From Insects to Mudbugs

Chef-de-Cuisine Brant Tesky of Acadiana

Growing up in North Dakota and Iowa, Brant Tesky is no stranger to farm-fresh food.  In fact both sets of grandparents owned farms.  Both grandmothers were good cooks.  So is his mother.  He spent lots of his childhood in their kitchens, watching, learning, and eating.  And then he decided to major in entomology.  Then he switched to architecture.

Working as a garden manger in a country club kitchen at night while studying by day, Brant had a revelation:  he preferred cooking.  “I like the artistry of cooking,” he says.  “I like working with my hands, creating something.  It takes all the senses. Taste, obviously, and smell, and touch, but I can also tell the rate something’s cooking by listening closely.”  The chef at the club advised him that if he wanted to go to culinary school, he should go to the best.  And that is how Brant found himself at the Culinary Institute of America, unwittingly following in the footsteps of Jeff Tunks, his mentor and boss at Acadiana.

His first tour of duty in Washington was not with Tunks, however, but during his CIA externship working under Mary Richter at Cities.  Returning to school, he met and married his wife, a pastry chef, and they headed west: first working in Reno, then Denver, and then heading back east to Delray Beach, Florida, where Brant landed at the acclaimed 32 East under Wayne Allcadie.  “It was a great experience there,” remembers Brant, “the menu changed daily, based on what we discovered on our early morning trips to the farmers market.  And of course, the fish couldn’t have been any fresher.”   He’s still drawing on that experience in his work today at Acadiana. 

Brant’s next move was to open an American tapas restaurant called Falcon House with a couple of the bartenders from 32 East.  Then a sous chef position at 701 brought him back to Washington, where he worked for a few years before Tunks hired him to be opening sous chef at Acadiana.  He was trained in the ways of the Passion Food Hospitality family at Ceiba, while the new restaurant was under construction.   “It’s great working with Chef Tunks,” says Brant, “he’s taught me what I know about managing a kitchen, for starters, but also so much about professional cooking.” Tunks obviously has an appreciation for Brant’s work, as well, as he promoted him to chef de cuisine and then executive chef as the positions opened at Acadiana. 

“Louisiana’s cuisine is not like other regional cooking, where they might have a number of traditional dishes, or a particular technique here or there,” Brant explains, “southern Louisiana – and Acadia, in particular – is its own culture entirely, with a completely unique cuisine.  It’s closer to old school French than anything else I know.”  Brant visits a CIA-buddy in New Orleans whenever he can get away, and reads all he can about the culture. 

He’s also still closely in tune with the seasons, changing the menu with Tunks as the calendar turns, and visiting the local downtown Penn Quarter farmers market every Thursday to create his specials.  Some things, of course, never change, like Acadiana’s signature New Orleans Style Barbeque Shrimp and its Charbroiled Oysters.  Some of Brant’s own dishes also now remain on the menu by popular demand, too, like the Seafood Chopped Salad with Spiced Shrimp, Crawfish Tail Meat, Marinated Crab, Cucumbers, Grilled Corn, Shaved Radish, and Fresh Basil at lunch.   He is partial to Gulf seafood, and confides, “I love the po’boys on the lunch menu.  They’re the kind of food I like to eat.”   Friday afternoons find him out on the patio for Acadiana’s weekly pig roast, throwing on the occasional alligator, too.  But these days, the closest Brant Tesky is to his old insect friends may be Louisiana “Mudbugs” – as those beloved crawfish are known, down on the bayou.