Dumpling Hour: 2025 Culinary Excellence Award Winner

Some places take years to find their footing. Dumpling Hour did it in about one.

This Ambassador Caffery dumpling house opened in the summer of 2024, and it didn't take long for it to become one of the spots our community couldn't stop talking about — which is exactly how a restaurant that new ends up taking home a 2025 Foodies of Lafayette Culinary Excellence Award.

What sets it apart is the cooking. The dumplings are folded by hand, made to order, and you can watch it happen through the glass at the back of the dining room. Owner Michelle Chou is cooking the food she grew up with in Sichuan — bold with garlic, chili, and that signature Sichuan-peppercorn tingle. The soup dumplings have a following all their own (let them cool, trust us), and the spicy beef earns its heat.

Chou is a familiar name to longtime Lafayette diners, though Dumpling Hour is a different animal from anything she's done before — smaller, more personal, and built around doing a few things really well instead of a mile-long buffet line. It's home cooking, plain and simple, brought halfway around the world and set down right here on Ambassador Caffery.

That's the kind of thing this award exists to celebrate: real food, real heart, and a new addition to Acadiana's table that already feels essential. Congratulations to Michelle and the entire Dumpling Hour crew — y'all earned it.