Amanda Cusey going spoon to spoon against state’s top chefs

Published 5:47 am Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Tender grilled steak topped with jumbo lump crab, crawfish and spicy white wine cream sauce, roasted fingerling potatoes and broccolini is one of the most popular dishes at the Villa Harlequin. That’s the Downtown Lake Charles restaurant where well-traveled and Tante Marie Culinary Academy-trained chef Amanda Cusey does her thing.

On Tuesday Cusey was getting primed to compete against 11 other talented chefs in the 15th annual Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off (LASCO).

“With so many chefs in Louisiana to choose from, it was hard to narrow it down to just 12 competitors, said Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser. “There is no doubt judging dishes this year will be more difficult than ever before.”

One of the chefs cannot compete, according to Cusey, because of COVID.

Judges are chef family royalty, Chef Edgar “Dooky Chase IV and Celeste Chachere, great-granddaughter of Tony Chacere.

“Sure, I’m a little nervous about it,” Cusey said. “I’ve done demonstrations and cookoffs, but this is my first official, timed competition.”

Her dish will be a pan-seared redfish over a tomato polenta with seared green beans topped with crawfish in a mustard cream sauce.

Originally from Flagstaff, the 38 year-old has done some traveling in the states and abroad.

“I started at 14 bussing tables at this little steakhouse in North Carolina,” she said. “I was transferred into the kitchen at 18.”

Cusey realized she was good at it and decided to “get a piece of paper,” she said, “to get into better restaurants.” She chose Tante Marie, the oldest independent cookery school in the United Kingdom, which recently closed its doors because of how COVID affected the business.

When her parents went to Ireland where her father still has relatives, they asked her to move there as well.

“It was the tail end of the Celtic boom and I wasn’t doing much, so I thought, why not,” she said. “I ended up getting a job at a small, intimate Italian place where I ended up learning how to cook Italian food from an English guy in Ireland.”

“The youngest Michelin chef in Ireland, Oliver Dunn, bought the place, closed it and he let me run his Italian-inspired pop up.”

Cusey met Mike Sperandeo before the Villa opened in Downtown Lake Charles and she’s been the chef there since 2016.

“It’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had,” she said. “We have a small, tight knit crew.”

She, like many restaurant owners and staff in Lake Charles, does wish it was a bit larger, but still a tight-knit crew. Cusey is quick to say that Lake Charles has “quite a few talented chefs here now. She will be representing Lake At Charles and The Villa Harlequin in the competition.

In addition to earning the title of King or Queen of Louisiana Seafood, the winner will represent the state at a variety of events including the Great American Seafood Cook-Off, hosted by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and held in New Orleans during the Louisiana Restaurant Association Showcase on Saturday, August 6, 2022.

Other competing chefs are Ryan Cashio, Laplace; Russell Davis, Baton Rouge; David Dickenssauge, Baton Rouge; Ben Fidelak, Natchitoches; Ryan Gaudet, Des Allemands; Kyle Hudson, Baton Rouge; Karlos Knott; Arnaudville; Brett Monteleone, New Orleans; Amy Sins, New Orleans; Joshua Spell, Crowley; and Grant Wallace, New Orleans.