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New Orleanians are obsessed with food. Over lunch they're likely talking about dinner. Ask where to get the best gumbo, and you'll spark a heated debate among city natives.Everyone, no matter what neighborhood they're from or what they do for a living, wants a plate of red beans and rice on Monday, has a favorite spot for a roas
New Orleanians are obsessed with food. Over lunch they're likely talking about dinner. Ask where to get the best gumbo, and you'll spark a heated debate among city natives.Everyone, no matter what neighborhood they're from or what they do for a living, wants a plate of
New Orleanians are obsessed with food. Over lunch they're likely talking about dinner. Ask where to get the best gumbo,
New Orleanians are obsessed with food. Over lunch they're likely talking about dinner. Ask where to get the best gumbo, and you'll spark a heated debate among city natives.
Everyone, no matter what neighborhood they're from or what they do for a living, wants a plate of red beans and rice on Monday, has a favorite spot for a roast beef po'boy, and holds strong opinions about the proper flavor for a shaved ice "sno-ball."
The menus of New Orleans's restaurants reflect the many cultures that have contributed to this always-simmering culinary gumbo pot over the last three centuries. It's easy to find French, African, Spanish, German, Italian, and Caribbean influences—and increasingly Asian and Latin American as well. The speckled trout amandine at Antoine's could have been on the menu when the French Creole institution opened in 1840. Across the Mississippi River on the West Bank, Tan Dinh serves fragrant bowls of pho that remind New Orleans's large Vietnamese population of the home they left in the 1970s. And at Compère Lapin, Chef Nina Compton brings expert French and Italian fine-dining traditions to the down-home flavors of her St. Lucia childhood, and of her new home in the Gulf South.
For years New Orleans paid little attention to food trends from the East and West coasts. Recently, however, the city has taken more notice of the "latest things." In Orleans Parish you'll now find gastropubs, gourmet burgers, and numerous small-plate specialists. In a town where people track the crawfish season as closely as the pennant race, no one has to preach the virtues of eating seasonally. New Orleans is still one of the most exciting places to eat in America. There's no danger that will change.
If the Gilded Age is long past, someone forgot to tell the folks at August, where the main dining room shimmers with masses of chandelier prisms, thick brocade fabrics, and glossy woods. Service is anything but stuffy, however, and the food showcases the chefs' modern techniques. Nothing is mundane on the seasonally changing menu, which might include handmade gnocchi with blue crab and winter truffle or rabbit cassoulet with andouille sausage. Expect the unexpected—like pecan-smoked Two Run Farm's beef—and a truly remarkable vegetarian menu can be prepared upon request. The sommelier is happy to counsel you on the surprisingly affordable wine list.
301 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130, USA
"New World" is the label Louisiana native Susan Spicer applies to her cooking style, the delicious hallmarks of which include goat cheese croutons with mushrooms in madeira cream, a Bayona specialty, and delightfully flavorful vegetable soups, like Caribbean pumpkin or cream of garlic. The imaginative dishes on the constantly changing menu are served in an early-19th-century Creole cottage that glows with flower arrangements, elegant photographs, and trompe-l'oeil murals of Mediterranean landscapes. A legendary favorite at lunch is the sandwich of smoked duck, cashew butter, and pepper jelly. Don't skip the sweets—a changing menu of homemade ice cream, panna cotta, and pastries.
430 Dauphine St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70112, USA
This vine-covered neighborhood bistro doesn't have a sign, but that hasn't stopped the national food media from finding it. Lauded chefs cook with elegant confidence in a classic French style, but with surprising bursts of understated creativity, which can be seen in dishes like seared scallops with parsnip purée and pickled chanterelles. At Gautreau's, even the simple roasted chicken satisfies, and everyone should indulge in the caramelized banana split at least once. An older crowd of well-dressed regulars monopolize most of the tables in this dark, quiet space that once housed a pharmacy, but if you can get a reservation, you'll feel like you've gained admittance to an elite club.
1728 Soniat St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70115, USA
Proprietor-chef John Harris uses French and Italian culinary traditions as springboards for Lilette's inspired dishes. Look for Italian wedding soup, roasted Muscovy duck breast, and fresh crudos. A slightly syndicated lunch menu is equally satisfying. The wine list has been thoughtfully chosen. Framed mirrors hang along the maroon walls of the intimate front dining-room-cum-bar, and there are also a few tables filling out a second room and a heated patio.
3637 Magazine St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70115, USA
The joke used to be that New Orleans had a thousand restaurants with only one menu. But today you'll find a dizzying array of culinary creativity, and nowhere pushes the boundaries further than Root. They serve, for lack of a better word, "molecular gastronomy" cuisine, the kind of food created by chefs who grew up admiring Mr. Science as much as Julia Child in a fittingly on-trend dining room accented with bright pops of color. The menu changes frequently but expect to find dishes like hot and sour lemonfish with horseradish "snow," sweet tea fried chicken wings, and scallops perfumed with actual Cohiba cigar smoke. A menu with plates of various sizes helps keep the cost in check. Does it always work? No. Is Root always an adventure? Yes.
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