"New Orleans always gets top billing in the Pelican State, but Lafayette is Louisiana's true food and music lovers' secret."
The website for Gourmet Magazine is the latest to heap praise on the Hub City's mingling of food and music. Lafayette is included in a Gourmet feature titled "The Next Big Scene" that highlights cities large and small that possess, in our case, great roux and rhythms:
New Orleans always gets top billing in the Pelican State, but Lafayette is Louisiana's true food and music lovers' secret. Known for Cajun-zydeco music, the city has recently been earning accolades for its Acadian classics, smoked meats, and vintage-cool vibe.
The Venues and the Menus: In this capital of Acadiana, it's rare to find food without music (and vice versa). You can wake up Sunday morning to Cajun music and a breakfast of biscuits topped with boudin patties, poached eggs, and crawfish étouffée while a 14-foot alligator looks on at Prejeans (don't worry, the gator's stuffed). Don't miss the crawfish boils at Randol's, another dance hall where you can dance to live zydeco nightly. And there's a whole new generation carrying on the Cajun torch, from local-boy-made-good Donald Link's outpost of his famous New Orleans restaurant Cochon to the sophisticated fare at the French Press, which nods toward the region's French past. Bands like the Doc Marshalls, Feufollet, and the Malfecteurs can be found reinterpreting their French musical heritage at venues like the Blue Moon Saloon along with indie rock acts like the Givers.
Yes, we know, it can be cringe-inducing when outsiders write about Acadiana culture. But props is props.
Lafayette joins Athens, Ga., Birmingham, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Providence, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Maine on the list. See it here.