Culinary
Allons manger Iberia! Louisiana is known for its delicious food and Iberia Parish is home to great selections to guide you on your culinary adventure through the Bayou Teche region.
Day 1
1) Breakfast at Teche Cafe
Loreauville’s breakfast spot serves up Cajun classics like beignets, sweet potato pancakes and biscuits and gravy. Community Coffee is also poured hot starting at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and for Sunday brunch.
2) Tabasco® Factory & Country Store
See the factory where world-famous Tabasco® brand pepper sauce is made. View artifacts from Tabasco’s founding family, the McIlhennys, at the museum, and witness the growing process of the pepper plants from seedlings to plate.
You can also visit the mash warehouse for a peek at the sauce’s aging process and sample products at the Tabasco® Country Store.
3) Mid morning snack: Shawn’s Cajun Meats
Make a stop at Delcambre’s new grocery store for a hot link of boudin or great selection of other local food products. You could also consider packing an ice chest to take home some Steen’s Syrup sausage or fresh caught shrimp.
4) Lunch at Café Jefferson
Seafood dishes are the specialty at this on-site café overlooking Lake Peigneur. Bisques, gumbos, etouffee, sauce piquante and homemade desserts make up the menu served beneath moss-draped oaks seven days a week.
5) Jefferson Island Rip Van Winkle Gardens
Located on a coastal salt dome and flanked by 25 acres of semi-tropical gardens and Lake Peigneur, Jefferson Island also boasts the Joseph Jefferson Home.
Built in 1870 by acclaimed American actor Joseph Jefferson, the mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is furnished with period paintings, rare Louisiana pieces and fine examples of American and French Empire furniture.
Visitors can start their experience by viewing a documentary on the 1980 collapse of that giant salt dome beneath the lake, then stroll through the exquisitely restored gardens before watching birds at Rip’s Rookery and touring the home.
6) Afternoon Snack: Caribbean Ice Co.
A family business with the motto “Stay Cool, Eat Real, Be Happy,” Caribbean Ice specializes in snowballs and homemade ice cream, plus chili cheese dogs, hot wings, burgers and more.
7) Dinner at Jane’s Seafood
Crawfish, crab, oysters and seafood dinners are served with a Chinese flair at Jane’s family restaurant Tuesday through Sunday. Pair a plate of boiled shrimp with some fried rice or lo mein to experience Iberia Parish’s culinary fusion.
8) Evening: Hotel or bed and breakfast
Iberia Parish has a variety of options for lodging, from major chain hotels to bed and breakfasts in New Iberia’s Historic District and cottages on Jefferson Island. Visit our accommodations page for a complete list.
Day 2
1) Breakfast at The Coffee House
Start the day with a 20-minute drive out to Jeanerette, you’ll be rewarded with small-batch coffee, biscuits and pastries at this cozy cafe. Open 7 days a week.
2) Jeanerette Museum
Another morning option and a short drive from New Iberia, the museum documents the last 200 years of the sugarcane industry and the manufacturing process from sugarcane to sugar. Also learn about the cypress lumber industry and the days of the steamboat. Younger kids will enjoy the swamp room with over 40 native stuffed species and playing on the playground outside the museum. Grab a lunch plate at the Coffee House and traditional French bread and ginger cakes at LeJeune’s Bakery. Take Highway 87 along Bayou Teche on the way back and view plantation homes shaded by centenary live oaks.
3) Mid-Morning Snack: LeJeune’s Bakery
Mornings in Jeanerette are filled with the smell of fresh-baked bread wafting from LeJeune’s Bakery. Established in 1884, this fifth-generation family business makes every loaf of bread and ginger cake from scratch.
4) Lunch at Duffy’s Diner
A 1950s-style dining experience, Duffy’s serves up poboys, sandwiches, hot dogs, seafood burgers and dinners, along with gumbo and salads, in a family atmosphere Monday through Saturday.
5) New Iberia Historic District
Discover more history of the parish at Bayou Teche Museum, where interactive exhibits on everything from local industry to Tabasco and food festivals welcome visitors. In the Sugar Gallery, watch the process of sugar planting and refining on film, then see an old sugar kettle and other antique farming tools used to process sugar.
Set among live oaks draped with Spanish moss, Shadows-on-the-Teche was built in 1834 by sugar planter David Weeks. Today, the classic Revival-style home and its gardens are open for guided tours year-round.
Tour the oldest operating rice mill in the U.S. and watch a slide presentation on the history of the Acadians, then shop the Konriko store for more than seven different varieties of rice, including a Hot ‘N Spicy Pilaf, and other local food products.
6) Afternoon Snack: Pie Bar at Cane River Pecan Company
Stop by Cane River Pecan Company’s Pie Bar for your afternoon cup of coffee and slice of pie on your culinary route. There are healthy snacks to customized gift tins loaded with flavor, choose from hundreds of unique pecan gift ideas in the gift shop. The restaurant offers gourmet coffee, broad selection of fresh sweet, savory and seasonal pies, and a variety of pastries and breads along with soups, sandwiches and salads, all made from scratch and featuring Cane River Pecan Company’s famous pecans. Don’t forget house-made ice creams too.
7) Dinner at Landry’s Cajun Seafood & Steakhouse
Locally owned Landry’s is located in a rustic, Acadian style home off Jefferson Island Road. The fine dining Cajun menu includes everything from crawfish bisque to crabmeat au gratin, frog legs and “Louisiana Festival” seafood dinners. A buffet is served on Friday and Saturday nights.
