A chat with David Guas at Bayou Bakery in Arlington

By Emily Luchetti , Inside Scoop SF

September 19, 2012

When I was recently in Washington DC for the Chefs’ State Department reception I took the metro to Arlington, VA to visit David Guas’ bakery. David is originally from New Orleans. Luckily for those in Arlington you can take the boy out of New Orleans but you can’t take New Orleans out of the boy. His bakery, Bayou Bakery, is a delicious homage to his roots.

The first thing you notice when you walk in the door (after the pastries piled high in the case) is a row of plantation shutters on the wall. David found these, and practically all the other fixtures, in salvage shops in New Orleans.  It’s a creative and fitting display which makes you feel you were in the French Quarter. The tables, which David made himself, are a pressed composite made from sorghum and cane.

David, like many chefs fell into cooking half by accident, half planned. His Aunt Boo from Abbeville, Louisiana gave him his first cast iron pan and taught him all the Creole basics- how to make a roux, etouffee and seafood gumbo.

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