2018 Small Town Chefs: Bonnie Breaux
The Queen of Louisiana Seafood explores her heritage in Breaux Bridge
Every now and then, when Chef Bonnie Breaux needs to catch her breath, she takes a few minutes and sits on the sidewalk in front of Café Sydnie Mae to clear her head and jump into the humanity of Breaux Bridge. From that spot, she can see the crawfish-festooned bridge that her second cousin, Val Breaux, helped build in the town named after the footbridge her great-great-great-great grandfather, Firmin Breaux, built long ago.
They call her the Queen of Louisiana Seafood—as they should, since she earned the title (thanks to her crackling crusted black drum with the fennel marmalade and topped with butter poached jumbo lump crab, which she'll prepare at our Small Town Chefs Dinner too) in a state cookoff June 2017. Breaux, who grew up in Broussard and was born in Lafayette, has combined her culinary royalty with her Breaux Bridge roots to launch Café Sydnie Mae, named after former state Rep. Sydnie Mae Durand, the mother of restaurant owner Chip Durand. “I did not know his mom, but every story I ever heard has been wonderful—so many people who walk in have a story,” said Breaux. “I feel like I’ve known her through conversations with people.”
Along with the rest of her staff at Café Sydnie Mae, Breaux and general manager David Puckett think about what Sydnie Mae Durand did for their community. “Sydnie Mae was a public servant and, under Bonnie’s leadership, we are also dedicated to serving the community,” said Puckett. “Bonnie is brilliant in the kitchen. She runs a tough kitchen and is very demanding. She’s passionate about what she does, and her passion bleeds out into everything the restaurant stands for.”
Puckett added that Breaux continues to make an effort to connect to this place where her roots run deep. “When she’s creating drinks or dishes, she tries to tie her personal history into that. She tries to bring it into the dish,” he said.
The Durands are responsible for convincing Breaux to move back home to the Bayou State after she took a job as executive chef at Roux in Tampa. “Tampa was beautiful, but it wasn’t home,” said Breaux of the sixteen months she spent in Florida. “Chip and Lucy Durand flew down to see me, and the next thing you know, I was coming back to Acadiana, working at St. John’s.”
Lucy and Allcee “Chip” Durand Jr. own The St. John Restaurant in St. Martinville. After Breaux worked with them there for a year, they asked if she would be interested in taking the reins and launching Café Sydnie Mae in Breaux Bridge. Durand proposed that they should open the new restaurant in the 1890 Pellerin building, where Café Des Amis had been for twenty-five years. The much-beloved Café Des Amis closed in early 2017.
[Read this: "I could tell that most of Cajun Country was at our fingertips from where we bedded down bayouside."]
“Roux was very unique,” said Breaux of the Tampa restaurant. “It had more of a New Orleans feel. Café Sydnie Mae is quiet … People feel at home when they come here. It’s not too elaborate but still has a touch of a fine-dining feel that everybody appreciates.”
One of Breaux’s goals for the new restaurant was to create a space where people wanted to sit and visit with each other—and not take out their phones. “I don’t see it as much here, and that’s what I was shooting for,” she said. “We wanted people to come and go back to the way things used to be. We worked to set that mood for everybody. That was our number-one goal.”
Though the site was known for its music for so long, Breaux said they’ve dialed that element back and are working on letting the food and conversations be the stars. “Our music is set real low. Every now and then, we put on some Wayne Toups and let everybody have fun with that, but mostly we keep it low,” she said.
Breaux’s personal roots to the area run deeper than the Teche, but her understanding of who she is goes beyond her familial ties to Breaux Bridge. Her mother was from Arnaudville. “I learned so much from this little Cajun lady,” she said. “My grandfather was often doing pig roasts. That’s what started my interest in cooking. I am not [professionally] trained.” Instead, she tells her kitchen staff that she is a book and wants to absorb as much knowledge as she can. “One lady I worked with in Tampa trained with Julia Child. Other guys had gone to culinary school,” she said. “I was able to learn from them and they learned from me. It was great. For example, I knew how to make a stock, but working with them helped me perfect it.”
Puckett said Breaux’s bottom line is clear. “She wants it right, and she does it right—that’s a part of the culture at Café Sydnie Mae,” he said. “We shoot for 100 percent every day. We don’t hit it every day, but we aim for it.”
He sees many facets to Breaux. “She’s got a strong sense of humor, but when it comes to work, she flips a switch. When you shoot for 100 percent, your personality changes a little bit.”
Breaux and Puckett have assembled a team of a lot of Breaux Bridge locals to staff the new restaurant. “A lot of people walk to work. We took this group of people from different backgrounds and made it work,” he said. “That’s the culture Bonnie inspires and that we’ve worked to create. That effort defines everything we do.”
As Breaux and Durand began to plan the new restaurant, they knew seafood was a given, but they also wanted to serve fabulous steaks.
“Chip is very involved in the restaurant. If he’s not here, he’s on the phone with us. He’s in the process of opening a third restaurant—a farm-to-table restaurant,” she said. “Whatever product he’s able to supply, we will use. We will also have a small country store in St. Martinville—aquaponics, hydroponic. It’s going to be wonderful. The project is underway, and we hope to be able to start using those products soon.”
Breaux said that she and Durand decided to add some dishes she had done as specials at St. John’s to the Café Sydnie Mae menu. “We have seafood, steaks, pork chops. We even have white beans on the menu. At first, I was hesitant, but it sells in this area. I’ve been tickled by that. The white beans really sell—and it’s Chip’s favorite dish.”
Breaux calls the restaurant’s top seller Teche Wellington, a puff pastry stuffed with crawfish and shrimp, topped off with a sherry cream sauce with jumbo lump crab. (It’s also still the top seller at Roux in Tampa.)
“People love it even though it’s a bit heavy,” she said. “I have watched many people eat half of it and take the other half home. On the other hand, I’ve watched many more eat all of it in one sitting.”
The pork chop is also popular. “We cook the pork chop sous vide for three hours. We get it to the perfect temp of 140. Everybody loves it,” she said. “I also play with some fish and salmon. We cook the steaks on the flat top just like we do at St. John’s.”
When it comes to desserts, Breaux harkens back to her childhood with Steen’s syrup cake [gateau de sirop]. “It’s a local flavor—everybody loves it,” she said. “When I go to tables, I hear a lot of It tastes just like my grandmother’s.”
But it’s the white chocolate bread pudding that has been the best seller. “We make it twice a week. We sell a lot of it here,” she said. “It’s alighter version of bread pudding. It’s not dense.”
She credits Puckett for helping make the restaurant opening as smooth as possible. “David and I had a lot of knowledge going in. We were able to train everybody and have them ready for opening day,” she said. “We stumbled a few times. Our kitchen works very well together. We have a different culture here. We walk out of the kitchen and say ‘I love you.’”