Silverhill Councilman Gerald Ardoin Brings Opelousas Roots to Café Acadiana’s Cajun Kitchen

SILVERHILL, Ala. — For 13 years, Silverhill City Councilman Gerald Ardoin has been serving the food of his native Louisiana from Café Acadiana, a Cajun restaurant on Silverhill Avenue that has become a fixture in the small Baldwin County town. Boudin balls, crawfish étouffée, po-boys and red beans and rice share the menu with a house-made sauce that has become the restaurant’s signature.

Café Acadiana is the second restaurant by that name Ardoin has owned, and the story of how it got to Silverhill stretches back more than four decades to a family seafood restaurant in south Louisiana.

From Opelousas to Silverhill

Ardoin grew up in Opelousas, Louisiana, a city of roughly 15,000 people just north of Lafayette. He started cooking there in 1979, at age 16, working alongside his father at the family’s restaurant, Ardoin’s Seafood.

When his father retired in 1995, Ardoin opened his own restaurant, the first Café Acadiana. He ran it for eight years before selling it in 2003 and moving to Silverhill.

For the next several years, Ardoin worked in the wholesale foodservice industry. But he missed the kitchen and the dining room, and in the summer of 2013 he went back into the restaurant business, opening a new Café Acadiana in Silverhill.

“I enjoyed working for the distributor, but the big corporate rigmarole and everything else drove me insane and I wanted to get back to my roots and do something that I love,” Ardoin said. “I love to cook and I love the people, so this business was for me.”

What “Acadiana” means

The restaurant’s name, pronounced “uh-kay-dee-an-uh,” refers to the region of south-central Louisiana that covers 22 parishes and is the heartland of Cajun culture. Lafayette is its largest city, and Opelousas, Ardoin’s hometown, lies within it.

The region’s roots trace to the Acadians, French-speaking settlers of what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. During the mid-18th-century conflict between Britain and France, British authorities expelled the Acadians from their homeland in an upheaval remembered as the Great Upheaval, or Le Grand Dérangement. Following the end of the Seven Years’ War, groups of Acadian exiles made their way to south Louisiana, then under Spanish rule, settling there in the late 1700s. Over time, “Acadian” became “Cajun,” and the culture they built, including its distinctive cooking, became one of Louisiana’s best-known exports.

Cajun cooking grew out of country cooking that relied on what was close at hand: rice, local seafood, pork, game and the “holy trinity” of onion, celery and bell pepper that forms the base of many dishes. Café Acadiana’s menu draws on that tradition.

On the menu

Café Acadiana serves what Ardoin describes as good old-fashioned Southern-style seafood and dishes with a Cajun twist. Menu items include:

• Homemade fried boudin balls: Boudin is a Cajun sausage made with pork and rice; rolled into balls and fried, it becomes a popular appetizer.
• Crawfish étouffée: A rich crawfish stew, its name drawn from the French word for “smothered,” served over rice.
• Po-boys: The classic Louisiana sandwich served on French bread.
• Red beans and rice: A Louisiana staple of slow-cooked red beans served over rice.

The restaurant makes its sauces in-house, including its signature Boudreaux’s sauce, a Cajun shrimp and crawfish cream sauce. The kitchen smothers it over dishes such as crab cakes and the Boudreaux’s Burrito, a deep-fried tortilla stuffed with shrimp, crawfish and crabmeat and covered with the sauce.

Café Acadiana also offers daily lunch specials, such as blackened chicken Alfredo, and dinner specialties. On weekends, Ardoin said, the nightly special is usually a seafood combination plate that changes from week to week and can include crab cakes, fried shrimp and blackened mahi.

“Throw some love in the pot”

Ardoin’s cooking philosophy is simple: use the best ingredients and make as much as possible from scratch.

“Keep it simple, buy the best ingredients you can get your hands on — the best and the freshest — and cook with a little pride and a little love,” he said. “Try to differentiate yourself from somebody else.”

He said that in the restaurant business, it would be easy to buy many side dishes and condiments ready-made.

“In our business, I can buy an already made macaroni and cheese, an already made potato salad and an already made coleslaw. An already made tartar sauce or cocktail sauce. I choose not to,” Ardoin said. “I make all of it in-house with my recipes, which differentiates us from everybody else. Our products are pretty unique. Just keep it simple, take pride and throw some love in the pot.”

A family rooted in the community

Ardoin and 16 other staff members keep Café Acadiana running, and his family has put down roots in the area. Ardoin serves on the Silverhill City Council, and his wife, Christina, is principal of Robertsdale Elementary School.

Silverhill is a small town in central Baldwin County, near Robertsdale, known for its history as a settlement founded by Scandinavian immigrants in the late 1890s. Ardoin said he takes pride in having built a business that locals consider part of the town’s identity.

“It’s just been very rewarding to meet so many people along the way and to build the good, solid business that has become a staple in our community here in Silverhill,” Ardoin said. “I’m very proud of that. I’ve had some people say that this little restaurant has put Silverhill on the map.”

He was modest about that praise.

“Silverhill is not a very big town. That’s kind words. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I’ve had numerous local people tell that,” he said. “But the biggest thing is just a pride factor of being able to build something with your own two hands and see it be successful and be a big part of supporting 16 other families.”

If you go: Café Acadiana is at 16137 Silverhill Ave. in Silverhill. It is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays and from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.