We ate at Louisiana Lagniappe on a weeknight. The dining room is large, roughly rectangular, and many of the tables offer views of the water. The walls are decorated with Louisiana-themed posters, highlighting food, festivals, music, and local culture. An open-air terrace has additional seating. Smoking is not permitted on the terrace, something to do with the presence of awnings. I don’t smoke, but a little accommodation wouldn’t hurt.

Our server was quick to take our drink orders, and my friend was delighted with the bartender’s take on an Old Fashioned. “This is really good,” she told a server. “Wait’ll you taste the food,” was the reply.

The menu is long on choice, and most of the items offered are pretty substantial fare. Hollandaise, béarnaise, beurre blanc, and cream sauces are the norm. The dishes are typical of the opulent, French-influenced Creole cooking of New Orleans. Crab and shrimp get a good workout, both as entrées and as garnishes. Cheese, nuts, and butter, butter, butter are liberally used. This being Destin, grouper appears in many forms, and if you like that particular fish, Louisiana Lagniappe is your place.

We started with appetizers. My friend ordered blackened shrimp, and I got a bowl of crab and corn bisque. Five shrimp, medium sized, came blackened with a pineapple rum-butter sauce. They were quite flavorful, but the nine-dollar price could have stood an extra shrimp, or bigger ones. The bisque was excellent, creamy and loaded with sweet lump crabmeat. There wasn’t an overabundance of corn, but I’d rather they shorted me on that than on the crab. Other appetizer choices included stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, crab claws, baked oysters with crabmeat, an eggplant and crabmeat appetizer, red beans and rice with sausage, crab cakes, fried popcorn shrimp, and shrimp and andouille fettucine. Also available were both seafood and chicken gumbos, and salads with cheese, shrimp, or lump crabmeat.

The main course menu is divided into chef’s selections, house favorites, seafood specialties, and fried seafood. Shrimp, crab, oysters, and grouper are the sea varieties of choice. A few chicken and beef items, pasta, and red beans and rice with sausage round things out. The sauces are rich, and you may want to ask for them on the side. Better yet, go when you’re really hungry, because the luxury of the sauces is part of the whole indulgent experience. This is food for people who are not ashamed to eat.

We ordered grouper crevettes and tournedos of beef. A filet of pan-sautéed grouper came sauced with hollandaise and grilled shrimp, with a cheese-stuffed baked potato on the side. It was quite good, and I say that as one who isn’t all that fond of hollandaise. The tournedos were genuine filet, cooked as ordered, with shrimp and crabmeat in a béarnaise sauce that was tangy with tarragon. The baked potato was unnecessary, but that didn’t stop me.

Other entree choices included grouper Pontchartrain topped with a fried soft-shell crab, hollandaise, and honey roasted nuts (yes, honey roasted nuts), grouper topped with Maine lobster and hollandaise, grouper meuniere, grouper almondine, crab or shrimp au gratin, grouper Lousianne with butter and crabmeat, shrimp etoufée, grouper Kevin with shrimp/mushroom sauce, grouper Cocodrie with soft-shell crawfish, artichoke heart and béarnaise, barbecue shrimp, crab cakes, chargrilled tuna, fried shrimp, oysters, crab claws, and shrimp. There are also nightly specials, and a $40 meal special including selected menu items and a bottle of wine. The efficient servers all seem to know their stuff so ask.

After all of the above, you’d think we wouldn’t even look at a dessert menu. We didn’t. We let the server recite it to us. Among the desserts offered were key lime pie, a white chocolate key lime cheesecake, chocolate raspberry mousse, pecan pie, and bread pudding with whiskey sauce. The dessert choices probably vary from time to time. We got the mousse and bread pudding. Both were excellent examples, just the right portions to finish off the meal and not us. Coffee and after dinner drinks are also available.

Lagniappe (lan - yap) is a Louisiana word meaning “a little something extra.” In New Orleans, this often translates into a baker’s dozen of pastries or a super-sized order of anything else. In Destin, it means a large, friendly restaurant, tucked unobtrusively away on Holiday Isle, offering rich Louisiana-style food and drink. A longtime resident of its Sandpiper Cove location, Louisiana Lagniappe has staying power, a tribute to its kitchen and staff.

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