After weeks of constant phone calls and a dozen bowls of soup, the restaurant guide is complete and ready for consumption.
The IND's restaurant guide, a comprehensive compilation of Lafayette restaurants, is hot off the press and ready to serve your dining needs. Find the restaurant guide online here, or pick up one of the 9,000 copies next to a red IND rack . Restaurants are organized by food genre, plus neighborhood favorites, where you can find the city's best bets.
I spoke with half a dozen chefs in Lafayette about their favorite soups and all seemed to light up whenever I asked about their childhood memories regarding the stove top concoctions. Beef and vegetable soup was a favorite, as was gumbo, for those who grew up down south. Café Vermilionville's chef Mike Collins spoke fondly of his mother's chicken soup, and, though not mentioned in the cover story, talked about the "Jewish penicillin" of his childhood: matzo ball soup from the Jewish neighborhood around the corner from his house in Ohio. According to Collins, that soup could cure anything.
But most of all, each chef emphasized how comforting soup can be. It warms everything from your stomach to your fingers to your soul. I had the privilege of eating a soup from each chef's kitchen, and you can taste the care and creativity that goes into each bowl - from Jolie's smoked tomato soup to Jefferson Street Pub's beer cheese soup.
Browse the guide, try somewhere new and eat your way through Lafayette.