Diners routinely rank the jumbo lump crab cakes alongside the restaurant’s alligator bites and corn and crab bisque as must-order appetizers, with more than one reviewer calling it among the best crab cakes they have had, period. Between the crab cakes, crab etouffee, crab au gratin, fried crab claws, and crab-stuffed bell peppers, this small family-owned spot treats crab as a building block rather than a single showcase dish. But these seven restaurants prove crab deserves its own spotlight in Lafayette’s food scene, whether that means a béchamel crab cake worth crossing town for, a Carencro crab au gratin worth the extra ten minutes on I-49, or a small Republic Avenue kitchen that builds its whole menu around it.