Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant offers visitors fine cuisine in a historical setting

WASHINGTON — Jason Huget had been mulling over whether or not to take something off the menu at The Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant.
The decorated chef-owner of the Washington landmark met with his wait staff one night before the dinner rush. Huget had been debating removing from the menu one of the restaurant’s oldest dishes, the Steamboat Gang Plank (an 8 ounce ribeye on a bed of fresh bread covered in crawfish etouffee). So Huget instructed the front of the house to simply ask the customers that night if the dish should remain on the menu or be taken off.
“You never want to become stale in this business,” Huget said. “You don’t want your customers to get burned out on the same dish over and over again. So I thought about changing up the menu but I reconsidered after I got their thoughts that night.”
The customers thoughts were summed up with one message in particular.
“On back of one of my place mats it read ‘Don’t you dare,’” Huget said.
The dish remained and Huget learned a valuable lesson.
“That day I realized that our regular customers don’t like a whole lot of change,” Huget said. “People here in this community and surrounding communities have a certain expectation for this place. So if it isn’t broke then don’t fix it.”
The Steamboat’s location is rich in history.
The historic building, with double brick walls and wooden beams, that overlooks Bayou Courtableau was completed in 1823. It was one of seven steamboat warehouses located in Louisiana’s third oldest settlement as the bayou, formerly known as the Opelousas River, helped connect river boat travelers to the west.
After the railroad came through the area, the steamboats stopped floating into Washington and most of the old warehouses along the water were eventually torn down. Expect for one, which Jack Womack bought, restored and converted into the Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant in 1977.
The town’s steamboat history covers the walls throughout the restaurant with a collection of old framed documents, a display of handmade nails, a miniature replica steamboat and an old ship anchor help spotlight the building’s historic significance.
This is where Huget, a graduate of Opelousas Catholic High, began his culinary career way back in 1994.
Huget needed a job as he was about to start attending LSU at Eunice. A friend of his then-girlfriend’s mother gave him a good reference, and Womack hired him as a busboy-dishwasher.
After a few years, the business changed hands as Frankie Elder became the owner. It was shortly after that when Huget’s career path changed.
“Mr. Frankie asked me if I wanted to join the kitchen staff or wait staff and he added ‘I don’t want you to be on the wait staff,’” Huget laughed.
It wasn’t long after that Elder approached Huget about his long term future.
“He asked me, ‘if I put you in the culinary school would you go?,” Huget remembered. “I said yes.”
For the next four years, Huget would attend The Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University. He would stay in his dorm Monday through Thursday, and then after classes on Friday would return to Washington.
Huget would work the dinner shift, both shifts on Saturday, wash his clothes late at night, work the Sunday lunch shift before driving the two and half hours back to Thibodaux for the next week of courses.
Huget would graduate with honors in 2000, interned at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans before returning to Washington to become Executive Chef in 2000.
“For years, people have asked me did you always know you wanted to be chef,” Huget said. “I never knew how to really answer that question but then I saw a chef on a TV show once and he said, ‘This isn’t a profession you choose, it chooses you.’ And that made perfect sense to me.”
After a brief departure from the Steamboat, where Huget worked for well-known Chef Jude Tauzin at Lafayette’s Restaurant, he returned in June of 2006, as not only the Steamboat’s executive chef but as the historic landmark’s third owner.
“Never in my life did I think this would ever happen,” Huget said. “I was one of those people back in high school that had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.”
During his time at the Steamboat, Huget has become one of Acadiana’s most celebrated chefs.
The 40-year-old has won numerous awards, including taking best in show at the annual chefs competition in Opelousas known as Soirée Royale, as well as top honors at the Acadiana Culinary Classic. Huget also hosts a local TV show called “What’s Cookin?,” appears once a month on the Alexandria NBC affiliate KALB, and was named “Restaurateur of the Year” in 2012 by the Louisiana Restaurant Association.
Stuffed Bell Pepper, Eggplant Belle Rose, Seafood Au Gratin and Steak Lafitte are just a few of the award-winning dishes Huget and his staff prepares for customers who come to dine at the Steamboat.
“I pride myself on taking different varieties of fresh fish dishes and pairing them with different sauces to really make them shine.” Huget said.
Even though Huget learned early on not to mess with customer’s favorite dishes, that hasn’t prevented him from exploring his own creative side in the kitchen. Huget routinely will come up with new creations and have those as part of his daily specials.
Most recently, Huget played around with a dish for a few months before breaking it out one night as a special. Huget seasoned a duck breast, laid it on top of some roasted pecan white rice pilaf and covered in a homemade black berry glaze. The simple dish was a hit.
“My motto has always been, ‘simple is best,’” Huget said.
As for keeping one of the town’s historic landmarks open, and more importantly thriving, Huget is humbled by the whole experience.
“I truly believe it was just meant to be,” Huget said. “Everybody has a purpose and mine is to keep the legacy of the Steamboat going on for another 39 years.”