Creole dinner on the river

What Creole means

Louisiana Creole cuisine is a style of cooking that began in Louisiana and blends West African, French, Spanish and Native American influences, along with the cooking of the wider American South. It grew from the populations present in the colony before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The word Creole first described the descendants of the French and Spanish, and over time it came to include Acadians, Germans, Caribbeans and people of African descent, so the food reflects many cultures at one table.

Creole and Cajun

People often use the two words as if they meant one thing. Wikipedia notes that both draw on French cooking adapted to Louisiana's resources and influences, but Creole cooking is stereotypically seen as city food and Cajun cooking as simpler country food. That is a stereotype, not a rule, so treat it as a rough guide. A dinner on a boat in the middle of New Orleans sits naturally on the Creole side of that line.

A cookbook that defined the kitchen

The Picayune Creole Cook Book was published in 1900, compiled by a staffer at the Daily Picayune from recipes said to come from the city's Creole cooks. It has been released in 16 further editions with few alterations to the original recipes. Local newspapers of the time warned that when the last of the Creole cooks left New Orleans the secrets of the Louisiana kitchen might be lost. The book shows how seriously the city took its cooking long before it became a tourist draw.

Classic dishes of the cuisine

Wikipedia groups classic Creole dishes by course. Soups include bisque, gumbo and turtle soup. Main dishes include jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, red beans and rice, grillades and shrimp creole. The cuisine is known for desserts such as king cake, pralines and sweet dough pie, and Etienne de Boré mastered crystallising sugar at his New Orleans plantation in 1795. These lists describe the cuisine as a whole. They do not tell you what is on the boat's menu on your night, because that changes.

The dinner on the cruise

The ticket describes a Creole-style dinner as an option, served in the dining hall, and it says the menu items are subject to change by season and availability. The operator calls it a Creole buffet and says that à la carte options are available on board. If dinner is not offered for your date, the operator's page says that date's dinner places are sold out. This page deliberately names no dishes, because a sample menu is only a sample.

What guests say

Opinions are mixed in a useful way. A British guest describes a huge hot buffet with 360-degree views of the river and city, and others use words such as lovely food and a very good buffet. Other travellers say the quality and variety of the food could be improved. The sensible reading is that the dinner is an easy way to eat without leaving the evening, not a destination meal, and that it suits people who value the setting as much as the plate.

Dietary needs and drinks

Neither the ticket nor the operator's page says what dietary requests the kitchen can meet, so this page makes no promise about vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free or allergy-safe meals. If a member of your party has a restriction, put the question to the operator via the booking page first. Alcoholic drinks are sold on board, and nothing may be brought aboard from outside, so a packed substitute is not an option.

Who this isn't for

Skip the dinner option if the meal is the reason you are going, because guests are mixed on the food. Skip it if you have strict dietary needs that you cannot confirm with the operator. And skip it if you would rather spend the evening in a French Quarter restaurant and join the boat for the cruise only: the cruise-only option exists for exactly that plan, and the band, the deck and the river are all still on board.

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