Photo Credits: Bill Coyne
Though he’s an experienced chef, Colt Mire isn’t “the” chef at Tia Juanita’s. He’s there in a consultant capacity. And he’s largely, if not totally, responsible for bringing Tia Juanita’s back after its closure following the storms of 2020.
“Susie (owner Susan Lalonde) called me up,” Mire says. “They’d closed the place after the hurricanes, and she asked me to help them reopen.”
Mire took the reins of the restaurant as a consultant in September of 2021. “It was only supposed to be for a year,” he says. He’s still behind the bar and in the kitchen at the restaurant daily, and with the help of chef Jason Nyberg and Chef Tristan, along with a great staff in front of the house, he’s “brought Tia’s back from the bottom.” When he took over, the restaurant had a rating of 2.1 stars. It now has a 4.5 rating.
As mentioned, Mire’s no stranger to the kitchen. He’s worked over the stove at Bonefish Grill and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Lafayette, and at the Saint Hotel in New Orleans, where he revamped and reworked the restaurant’s menu.
He’s not formally trained; rather, he’s had a lot of on-the-job training. “I’ve also read a lot of books, and learned a lot by trial and error,” he quips.
Born in Crowley, Mire grew up, as most chefs do, cooking in his family’s kitchen with his grandmother, helping her cook simple, downhome Cajun food.
“Before I was even big enough to cast a net to catch shrimp, I was in the kitchen helping my grandmother cook them,” he says.
He attended college at LSU-Lafayette, then made his way to New Orleans, then Birmingham, and finally back to New Orleans for the Saint Hotel job.
Aside from work, he found himself cooking for friends, as well. “I always had 15 or 20 friends over,” he says. “I made lots of jambalaya, etouffee — feed-a-crowd food.”
He found himself in Lake Charles after accepting a job at Golden Nugget. That was two weeks before the COVID-19 shutdown started.
“When they finally opened back up, they wanted me back, but at half salary,” he says. He declined. And that was when he got the phone call from Lalonde.
Mire’s approach to bringing Tia Juanita’s Lake Charles back from the dead has been multi-faceted. A chef who “likes the front of the house, too,” Mire emphasizes atmosphere in the restaurant.
“Atmosphere is so important,” he says. “People’s best memories involve eating at a restaurant. You’re not just putting out food. The front house staff has to treat it like a real job and be empathetic, to realize they have the opportunity to change someone’s day for the better; to realize they have an impact. I want there to be sense of belonging (at Tia’s), from the way the tables look to the way we serve our cocktails.”
He’s very aware, also, that “we eat with our eyes first,” and emphasizes the importance of the look and presentation of each dish. “Everything needs to look good,” he says.
As for the dishes on Tia’s menu, having grown up in a Cajun home and cooked with a Cajun grandmother, Mire wants to serve Cajun favorites. After all, he says, “nine times out of 10 people come into a restaurant and want grandma’s food.”
But he wants to serve those staples with a “culinary twist.” In other words, he wants to take them to a new level with technique, ingredients and flavor pairings.
Mire calls Tia’s menu a fusion of Mexican and Cajun food. But he says that the fusion has to make sense.
“I don’t want broken flavors,” he says. “The flavors have to meld, complement each other, support one another and not fight against each other. It all has to be a nice transition.”
The menu — the brunch menu, in particular — reflects that fusion and balance of flavors. There’s the huevos rancheros served with spicy chorizo, sweet potato hash, jalapeno and steak; the tres leches French toast drizzled with cinnamon crème anglaise; and the Ballin’ Ass Benedicts, with either boudin, crab cakes or carnitas (which is braised for 12 hours) topped with a poached egg and served over either a biscuit or Mexican cornbread, all covered by a Hollandaise sauce spiced up with enchilada seasoning. Mire’s and chef Tristan’s menu was developed to blend the best of Cajun and Mexican cuisine seamlessly.
Mire’s advice to someone who wants to enter the industry: “Take it seriously. You have to treat this like a real job and not a hobby. Remember who it is you’re working for and that you’re making memories for each customer who sits down at your tables.”
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