In the Land of Cocktails

Chef Chris Lusk is the King of Louisiana Seafood

Posted by on June 17th, 2010

The title of top seafood chef in Louisiana has been awarded to Chef Chris Lusk of Café Ade­laide & the Swiz­zle Stick Bar at the Loews New Orleans Hotel.

Photo: RUSTY COSTANZA/TIMES-PICAYUNE

He was pre­sented the crown as the King of Louisiana Seafood at the third annual Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off Grand Tast­ing at the New Orleans Wine and Food Expe­ri­ence.  Chef Lusk bested a field of eleven chefs with his dish, Louisiana Shrimp and Crab­meat over Pasta.   (Check out his recipe in our recipes section.)

Judges praised the “sim­ple, clean and bright fla­vors of Louisiana seafood” in the win­ning entry.
Chef Chris advances to com­pete in the Great Amer­i­can Seafood Cook-Off at the Louisiana Food­ser­vice EXPO in August. It is the nation’s most pres­ti­gious seafood com­pe­ti­tion show­cas­ing domes­tic, sus­tain­able seafood and fea­tures pre­mier chefs from across the nation. The National Oceanic Atmos­pheric Asso­ci­a­tion (NOAA) is a pri­mary spon­sor for the two-day event.
The Seafood Cook-off is pro­duced by the Louisiana Seafood Pro­mo­tion and Mar­ket­ing Board (LSPMB).

As the win­ner, Chef Lusk becomes an ambas­sador for Louisiana seafood for the next year. Accord­ing to Ewell Smith, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the LSPMB, “the job of talk­ing about Louisiana seafood has never been more impor­tant than it is right now in view of the sit­u­a­tion in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Approx­i­mately two-thirds of the Louisiana coast remains open and is unaf­fected by the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon spill. Inland, fresh­wa­ter species such as craw­fish, cat­fish and alli­ga­tor are not impacted by the BP incident.

Chef Lusk says, “Louisiana seafood is the best prod­uct in the world and always will be.” He advises chefs nation­wide to be wary of media reports because only safe seafood reaches the mar­ket­place. “Keep it on your menu,” he adds.

Chef Lusk said he speaks with his seafood ven­dors daily to stay on top of the sit­u­a­tion.
The native of Lufkin, Texas comes from a fam­ily of chefs. His grand­fa­ther cooked in a hos­pi­tal “back in the good old days when every­thing was home­made,” and his fam­ily was also farm­ers. He says he grew up eat­ing fresh­wa­ter vari­eties of cat­fish and shrimp.

Here are some links to more on Chef Chris’ win and Louisiana seafood:
From Per­ish­able News.

Inter­view with Chef Chris from SeafoodSource.com

You Tube video of Chef Lusk’s crowning