The Gulf of Mexico oil spill remains a challenge for many New Orleans restaurants, even those that aren’t in The Big Easy. Acadiana is a Washington, D.C., hot spot that harnesses the bayou spirit with gumbo, fried green tomato and charbroiled oyster dishes, but it's had to make menu adjustments on the fly with certain items in short supply after the disaster.
It hasn't been easy, but co-owner Chef Jeff Tunks, who also oversees the menus at several other restaurants in and around the nation’s capital, kept the ship sailing straight. Sales for Acadiana’s top dishes, like barbecued shrimp and jumbo lump crab cakes, haven't slowed at all. Seafood features prominently at Tunks’ other restaurants — especially PassioonFish, which opened in Reston, Va., in October 2008 — but Acadiana remains a special place for the chef who put The Grill Room at New Orleans’ Windsor Court Hotel (a five-star Mobil rating) on the map nearly 15 years ago.
To read the rest of James Wright’s interview with Jeff Tunks, click here. The story ran in the September issue of SeaFood Business magazine.
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