must eats | food trails | food festivals
Louisiana
T here are some places that make your belly smile before you even book a trip. Louisiana is one such destination. Thoughts of savoury gumbo, spicy crawfish and sugary beignets are just some of the delectable reasons to book a trip to this state. It just so happens that 2025 is the Year of Food in Louisiana as well, giving even more reason to celebrate the mixture of French, African, Spanish and French-Canadian influences you’ll find here.
While there are regional airports throughout the state, most likely you’ll fly into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in the southeastern portion of Louisiana. It would be beyond easy (or should we say, the Big Easy) to spend your entire vacation here in this lively city, but the rest of the state also holds appeal.
Read on for our guide to delighting your taste buds in Louisiana.
You’ll hear the terms Cajun and Creole a lot to describe cooking styles here, but they are not interchangeable. One easy way to remember the difference is that Creole cuisine uses tomatoes, while Cajun does not. Cajun food also tends to be heavily seasoned, particularly with cayenne pepper.
Cajun and Creole folks also have differing heritage. French colonists who originally settled in the Acadia region of Canada later moved to Louisiana; over time, the American pronunciation of “les Acadiens” became “Cajun.” Creole, on the other hand, referred to the people born to upper-class settlers in French colonial Louisiana, specifically in New Orleans, and later included native-born enslaved people of African descent.
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Must eats
Food trails
Food festivals
Plan your trip
Traditional Louisiana dishes
Beignets and café au lait
Orlandeaux's Crosslake Café
Great Raft Brewing
Fried oyster po'boy
Raw oysters on the half-shell
Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival
Charbroiled oysters
Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival
Shrimp boil
Lorem ipsum dolor
Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival
So, let’s dive into the iconic menu items you will not only see, but need to try in Louisiana. If you know a bit of French, you’ll have a leg up with pronunciations. Étouffée, which literally means “smothered,” is a Creole rice stew that combines a roux (a cooked mixture of butter and flour) with crawfish or shrimp, herbs and vegetables. If you hear the term “Cajun holy trinity” or just “trinity,” that stands for onions, bell peppers and celery.
Gumbo, the official state dish, is another stew full of ingredients like sausage, crabmeat, okra and the trinity. It’s believed the term gumbo is derived from the Angolan word ngombo, meaning “okra.” Jambalaya, traditionally served out of a big black pot, is the Creole version of Spanish paella, with its chicken, sausage, rice and trinity. Boudin is a combination of pork, cooked rice, trinity, liver and cayenne stuffed into a sausage-like casing; it can be squeezed out and eaten as is, or cooked for a crispy version.
Seafood is the main star on many menus in Louisiana. A New Orleans restaurant, Antoine’s, created Oyster Rockefeller in 1889; the sauce was so rich that it was named after the richest man in the world at the time. Shreveport-style stuffed shrimp with Creole dressing is a local delicacy served with a spicy tartar sauce. For something quick, pick up a po’boy. This sandwich, served on two long pieces of French bread and slathered with mayonnaise or sauce, is packed with lettuce, tomato, pickles and protein (roast beef, fried shrimp, oysters). When in New Orleans, head to Café du Monde for beignets, fried dough covered in powdered sugar, a concept originally brought to Louisiana by the Acadians. New Orleans is also famous for its pralines, a buttery confection of pecans and brown sugar that’s kettle-cooked and dried on wax paper.
When it comes to knowing where the best food is, the locals always know best. That’s why it’s worth giving some of Louisiana’s regional food trails—of which there are many—a shot, as they’ve been curated by the locals themselves.
The Andouille Trail is in Louisiana’s River Parishes, a strip of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, along the Mississippi River. While outsiders might call andouille a sausage, those in the know say it’s its own thing because of the coarseness of the ground pork. This French and German creation gives a meatier bite than a traditional sausage. The trail takes you through wooden smokehouses, generations-old recipes and restaurants with inventive takes on andouille.
In a testament to how much Louisianans love crawfish, there are more than 40 stops along the Bayou Country Crawfish Trail in Houma. This area contains more than 4,000 square kilometers of swamps and wetlands, plenty of places to snag fresh seafood. Crawfish dishes include po’boys and gumbos to boiled and live crawfish.
Just 45 minutes south of New Orleans is the Cajun Bayou Food Trail in Lafourche Parish. This is a chance to get off the beaten path and follow side roads into the wetlands and authentic Cajun communities for some truly local traditions. Download the trail map and passport; once you get five stamps, you can mail it away for a free Cajun Bayou Food Trail T-shirt.
The southwest region around Lafayette is the place to be for Louisiana’s best boudin. There’s even an annual Boudin Cook-Off every October. Not only can you explore local recipes and varieties on the Cajun Boudin Trail, but it’s also an opportunity to try other regional specialties like cracklin and stuffed chickens. Just under 90 minutes from Lafayette is the Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail in Lake Charles, where you can head to restaurants, specialty meat shops and grocery stores for more boudin goodness.
Jefferson Parish, just west of New Orleans, is home to the Louisiana Oyster Trail, which you can spot around the region thanks to the dozen three-foot oyster sculptures each hand-painted by a local artist. Thanks to Louisiana’s prime location along the Gulf of Mexico, there are plenty of oysters to go around. During oyster season (early September through April 30), eat them raw on the half-shell with lemon and hot sauce or chargrilled with some butter and garlic. If more seafood is on your vacation to-do list, head to Highway 90 on Louisiana’s Cajun Coast and dive into the Shrimply Delicious Food Trail. Download the map for a full list of locations.
“Laissez les bons temps rouler” (let the good times roll) may be the motto of New Orleans, but it could also be said for the entire state. There are more than 400 festivals held in Louisiana throughout the year to celebrate food, music, history and the holidays.
Plan ahead to be in town for the Louisiana Food & Wine Festival (Sept. 18–21, 2025) in the city of Lake Charles to sample everything from Cajun and Creole culture to seafood and barbecue. For more meat, head to the annual St. Landry BBQ Festival, which takes place every summer in Opelousas. This three-day event features live music, arts and crafts and a barbecue cook-off competition. For more than two decades, the Meat Pie Festival has been going strong in Natchitoches each September. The meat pie is fried, often in peanut oil, and filled with beef, pork and seasonings.
Since 1960, the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival (May 2–4, 2025) has taken place in Breaux Bridge, recognized by Louisiana legislature as the Crawfish Capital of the World. This three-day event of food and music draws about 30,000 people each year to Cajun Country. Another beloved event is the French Food Festival in Larose for Cajun culture, food, music and family-friendly fun every October. Cajun dishes served include charbroiled oysters, alligator sauce piquante and crawfish fettucine. If you want to take part in a crawfish-eating contest, head to Shreveport’s MudBug Madness, an annual May event which celebrated its 40th year in 2024. Participants can also watch 30 bands take the stands.
Fruits also get their spot in their limelight in Louisiana. The annual Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival (April 11–13, 2025) is large enough to have a North and South Stage for the various performing musicians as people enjoy rides, carnival games and, of course, strawberry treats. There’s even a strawberry eating contest at this harvest festival. For more than 70 years, the Annual Louisiana Peach Festival in Ruston (June 7, 2025) has brought the community together with live music, food vendors and kids’ activities.
The second full weekend of October, for nearly 50 years now, has always been the Zwolle Tamale Fiesta. This celebration of the locals’ Spanish and Native American heritage culminates in hot tamales, dancing, parades and entertainment.
Best Bet 2025
Louisiana was chosen as a Travelzoo Best Bet for 2025. Only five worldwide destinations were selected for this honour, based on factors like increased interest among Travelzoo members, sustainability considerations or landmark events for the new year. See the full list here.
Best Bet 2025
Best Bet 2025
Best Bet 2025
Louisiana was chosen as a Travelzoo Best Bet for 2025. Only five worldwide destinations were selected for this honour, based on factors like increased interest among Travelzoo members, sustainability considerations or landmark events for the new year. See the full list here.
Crawfish, a Cajun dish
Jambalaya
Gumbo
Étouffée
Boudin (left); Cracklin (right)
Andouille
Louisiana's River Parishes
While sitting at a table and eating at a gas station might seem like a foreign concept, it’s second nature in southwest Louisiana. While driving this part of the state, stop along No Man’s Land Gas Station Eats, where you can fill up your car and your belly with a home-cooked meal. (The area is so named because from 1819–1821, neither the U.S. nor Spain claimed the area for their own.)
If all that eating has you thirsty, don’t fret. After all, America’s first cocktail, the Sazerac, was invented here. Download your Louisiana Libations Trail Pass to explore the state’s craft breweries, distilleries and wineries.
America's first cocktail: the Sazerac
