Enjoy A Taste of Louisiana at Chief’s Creole Cafe in St. Pete

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Enjoy A Taste of Louisiana at Chief’s Creole Cafe in St. Pete

Permanently Closed as of April 2023

Small and quaint, you’ll find NOLA classics like crawfish fritters, jambalaya, and shrimp and grits at Chief’s Creole Cafe. Located in The Dueces on 22nd Street South, Chief’s Creole Cafe boasts an irresistible Creole cuisine and a charming outdoor patio to enjoy it all. Since they aren’t allowing indoor dining right now and it was raining when I went, I wasn’t able to sit in their beautiful outdoor garden patio but I’m looking forward to enjoying more of their soulful food when the weather holds up.

If you’re like me and love food with an exceptional amount of flavors, you must do yourself a favor and visit Chief’s Creole Cafe. We were able to get a ton of recommendations from the owner and everything was tremendous.

Dive right into their comfort food with the crispy crawfish fritters. These fried bites are packed with crawfish tail meat and served with homemade fritter sauce which tasted similar to remoulade. The crawfish inside was steamy and very well seasoned. If you’ve never tried crawfish fritters or if you’re a true NOLA foodie already, you should definitely order these to get things started.

Chief's Creole Cafe Crawfish Fritters
Crawfish Fritters

The wings were delicious, meaty and done exceptionally well. They’re deep fried and smothered in your choice of sauce between mild, medium, hot, zulu or sweet chili. We went with four sweet chili and four mild. They were both great, but I really liked the sweet chili wings over the mild because of the sweetness and extra glaze.

Chief's Creole Cafe Creole Chicken Wings Sweet Chili and Mild

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Creole Chicken Wings Sweet Chili (Top) and Mild (Bottom)

The gumbo was my favorite dish here. I could happily eat this for every meal for the rest of my life if I had to. Their Lousiana style gumbo is slow cooked with chicken, shrimp, crab, crawfish tail meat, okra and andouille in a strew of Creole spices, rich roux sauce and served over rice. This creamy bowl of excellence quickly delighted all of my tastebuds. My favorite bite was a combo of a little bit of everything and I especially loved the shrimp.

Chief's Creole Cafe Creole Gumbo
Creole Gumbo

Another staple dish was the spicy jambalaya which is a tasty mix of jumbo shrimp, andouille, chicken and rice in an herbal soup.  It’s hearty with bold spices and flavors. Beware, you really have to love spicy foods to enjoy this dish to its full potential. I’m not going to lie, it was really spicy and I couldn’t finish it, but it was still sooooo good. Sometimes I like to challenge my tastebuds to try things that are out of my comfort zone to experience an iconic specialty and that’s what I did with the jambalaya.

Chief's Creole Cafe Spicy Jambalaya Bites
Spicy Jambalaya Bite

I’m not a huge shrimp and grits fan like Kevin is. I think it has something to do with the texture but because it’s a popular dish and liked by many, I decided to try the Jumbo Shrimp and Grits from Chief’s Creole Cafe anyway. The grits were simple, the jumbo shrimp had a nice bite to them and the homemade grits sauce was creamy and comforting. We added cheese of course which I would definitely recommend. It wasn’t anything over the top, but it was still good. I would personally skip this and go for the jambalaya or gumbo if you’re looking for more bold flavors.

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Chief's Creole Cafe Shrimp and Gits Bite
Shrimp and Gits Bite

All entrees are served with a corn muffin and a house salad which comes with a tangy apricot basil dressing. The corn muffin was so good.

Chief's Creole Cafe House Salad and Corn Muffins
House Salad and Corn Muffins

If you want to devour a classic, you should get a side of Mac and Cheese, it’s deliciously legit and hits the spot. That’s all.

Chief's Creole Cafe Mac and Cheese
Mac and Cheese

Dessert lovers take note, the Dirty Beignets were wonderful with a Creole Cafe twist on the traditional powdered sugar beignet. The Dirty Beignets come with bourbon sauce and cinnamon sugar. The glazed bourbon sauce was rich and the cinnamon sugar added the perfect coat of sweetness. These fluffy square donuts are a necessity if you have a sweet tooth to cure.

Chief's Creole Cafe Dirty Beignets
Dirty Beignets

The ambiance is particularly vibrant for devouring these Creole cuisine staple dishes. They surely know how to flavor their food in a way that’ll have you wanting more and I can’t wait to go back to Chief’s Creole Cafe to try the etouffee and crawfish boil.

Chief's Creole Cafe Garden Patio
Garden Patio
Chief's Creole Cafe Mural
Mural
Chief's Creole Cafe Exterior
Exterior
Chief's Creole Cafe
  • Readers Rating
  • Rated 5 stars
    5 / 5 (10 )
$
  • Your Rating


  • Chief's Creole Cafe
  • 727-498-8979
  • Louisiana Cuisine , Creole Cuisine , Creole Restaurant
    • Tue - Sun 11:00am - 6:00pm
  • View menu
  • 901 22nd St S, St. Petersburg, FL 33712, US

A small, homey locale for Louisiana-style Creole cuisine with seating on a garden-style patio.

DISCLAIMER: Kevin, Lori, Abby, Haley, & Lindsey do not dine anonymously (this would be impossible) and we sometimes get free food (though never expected). However, we dine with the locals and we support our own. You will always get honesty in a respectful manner. We do not include any large national or regional chains in our ratings and reviews. We focus on independent locally owned eateries exclusively.

PLEASE NOTE: Reviews reflect a certain moment in time. Some restaurants stay extremely consistent over many years, and some change for the better or worse. Some things that may change are: chefs, recipes, food suppliers, ingredients, philosophies, ownership, etc. We always hope that you have the same good, or great experience we had.
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