Who Dat Culinary Leads Nation

With the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl win and Mardi Gras festivities already under way, February promises to be a good month for Louisiana. The icing on the cake—or the okra in the gumbo—is that the state was recently singled out by the International Culinary Tourism Association (ICTA) as one of the premier destinations in the country.

In a report earlier this month, the association homed in on Louisiana because, while New Orleans’ culinary reputation is well established, “if you dig a little deeper you start to see the whole state has great food and drink,” says ICTA managing director Erik Wolf.

The report sought to assess the strategies that different destinations around the world had in place to foster culinary tourism, not solely the quality of food in a given place. While Washington, Michigan, Oregon, and Ohio all have good programs, Wolf says, Louisiana stands out as the “primary hot spot” in the country.

“A lot of states are doing a little, but Louisiana is doing a lot, and they’re doing it well,” he says.

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