Announcing Our 2018 Small Town Chefs

Tickets are now on sale for the Small Town Chefs Dinner—Thursday, June 28, at the Louisiana Culinary Institute. Proceeds benefit the LCI Foundation. Visit bontempstix.com/events/2018-small-town-chefs-dinner for tickets now.

Somehow, after five years spent scouring the state for the best chefs and culinary professionals working in towns under 25,000 (where followings for a master chef can be small—but boy, are they loyal), we're still up to our ears in exceptional nominees. All spring long, our judges have been doing the difficult work of traipsing around south Louisiana and Mississippi, eating exquisite food, and reporting back to us their findings.

The genuinely hard part of this task is picking just three winners. On Thursday, June 28, join us at the Louisiana Culinary Institute for a five-course dinner presented by the winners of this year's Small Town Chefs Awards …

Chef Eric Hunter whisks diners away as chef-owner of the storied La Provence in Lacombe, La., where raised garden beds, chicken coops, and roaming Mangalitsa pigs just outside the dining room redefine the farm-to-table journey as the shortest possible distance between two points. This Texas native knows his way around a piece of beef, and delights in traditional French dishes such as frog's legs, salade niçoise, and gateau basque. 

Chef Bonnie Breaux wears her Queen of Louisiana Seafood (2017) crown well. And who but the Queen could take the hallowed halls and floorboards of the former Café des Amis and reimagine them as her own distinctive restaurant? With owners Chip and Lucy Durand, Breaux is bringing new culinary bravado to Breaux Bridge at Café Sydnie Mae, where signature treats include a spectacular shrimp-and-eggplant-stuffed flounder, to-die-for traditional Gateau Sirop, as well as Teche Wellington, and Breaux Shrimp & Grits.

At the intersection of Highway 44 and Highway 22, Chef Joshua Hebert keeps busy at The Cabin Restaurant, serving up heaps of wildly popular red beans and rice, country fried steaks, and seafood platters. But he's found time—even as the father of two young boys—to infuse The Cabin's menu with his own personality, even while reopening another restaurant on the property: Bernadette's Table. The elegant, 1830s-era planters cottage served as a fine-dining French restaurant, helmed by Gerard Hemery, until 2013. Now Hebert, teamed with chef de cuisine Adam Reeson, has just the spot to cook up farm-fresh fare inspired by cooks and characters Hebert has met in his travels throughout the South. The wine cellar remains well, well stocked, too.

Tickets are now on sale for the Small Town Chefs Dinner—Thursday, June 28, at the Louisiana Culinary Institute. Proceeds benefit the LCI Foundation. Visit bontempstix.com/events/2018-small-town-chefs-dinner for tickets now.