BELLUE’S FINE CAJUN CUISINE

Bellue’s Fine Cajun Cuisine

Retired police captain, recipe developer, and raconteur Wirt Bellue dishes up inventive Cajun food in North Baton Rouge.

Bellue’s Fine Cajun Cuisine on Baton Rouge’s Scenic Highway is a nondescript place with a few tables and counter spaces—but the food is slap-ya-mama delicious. At lunchtime any weekday, the parking lot is jammed.

Diners choose from gumbo, crawfish étouffée, and specials like deer chili—not to mention sixteen side dishes, including rice dressing, mustard greens with tasso, and cornbread dressing.

Lunch often includes a chat with Wirt Bellue himself, the resident chef, host, jack-of-many-trades, and the quintessential man who never met a stranger. If you’re lucky, he will join you, plopping down styrofoam cups of shrimp étouffée or lemon icebox pie (made with fresh lemons squeezed by hand) and urging you to sample them. 

Clad in jeans and a polo shirt emblazoned with his name, his lean frame belying the abundance of calories at his fingertips, Bellue feels like somebody you’ve known forever. His talk is a stream-of-consciousness adventure that takes you from his childhood in North Baton Rouge to his upcoming RV trip.