Meet three people working to create unique flavors and amp up the Baton Rouge fusion food scene

Fusion food is a physical embodiment of cultures and people mixing together. It is the combination of the ingredients and techniques of one culinary tradition mixing and blending with another to form a beautiful third thing, perhaps one never seen before.

Despite Louisiana's history with fusion, mixed cuisine sometimes gets a bad reputation for not knowing what it wants to be or for “Americanizing” the food, killing its authenticity.

But according to Jim Urdiales, owner and executive chef at Mestizo, all cuisines are fusion if you look back at history. Food is constantly evolving when people travel, migrate, or fall in love with people from different cultures.

Here are three people behind the scenes in the kitchen helping to drive the fusion food scene in Baton Rouge and a dish they wish people would order more often.

Jim Urdiales, owner and executive chef at Mestizo

Jim Uridales is a third-generation restaurateur at Mestizo, a traditional Mexican restaurant with Louisiana flair. His grandfather came from Monterrey, Mexico, and opened the first Mexican restaurant in Lake Charles. His family moved to Baton Rouge when his parents got married. Uridales grew up cooking in kitchens. His dad taught him to cook on his stove, and he’s been cooking since he was 8 years old, doing prep work and rolling tamales.

After college, he had a brief stint in corporate America.

“At 25, I had an awakening and realized something wasn’t fulfilling me,” he said. He came back to his dad’s restaurant and got cooking again.

Mestizo means “of mixed blood” in Spanish. He remembered studying the word in a history textbook at LSU. For him, cooking fusion is telling the story of his culture and Hispanic and Cajun French heritage. His menu includes 53 items, over half of which are his creations. A majority of the menu is seafood-based, and he draws his inspiration from many culinary trips to Mexico.

He’s most proud of his camarones, a stacked enchilada plate with a layer of sauteed spinach, a layer of feta and topped with a delicate mole verde sauce. It has grilled shrimp, portobello mushrooms, sliced avocado and little potato spears.

“As a Southern boy, I like a sopping vessel at the end of my dish,” he said. “For the camarones in particular, those potatoes are meant to sop up that sauce at the end.”

The dish has evolved over the 20 years he’s had it on the menu, and it’s nothing like the original. But it’s a tribute to the Middle Eastern influence on Mexican cuisine.

Noah Wilson, kitchen manager at Chow Yum

Noah Wilson didn’t start his career cooking. His first job was being a mushroom salesman. But he got a job as a busser at the now-closed Kalurah Street Grill and started working his way up. First as a host, then as a server, and he even trained to work at the bar for a week, but then COVID hit.

A ton of people working in the kitchen quit.

“Restaurants are still trying to climb up,” Wilson said. Many who quit or lost their jobs in the early pandemic found jobs in other industries. “It’s pretty rough.”

The changes the pandemic brought gave Wilson his first opportunity to pivot. The chef at Kalurah Street remembered how Wilson had always “bugged the hell out of him” about how the dishes were made while he was a server. The chef asked him if he wanted to come to the kitchen and learn something.

Wilson was a home cook. He didn’t have experience in restaurant kitchens, he just really liked watching the Food Network. But it didn’t matter. They just needed bodies. He learned through trial and error, and eventually, his boss got him a job at Chow Yum, an East Asian fusion restaurant at the Perkins Overpass. 

Wilson isn’t Asian, and neither is owner Jordan Ramirez, who recently won Fete Rouge with his seafood dumpling aguachile. Now, Wilson is a kitchen manager and helps develop recipes daily.

“People are so shocked when they see Jordan, this Puerto Rican White dude,” Wilson said. “I think that’s also what helps this restaurant. He doesn’t come from a traditional background.”

At Chow Yum, previously Chow Yum Phat before Ramirez bought co-owner and founder Vu Le out in 2023, Wilson said that they’re willing to try things and aren’t held back but what conventionally “should or shouldn’t be done.”

He recommends the T-bokki, it’s their take on the Korean street food, tteokbokki, and an underdog at Chow Yum.

"Trust me, if you try it, the flavors all together are really nice," he said.

Ton Suansawang, one of the owners at The Patio

After a soft opening period starting last June, The Patio has been testing and perfecting their recipes which are an Asian twist on Tex-Mex.

The Patio had its official grand opening in late August, featuring tuna tostadas, a toasted tortilla with a deconstructed tuna-based sushi and pico de gallo on top, a poblano pepper-based creamy pasta, and other dishes from their menu.

Ton Suansawang, one of the owners who helps develop recipes for the restaurant, is no stranger to the Baton Rouge food scene. After moving to the city from Bangkok when he was 16, his father and stepmother opened Thai Pepper which they still run today. In terms of restaurant work, Suansawang has run the gamut of cuisines: Italian, sushi, Chinese, Thai, brunch — he even met his wife, Sonnie, while they were both working at Whole Foods.

All that was left, said Suansawang, was Tex-Mex.

“It’s the comfort food for everybody here in the South,” he said. The connection between his culinary background and Mexican food was natural.

“If you look at the geography of Thailand and Mexico, both are located right at the equator,” Suansawang said. Mexican food has rice. Thai food has rice. “They use chilies, we use chilies. They use cumin. We also use cumin.”

But this is not your average Tex-Mex. Suansawang and his co-owners Tien Le and Michael Tran want to round out your palette with Asian techniques and seasoning. According to Suansawang, it’s a real science. He loves to deconstruct dishes, change the starch, add some flavors and reconstruct it. The tuna tostadas for example, uses cheese as a barrier between sushi grade tuna and the toasted tortilla so it stays crisp and crunchy for over an hour after it’s made.

Suansawang hopes that people will give the fusion a shot even if they don’t like Tex-Mex. His wife Sonnie, didn’t eat Mexican food before they opened The Patio, but now, she loves the Patio tacos.

If you go, Suansawang encourages people to try the Patio’s torta. Advertised as a “Mexican Style burger,” it’s made with marinated fajita beef and chorizo — not just ground meat. It’s a big burger on a brioche bun packed with avocado, fresh tomatoes and a whole lot of flavor.

Suansawang said that people don’t order it as often because they perceive an $18 burger as expensive. But his food isn’t about being the cheapest, it’s about caring for the community.

“Food is a vehicle that shows love toward the people who we cook for,” he said. “I think that is fundamental to cooking in all cultures. It’s not just Asians, not Mexican, not Western. If you’re cooking for someone, that means you really care.”