taco, the brainchild of "Food Network Star" runner-up Jay Ducote, where Louisiana and Southern flavors kick up the beloved street taco. Go full-on Louisiana with the “Operation Mudbug” taco featuring fried crawfish tails, sweet corn and red potatoes. Next, try authentic Asian street food at Chow Yum Phat and enjoy taiyaki ice cream treats from Sweet Society. 

Named after owner Chef Paul Dupre’s late grandmother, Elsie’s Plate and Pie is a must on your Baton Rouge to-do list. As soon as you swing the door open, you’ll realize this place is popular: The bar stools lining the counter are filled with people, families and friends tuck into booths chatting and eating happily, and a line forms for to-go pie orders. It’s modern without losing its cozy, homespun charm, and its Southern-inspired menu is peppered with inventive risks. There’s the Cajun crawfish queso, a Louisiana take on chips and queso, where the chips are pork rinds and the cheese sauce has pieces of crawfish. Then there’s the pimento cheese salad with mixed field greens, toasted pecans, green onions, croutons and pepper jelly vinaigrette. No matter what you eat for your main course, don’t leave without ordering pie. Favorites include the cherry hand pie topped with vanilla ice cream. It blends tart and sweet, and is totally worth the calories. Another decadent treat, the s’mores pie is a divinely creamy chocolate concoction topped with pillow-like marshmallow meringue that’s torched to perfection – you feel special just eating it. And that’s exactly how Elsie would have wanted it.

International flights connecting through Atlanta, Houston or Dallas can get you to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, which is located only 11 kilometers from downtown. Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans (just over an hour from downtown Baton Rouge) is also a great gateway to Baton Rouge.