When stepping into her restaurant, Audrey M. Allen wants you to feel like you’re at a familiar dining room table.
“It’s that Sunday morning when you go with Grandma and whatever comes on that table is gonna be great,” Allen said.
Allen’s restaurant Clambeaugh’s offers traditional “down home cooking” food such as jambalaya, red beans and rice, smothered okra, and étouffée, that will all be served this weekend at Festival International.
Allen, originally a native of New Orleans, purchased her restaurant nearly 30 years ago.
Her goal is to draw attention to the historic town she now calls home.
“Just to be in that arena is a dream come true. I really wanted to be in the festival because of this little small town of St. Martinville,” Allen said.
“It will bring tourism into this town that we’ve never seen before. Our food is just so unique. I mean Creole, Cajun, has an all together different flair with the food.”
Allen said they usually feed 30,000 to 40,000 people, which requires a lot of preparation, with help from friends and family.
“Any festival we do we need at least four months of preparation,” Allen said.
“We have to can the okra, we have to cut the sausage, we have to cut, de-bone chicken, it is hours of work. And you’re also running a restaurant at the same time so it's very time consuming," she said.
But Allen said all that work pays off when she sees people experiencing Louisiana down home cooking for the first time.
“I’m blessed and highly favored,” Allen said. “Just them experiencing the food, some for the first time. Because they hear this and see this on TV and when they’re there, they’re just overwhelmed that it really has the flavor that they say it has.”
While Allen won’t give any of her recipes away, she did share one ingredient she uses.
“My main ingredient that cannot be duplicated is I start with love,” Allen said.
Clambeaugh’s will be on Vermilion St. and Buchanan St. beginning Friday at 5:30 p.m.
