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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.
Devotees of this unassuming neighborhood spot wait with bated breath on Friday afternoons, when a new menu is posted online (and outside the restaurant) showcasing the offerings for that week. The space is intimate and funky, and the food is the same, where ingredients from local farms inspire risottos, curries, housemade ice creams, slow-roasts, and marinades and spices from around the globe. Thursday service changes it up from the regular menu for a popular Taco Night.
3219 Burgundy St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70117, USA
Certainly the most extensive Thai restaurant in the area, Sukho Thai fits into its artsy neighborhood with servers wearing all black and a hip, art-gallery approach to decorating. You can't go wrong with any of the curries, but the fried whole fish with three spicy chili sauces is a showstopper. Creative homemade desserts take the form of "dragon puffs" (think Thai-style beignets) and black-rice pudding. A full bar includes cocktails with Thai-influenced ingredients like lemongrass simple syrup and a bloody Mary with Thai chili-garlic infused vodka.
2200 Royal St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70116, USA
The menu at this Uptown seafood specialist reads like a greatest hits collection from the New Orleans culinary canon: from po'boys and fried green tomatoes on the casual end to stuffed catfish and shrimp andouille brochettes on the fancier side. The cavernous space mimics a Parisian bistro, with a tad too much polish to feel authentic. But who cares about the inside, when the many windows offer views of streetcars rolling by on St. Charles Avenue. The owners also run the nearby but not terribly exciting Superior Grill (3636 St. Charles Ave.).
4338 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70115, USA
The most eclectic mix of music, food, and people can be found on Frenchmen Street, and Three Muses captures everything that makes this vibrant stretch of the Faubourg Marigny worth seeking out. The small-plates menu spans the globe, with charcuterie, cheese plates, and standout delicacies like the Korean-style steak bulgogi. The kitchen devotes special attention to vegetarian offerings too, and there's excellent live music most nights. Call ahead to reserve a spot in this the dining room.
536 Frenchmen St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70116, USA
The upscale dining rooms here are clubby and festive, the crowd is always interesting, and the menu seamlessly blends Creole and Italian. There are several types of oyster appetizers to choose from, including the signature Oysters Tommy with Romano cheese, pancetta, and roasted red pepper. Entrées focus on sophisticated preparations of fish and meat, but make sure to find out the chef's imaginative daily specials before you make your decision. Service is gentlemanly, and the wines span all of Italy.
746 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130, USA
As the restaurant's name might hint, on the menu here you'll find meat, meat, and more meat, from foie gras and charcuterie to a lamb neck with black-eyed-pea salad and tri-tip steak with Bordelaise sauce (even the grilled veggies come with a bacon vinaigrette). Chef Isaac Toups, a Top Chef contestant and crowd favorite, is hardly the only young American chef obsessed with animal flesh, but at this intimate spot with DIY elegance, he adds a Louisiana edge with items like boudin, cracklings, or sides of dirty rice. And not everything coming out of the kitchen is meat: they make their own pickles. A second location (Toup's South), with a more modern ambience but the same quality Louisiana cooking, has opened in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (1504 Oretha Castle Blvd., Central City).
845 N. Carrollton Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70119, USA
A stalwart neighborhood joint, the age-old College Inn now occupies a newer building after decades in an older, now-razed structure next door. The flat, greasy burgers are still popular, particularly when ordered with french fries and a cold Abita, but the diner fare has been joined by more sophisticated plates. Many of the vegetables come from the restaurant's two neighboring urban gardens. Despite all the updates, you can still get the veal cutlet that's been on the menu since 1933.
3000 S. Carrollton Ave., New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118, USA
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