Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois’ career in the kitchen began a long time ago boiling crawfish, crabs and shrimp at a local seafood shack in his hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana.  For the past 15 years, Jean-Paul has served as a chef in a number of different restaurants in San Francisco, St. Thomas and New York City.

Today, Jean-Paul works in various forms of food media in New York and around America. His love for cooking food for others is only surpassed by his passion to be an example and teach folks how they too can cook for themselves and bring their family and friends around the dinner table.

Today, most people know Jean-Paul as a lover of all food and fond of folks that cook great meals around the world. However, the outdoorsman in him is, in many ways, the heart and soul of who he is. Living in NYC, Jean-Paul often catches himself daydreaming about walking the woods hunting squirrel, or freezing his butt off in a duck blind in hopes to shoot a limit of birds. He makes yearly pilgrimages back home and around the United States to “feed” that wild side within him.

But there’s also a part of Jean-Paul that not everyone is familiar with: the more technical, fine dining side.  After attending The Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, Jean-Paul went to school all over the world, cooking in restaurants in France, California, Atlanta and St. Thomas USVI, among others.  Every one of these places has influenced the food he cooks each and every day.

Chef Jean-Paul’s roots are in the south, but his goal is to tell the story of southern food through its foodways in New York and beyond.  That little stop-and-go joint in Thibodaux is long gone, but his love for all things boiled in spicy broth is alive and well. He’s made it his personal mission to represent southern cooking by encouraging all who connect with him to #EatLikeASoutherner .