For most of my childhood and adult life, I have grown up on Bayou Lafourche. Born in Raceland, Louisiana, I spent much of my very young childhood fishing and catching seafood in the fresh water bayous of Lafourche Parish. From fresh perch, bass, and the beloved sac-au-lait, to fresh blue crab, shrimp, and brackish water redfish, I grew up loving it all an eating it all too.
            When I was 6 years old, my father’s work brought the entire family to Venezuela, where my parents, two siblings, and I spent an entire year, living in the unknown world of South America. This trip opened up my eyes to particular foods I could never dream of having anywhere else. I was just old enough to have very few memories of the past now, but the food memories are ever so present in my mind still today. It opened my mind to things we couldn’t dream of trying in America, unpasteurized milk, butter, and cream, house-made chocolate used in ice cream that also used fresh milk and cream. Talk about a game changer for a 6-year-old kid. This is the point in time where I truly developed a love for food. It not only showed me how great quality ingredients can get but how special our coastal ingredients in Louisiana are.
            Returning from Venezuela, my parents relocated us to Lockport, Louisiana, once again on the southern side, this time, of Bayou Lafourche. This is the period where my love for bayou ingredients continued to grow. Not only did I venture out onto the bayou for ingredients, but I had the opportunity to bring them back to my grandmother’s house to see how a professional native would cook-up the bayou’s best ingredients. This is where my love for cooking had to manifest. I wouldn’t realize until I was older the amount of luck I had being able to catch my own food and have someone teach me how to cook in the same morning.
            Once I graduated high school from Central Lafourche, I extended my reach of schooling towards CJFCI, the Chef John Folse Culinary School, right in my backyard of Lafourche Parish in Thibodaux, Louisiana. I spent five years honing my craft of cooking, digging deep into my own past, expanding upon the knowledge my grandmother transferred to me as a young kid, mixing these lessons with a real world-class professional culinary setting. Within 10 years, I had found everything I needed within Bayou Lafourche, to give me a leg up on my professional culinary career. Still today, the amount of gratitude I feel for Bayou Lafourche and all of the opportunities she gave astonishes me. Little did I know, I had another trip outside of bayou Lafourche waiting for me.
            In the summer of 2015, while in culinary school, I picked up a job at Thibodaux’s newly opened Cinclare Restaurant. I continued to expand upon my training, learning every station possible within the restaurant over the next three years. I had always worked in restaurants since I was old enough to work, but Cinclare gave me the opportunity to expand upon my professional skills and get to know how special my heritage and creativity was. After three years at Cinclare as a line cook, my culinary cohort, Crystal Lachney and I, were given the opportunity to lead the kitchen as Co-Head Chefs. Not being graduated from culinary school, we found this dynamic to be extremely useful to us and Cinclare.. For one year, Crystal and I experimented with our creativity, leadership skills, and culinary knowledge in the Cinclare kitchen. Many great memories are held within that year. In the summer of 2018, I was given the ultimate opportunity by CJFCI to enroll into Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France, a three-month summer internship at one of the most distinguished French culinary schools. Over that summer, I trained with some of the best French chefs in the world, made friends from all over the world, and experienced the connection of France and Louisiana first hand. To actively see the roots of our Cajun French heritage was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life thus far. When I returned from Lyon, Crystal had decided to move onto other ventures, and I was given the sole opportunity to lead Cinclare Restaurant as Executive Chef. Since then, I have built my own style of cuisine, a contemporary Cajun Creole style with big gestures of traditional French influence.
            Since becoming sole Executive Chef, I was recognized by the Bayou Chapter of the Louisiana Restaurant Association for winning the People’s Choice Restaurant in the tri-parish area surrounding Lafourche Parish. The Houma based, Point of View Magazine has highlighted my bayou cuisine in several articles, which gave me the opportunity to do an article with Louisiana Cookin’ magazine, featuring my unique experience as a fine dining chef on Bayou Lafourche and our many quality ingredients. Just recently, Louisiana Cookin’ has honored me with being a 2020 chef to watch in their Chef’s to Watch Series. I feel extremely honored being able to showcase myself as well as Bayou Lafourche’s best ingredients on the bayou I grew up loving. Not only do I get to be the fine dining chef I dreamed of becoming, but being able to express myself on the bayou I grew up loving with the ingredients I shared with family now gone, makes this experience that much more rewarding.