Chef Jeremy Langlois

Gathered in the shadow of a twenty-million pound sugar mountain in New Roads’ Cottonseed Mill, guests to Country Roads’ March Supper Club, “Sugar Rush,” will watch, forks up, reverent, as each course of the sugar-inspired dinner arrives to the table like clockwork. Levels of sweet will swing throughout the evening from a sprinkling to a heap, prompting huddled investigations between strangers as they suss out just how the chef sneaked his key ingredient into the plate before them. Such conversations form the core of our supper series’ conviviality, but Chef Jeremy Langlois, the dinner’s architect, is more concerned with mastery than mystery.

A month out from the dinner, Langlois has no need to feel harried as he details his menu plans within the sky blue walls of the Carriage House Restaurant at Houmas House  and Gardens, where he is executive chef of several dining establishments on the property. Panic at any hour would be a foreign emotion on the thirty-nine-year-old chef’s unlined face. Instead, his eyes gleam, like sunset hitting steel, as he details all he’s done to make his Supper Club debut go off without a hitch or a scorch. To serve dishes that range from his signature curried pumpkin bisque to a slow-braised beef short rib over blue corn grits, he will need no ovens, no additional cooking staff beyond his own small, trusted crew, and he’ll toss a few extra ladles in the car just in case. “I like to be self-contained,” he said.

That Langlois leaves nothing to chance smacks of irony. The centripetal progression of his unusual career—dishwasher at White Oak Plantation at 16, executive chef at Lafitte’s Landing at 22, presiding over countless weddings, anniversaries, and tour groups  during a decade at Houmas House, studying under the eminent Chef John Folse at White Oak and years later coming to work as his partner—outlines a space for some sly puppetmaster nudging the guileless kid down the right path. Who put sixteen-year-old Langlois in sight of a high-energy kitchen? Who introduced him to Folse? Who tossed the still-young chef into a three-year whirlwind around Louisiana restaurants and nationwide catering gigs before Houmas House called him back again last fall?

It’s a diner’s naiveté that has me attributing Langlois’ success to happy accidents or unseen maestros, because a true chef cannot be separated from his intentions. Like its fellows on the menu, the chilled crab lasagna will be served at our Supper Club because Langlois has envisioned the full process—from rolling out the house-made pasta and folding cold, plump blue crab into sharp remoulade, to layering in crescendos and lulls of tomato vinaigrette, herb ricotta, and sugar beets (aha, there’s the sweet)—and decided he can execute each step with no lag between the imagined and the tangible as guests sit down, dwarfed by the on-site sugar mountain, and welcome each exquisite dish. And Jeremy Langlois is a chef because at sixteen years old, he hovered in a plantation kitchen doorway. He gaped at the room before him, all sizzle and echo as white coats hustled in figure eights and glinting Wüsthof steel made mince of onions and caught a teenager’s riveted reflection. He saw that he could glide ahead in his own white coat, and on the other side of twenty-three years, still retain all his youthful verve and happiness. But if he thought life would be linear, Langlois was wrong. Through repetition—in recipes, in events, and in workplaces—the chef presses forward and inward, with rising hope of one day arriving at perfection.

Tickets for our March 22 Supper Club at the News Roads Cottonseed Oil Mill are on sale now at bontempstix.com. Find the menu below. 

MENU

Sugar Rush Supper Club 

Passables

Herb Grilled Cheese with Kumquat Marmalade,  Chili and Sugar Glazed Shrimp, and Praline Bacon 

Starter

Chilled Crab Lasagna: Louisiana blue crab, tossed in remoulade sauce, layered with house made pasta, tomato vinaigrette, herb ricotta, sugar beets, crispy parmesan cheese

Entree

Louisiana Wagyu Short Rib: Slow braised Raines Farms beef short rib, with blue corn grits, Houmas House honey heirloom carrots, and pea tendrils

Dessert

Bouche Noir: Flourless chocolate cake, with basil syrup, cayenne whipped cream, and candied basil