Les Bon Temps (my key board doesn't allow me to explain the phonetics in French, but in Texas we'd say "Lay-bon-ton") opened across from Shed 2 in the Farmer's Market this past summer. Chef Patricia Killingsworth, originally from Mississippi, previously owned a local catering and personal chef business, PK's Main Menu, and has also created her own brand of chicken and rice smoked sausage. Until this summer, she had a booth in the Dallas Farmers' Market where she ran her businesses and during that time developed a loyal customer base.
This past summer she decided to take bold leap into the restaurant industry along with her business partners and friends, Steve and Carly McMahan and Susan McMahan, who lived in southern Louisiana for a number of years and have ties to the shrimping industry in that area.
As often happens, the McMahans missed the food they grew to love in Louisiana. When the space opened up at the Farmers' Market, they jumped on the chance to open their own restaurant and anointed Killingsworth as their chef.
There are daily specials written on a chalk board as you walk in, and Cajun music to get your head in the game. The service is fast and friendly. The meal starts with four wedges of potatoes with a house-made Creole butter (photo below), covered in a fresh mix of spices.
The menu has all the requisite Cajun dishes, plus some more creative chef-inspired dishes. The daily specials lean toward what's in season. Killingsworth takes advantage of the fresh produce offered at the Farmers' Market and nearly everything is made in-house, from scratch.
I stuffed myself on the potato wedges, gumbo then a portabella mushroom topped with dirty rice and rich crawfish sauce. It pained me that I didn't have room to try the from-scratch bananas fosters. Pain! Reason to go back, though.
Les Bon Temps is open for lunch and dinner, Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and breakfast on the weekends from 8 to 11 a.m. The restaurant is just east of Shed 2 (across a walkway) in the Dallas Farmers' Market.
