Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

“Gumbo is a very particular thing,” is what Chef Dominick Lee said when we asked him for a recipe. He was born in New Orleans and displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He went to culinary school in Houston, and in early 2024, he opened a Creole restaurant there. So he gets to be particular about gumbo. In between finishing culinary school and opening his latest venture, he studied some of the roots of Creole cooking in Europe, opened a New York City restaurant that served Louisiana alligator, and worked with me at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival. There are plenty of gumbo variations that still fall under the umbrella of being true and authentic to Creole food, and I’m excited to share this one with you.

Author Cha McCoy pairs this with Carignan because it’s fresh and berry forward to balance out the meat, but it has some earthy, forest-­ floor notes that match the roux’s nutty flavors.