THE SOUTH | CHEF PROFILES
At Delacroix, Wiley Wilkinson Lewis Brings Her Louisiana Backstory to Life
DELACROIX | $$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
By Eric Barton | Sept. 23, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
The first time Wiley Wilkinson Lewis made French toast, she was four years old, standing on a stool next to her grandfather, Carl Wiley Jones. She remembers trying to grind the black pepper—too much, he told her—and watching as he fried the bread in a wok before smothering it in sugar, cinnamon, butter, and a glug of Log Cabin syrup. “He used to make it for me every time I slept over,” she says. “I still use this recipe and love French toast, probably more now than many moons ago.”
That early memory set the tone for a life defined by food, one that has taken her from family kitchens in Shreveport to some of New Orleans’ most iconic dining rooms, and now back again, to a place that feels very much like home. Lewis is the chef at Delacroix, the new New Orleans riverfront restaurant from BRG Hospitality, a project that asks her to do something deceptively simple: take the rustic food of South Louisiana and elevate it without sanding away its soul.
Wiley Wilkinson Lewis
Lewis grew up on Caddo Lake, on the Texas border, where food and the outdoors are inseparable. There were weekends at fishing camps in Grand Chenier and Little Chenier, afternoons cracking pecans from the backyard tree, and long days that ended with the smell of gumbo drifting out of the kitchen. Hunting and fishing trips with her father and grandfather made her as comfortable with duck blinds as she was at the stove.
Once, while swimming in the Mermentau River, she and her sister were chased by a six-foot gator—an experience that now feels less like danger and more like a story destined for the family canon. “I am a Southern girl through and through,” Lewis says. “I enjoy thinking of seasons within Louisiana—pecans, satsumas, mayhaw, chanterelles. Lots of rich, local ingredients to honor within our community.”
Her professional path began in earnest in 2012, when she joined the Besh Restaurant Group at Restaurant Borgne. She progressed through several of the company’s kitchens, including August and Domenica, and played a key role in opening Willa Jean alongside chefs Kelly Fields and Lisa White. Those years taught her the balance she still carries today.
Chilled seafood at Delacroix
“The lessons include knowing when to refine a dish but also make it fun and nostalgic,” she says. “I love putting a smile on people’s faces, brightening someone’s day with a bite of food or dessert.”
Fried fish collar
Wilkinson Lewis on the line
After years in the grind of New Orleans kitchens, she stepped away, working as a fishmonger, a sales rep, even a social media manager. It looked like her time in restaurants might be over. Then BRG called again, this time with an offer to open Delacroix. At first, she thought it couldn’t possibly be her. But then she met with John Besh, and something clicked. “He brought me back to my happy place, cooking and baking,” she says. “And I know my mama is beyond proud of me.”
Gumbo with deep roots
Her mother’s death in 2022 left Lewis searching for footing, and she admits there were moments she felt unmoored. Returning to the kitchen provided something solid. “The moment I said yes to coming back to cooking, I couldn’t wait to get in the kitchen,” she says. “It is when I am the most happy, it is where I feel the most confident and I know my mama is with me every step of the way.”
At Delacroix, Lewis leans into the flavors of her childhood but dresses them for the big city. One of her favorite dishes is Cajun fried boudin and pepper jack cheese pistolettes, a memory pulled from meals in Cameron Parish with her sisters. The menu also includes turtle sauce piquante, Des Allemands catfish with jasmine rice, and an oyster stew that she calls “the most flavorful dish I have ever had.”
Wilkinson Lewis and Besh
She knows Delacroix isn’t meant to be just another New Orleans restaurant. It’s built to feel like a fishing camp on the river, a place where locals linger over gumbo and visitors understand, for a moment, what it feels like to belong here. “I want everyone to feel a sense of home when they come to Delacroix,” Lewis says. “Essentially we are representing a fishing camp, so join us in celebrating the rich Isleños community from Delacroix.”
For a chef whose first kitchen memory is sweet bread sizzling in a wok, it feels fitting that her story has circled back here—back to Louisiana, back to family, back to the table.
Wilkinson Lewis with her grandfather’s wok
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