Hear ye, hear ye! My fellow New Orleanians, we are officially in the presence of royalty.

Last Saturday, August 3, Thibodaux native Chef Nathan Richard was crowned King of American Seafood at the Great American Seafood Cook-Off. Richard is only the 4th Louisiana resident to snag the coveted title, which he earned for an inventive king cake.

“We brought our ‘A’ game for sure. I couldn’t be more proud to represent Louisiana as the 2019 King of Louisiana Seafood and now the 2019 King of American Seafood. I look forward to being able to promote and showcase the incredible seafood we have right off our coast in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Richard. 

In its 16th year, The Great American Seafood Cook-Off featured the creme de la creme of seafood masters. Each chef was required to create a dish based off food from their region. Chef Nathan Richard took the cake. Literally. His winning dish was Crawfish King Cake. “It’s not your mom n’em’s king cake,” said Richard. It’s a savory sweet combo of crawfish bread and king cake filled with crawfish tails and goat cheese. I’d marry that. But that’s not all. The dish was finished off with dehydrated crab fat and crabmeat. I’m not feeling so confident about my shrimp scampi recipe all of a sudden. 

The new King of American Seafood has maybe been subconsciously training his whole life. Chef Richard grew up in Thibodaux, where he learned to fish, raise livestock and vegetables, and learned to cook Cajun cuisine from his dad. His gifts took him all around New Orleans and the world. From Commanders Palace, Cochon, Restaurant R’evolution, Kingfish, Cavan and then some, to studying butchering in France and Italy. He recently took over as Executive Chef of DTB (Down the Bayou).

The talented chef still finds time in his busy schedule to remain on the Thibodaux Volunteer Fire Department. A king indeed.