Like many writers before and after him, William Faulkner found inspiration in the storied streets of the French Quarter, bunking up in a former carriage space turned cheap boarding house on Pirate’s Alley, a winding cobblestoned street just off Jackson Square. It was there, at 624 Pirate’s Alley, that the Nobel laureate wrote his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, in 1925, and where he also met novelist Sherwood Anderson, who made him a deal: If he didn’t have to read Faulkner’s manuscript, he would tell his publisher to accept it. And thus, the Mississippian became a writer, and eventually the unofficial Bard of the Big Easy. Attorney and lifelong bibliophile Joseph J. DeSalvo Jr. and his wife, journalist Rosemary James, bought the space in 1988 as a literary sanctuary, hiring contractors to source wood from throughout the South for built-in cypress shelves and filling them with limited-edition classics and emerging authors alike. Aside from work by the titular writer (his New Orleans Sketches, naturally, sits at the front), find clothbound copies of Jane Austen novels, new work by Ottessa Moshfegh, and sections devoted to former New Orleans residents Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. Perusing the ceiling-high shelves and talking literature with the spectacled bookseller, one can almost hear whispers of Faulkner describing Jackson Square as a “green and quiet lake in which abode lights round as jellyfish, feathering with silver mimosa and pomegranate and hibiscus beneath which lantana and cannas bled and bled.” 

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Around every corner in New Orleans, the song of trumpets and bullfrogs seems to announce some new possibility — a fortune being told, a secret unveiled, a history unraveled, however dark. Almost everyone who visits agrees there’s nowhere quite like it, with its French and Spanish colonial architecture, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, flavor-packed Creole cuisine infused with the savory-sweet tastes of its Southeast Asian communities, and a distinct music and festival culture that’s a product of this unique gumbo of cultures. One wander down its cobblestoned streets or through its mossy, ancient oaks is enough to confirm what the world’s greatest artists know instinctively to be true: In New Orleans, there’s magic in the air. 


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Where to Stay

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“Grandeur and languor” are the words that Los Angeles’s Studio Shamshiri uses to describe their design for Maison de la Luz, an Atelier Ace property and sister to the Ace Hotel, half a block down. This 67-room beauty, housed in a 1908 former city hall building in the Central Business District, absolutely conjures a lavish, Southern estate. Guests arrive in an atrium lobby with resplendent traces of its former life, like the dual ebony and brass staircases flanking a checkerboard Carrara marble floor and an Art Deco globe chandelier. In the stately living room, guests are invited to partake in wine and cheese evenings and a well-stocked honor bar, while the breakfast room features tropical bayou-inspired murals by Claire Oswalt and crawfish Benedict and French omelets in the morning. Upstairs, a heavy tasseled key admits gues km ts to rooms outfitted with custom love seats, original art, scalloped headboards, and soaking tubs. A bottle of Japanese whiskey and a brass pineapple ice bucket beckon from a bar tray, but imbibing in your room could feel like a loss here, considering one of the city’s best cocktail bars, Bar Marilou, is accessible through a faux bookcase in the lobby. Bar Marilou’s design comes courtesy of Paris firm Quixotic Projects, which crafted a speakeasy salon with loads of French flair, from animal-print barstools to scarlet lacquered walls. The built-in shelves, full of tomes and curiosities, are a nod to this room’s former life as a law library. The cocktail list is the perfect jumping-off point for an indulgent evening out, with duck-fat-washed whiskeys, South American cachaças, and bespoke tonics, along with caviar and a foie gras torchon.

“Grandeur and languor” are the words that Los Angeles’s Studio Shamshiri uses to describe their design
for Maison de la Luz, an Atelier Ace property and sister to the Ace Hotel, half a block down. This 67-room beauty, housed in a 1908 former city hall building in the Central Business District, absolutely conjures a lavish, Southern estate. Guests arrive in an atrium lobby with resplendent traces of its former life, like the dual ebony and brass staircases flanking a checkerboard Carrara marble floor and an Art Deco globe chandelier. In the stately living room, guests are invited to partake in wine and cheese evenings and a well-stocked honor bar, while the breakfast room features tropical bayou-inspired murals by Claire Oswalt and crawfish Benedict and French omelets in the morning. Upstairs, a heavy tasseled key admits gues km ts to rooms outfitted with custom love seats, original art, scalloped headboards, and soaking tubs. A bottle of Japanese whiskey and a brass pineapple ice bucket beckon from a bar tray, but imbibing in your room could feel like a loss here, considering one of the city’s best cocktail bars, Bar Marilou, is accessible through a faux bookcase in the lobby. Bar Marilou’s design comes courtesy of Paris firm Quixotic Projects, which crafted a speakeasy salon with loads of French flair, from animal-print barstools to scarlet lacquered walls. The built-in shelves, full of tomes and curiosities, are a nod to this room’s former life as a law library. The cocktail list is the perfect jumping-off point for an indulgent evening out, with duck-fat-washed whiskeys, South American cachaças, and bespoke tonics, along with caviar and a foie gras torchon.

maison de la luz

“Grandeur and languor” are the words that Los Angeles’s Studio Shamshiri uses to describe their design for Maison de la Luz, an Atelier Ace property and sister to the Ace Hotel, half a block down.

Maison de la Luz

When the members of Ash NYC, the interior design and development firm the Hotel Peter & Paul, purchased a former schoolhouse and church in the Marigny neighborhood, they were thinking about the kind of old-world stay you’d find in the Swiss Alps or the French countryside. Nestled a few block from Frenchmen Street, the local, music lover's alternative to Bourbon, the property was designed to maintain as many original details as possible. In the schoolhouse building, the rooms have a different color scheme (green, red, blue, and yellow), all classic in style, with custom floor-length gingham curtains and matching canopy beds. The rectory, where the acclaimed Elysian Bar restaurant is located, is more baroque, with blush walls, a crystal chandelier, and a gargantuan limestone tub sourced from Texas. The convent, where the Marianite nuns lived, is the most tranquil, with a warm white color palette and four-poster beds framed by hanging tassels. Then there’s the church, lovingly restored by the hotelier it now serves as an event space. At Peter & Paul, God is in the details: arched showers with hand-painted Mexican tiles, recalling ecclesiastical archways; lamps converted from vintage incense burners found in the church; and a Tenebrae hearse gracing the lobby, where three cypress staircases meet. The hotel is an ideal home base for exploring the neighboring French Quarter, Bywater, and Tremé neighborhoods. 

When Nathalie Jordi bought the property that is now Hotel Peter & Paul, which consists of four buildings — a former schoolhouse, rectory, church, and convent — she was thinking about her days as a bike guide, cheesemonger, and travel writer in Europe. Jordi wanted to develop the kind of old-world hotel you’d find in the Swiss Alps or the French countryside, where the luxury lies less in thread count than in personal details. With the help of design studio Ash, she opened the hotel in late 2018, transforming the derelict space into a heavenly oasis in the Marigny, a vibrant and diverse residential neighborhood home to some of the city’s most beloved hidden gems. (Frenchmen Street, the locals’ alternative to Bourbon, is just a few blocks away.) The renovation was designed deliberately to maintain the buildings’ original details and aesthetic. In the schoolhouse building, the rooms on each floor have a different color scheme (green, red, blue, and yellow), all classic in style, with custom floor-length gingham curtains and matching canopy beds. The rectory, where the acclaimed Elysian Bar restaurant is located, is more baroque, with blush walls, a crystal chandelier, and a gargantuan limestone tub sourced from Texas outside the bathroom. The convent, where the Marianite nuns lived — now home to the excellent Sundae Best ice cream parlor — is the most tranquil, with a warm white color palette and four-poster beds framed by hanging tassels. Then there’s the church, which guests can tour upon request, and which also hosts yoga classes and various other community events. It’s a testament to the hotel’s focus on preservation, on blending in and working with the community rather than intruding upon it. At Peter & Paul, God is in the details: arched showers with hand-painted Mexican tiles, recalling ecclesiastical archways; lamps converted from vintage incense burners found in the church; and a Tenebrae hearse gracing the lobby entrance, where three cypress staircases meet. The hotel is an ideal home base for exploring the neighboring French Quarter, Bywater, and Tremé neighborhoods. 

Hotel Peter and Paul

When Nathalie Jordi and Ash Hotels purchased the property that is now Hotel Peter & Paul, which consists of four buildings — a former schoolhouse, rectory, church, and convent — she was thinking about her days as a bike guide, cheesemonger, and travel writer in Europe.

When ascending the steps of Hotel Saint Vincent — Parquet Courts playing from speakers on the porch; a statue of Mother Mary strewn with Mardi Gras beads; cherry-colored double doors framed by iron latticework — you get the sense that this is a hotel built for a rock star. And in a way, it was: Boutique hotelier Liz Lambert came up with the concept on the steps of the building, a grand, turn-of-the-century former orphanage with a brick façade, while sharing a bottle of wine with her friend, the musician St. Vincent (née Annie Clark). Saints of all kinds march into every corner of the hotel, from the neon-red lighting and stained-glass windows at the guests-only Chapel Club bar to the amoebic pink wallpaper in the bathrooms. The hotel shop off the lobby, ByGeorge, is worth a stop alone, with Supergoop sunscreen, Oribe hair care (for the frizz-prone), 1970s printed caftans, and all the contents of an impeccably curated living room (a two-of-a-kind Murano glass mirror, vintage Italian Snoopy lamp, Gio Ponti design books, and illustrated candles by the New Orleans–based brand Hazeltine). In terms of style, Hotel Saint Vincent isn’t afraid to misbehave, though the staples — pool service, a great restaurant (San Lorenzo, which fuses coastal Italian and Creole cooking), and courteous staff — are all sacred.

Hotel Saint Vincent

When ascending the steps of Hotel Saint Vincent....you get the sense that this is a hotel built for a rock star.

Resist the urge to steal nearly everything in your room at the newly opened Chloe: the green striped Indian seersucker robes, designed by New Orleans–based label Lekha; wheel-thrown porcelain cups adorned with hand-painted eyes by Demetria Chappo, a Brooklyn-based designer and Louisiana native; even the brushed-gold key tag, embossed with the hotel’s graphic palm logo. It’s a good thing they’re all available for purchase in the lobby, which is equally well considered, thanks to local designer Sara Ruffin Costello. Emerald walls surround a wood-paneled bar, a billowing tasseled chinoiserie lantern hangs in a pale pink parlor, and albino alligators drape down the red rug lining the staircase — a nod to the region’s de facto mascot. It’s all in keeping with the stylish Uptown setting of this former Victorian mansion, which is flanked by palms, birds-of-paradise, and the occasional small lizard. In the manicured front lawn, Jenga blocks and a pair of bistro chairs are part of a Heathers-esque setup, only with cornhole in lieu of croquet. On the porch, a hammock and rocking chairs invite you to adapt to the pace of Southern living, sipping your welcome drink (a fruity spritz called Summer on the Avenue) beneath the imposing oak trees while you listen to a chorus of bullfrogs. For a more lively soundtrack, the rooms are outfitted with turntables and records provided by Peaches, a Magazine Street vinyl institution, and there are more options behind the front desk for whatever the mood. (The concierge will act as DJ.) And in the grandest of the hotel’s 14 rooms, heavy armoires are retrofitted as Narnia-style doorways into the bathroom, where you can rinse off after an afternoon by the pool — and its adjacent blue bungalow bar — and slide into a deep soaking tub before climbing into your four-poster bed. 

The Chloe

Resist the urge to steal nearly everything in your room at the newly opened Chloe

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Amid the Bourbon Street revelry, you’ll find Galatoire’s, one of the grandes dames of New Orleans dining. Snagging a white-tablecloth table there is a formal affair, and while it’s decidedly stuffy (expect tuxedoed waiters), the menu hasn’t suffered since it opened in 1905. Order the shrimp rémoulade, black drumfish, or, for brunch, eggs Benedict with a side of soufflé potatoes doused in béarnaise sauce. Friday at midday, when the high-ceilinged dining room fills with ladies who lunch, is your best bet for people-watching, and since 2020, for the first time in its long history, the restaurant has been taking reservations for the coveted time slot. But if you can’t get one, there’s never a wrong time to wander in for one of the city’s best Sazeracs. 

Galatoire's

Amid the Bourbon Street revelry, you’ll find Galatoire’s, one of the grandes dames of New Orleans dining.

Galatoire’s

With a neon sign and a tiled exterior, Casamento’s on Magazine Street is a prime example of the city’s distinct old-school charm that has yet to fade. This 100-year-old cash-only seafood shack is so committed to quality that, despite technological advances that have allowed diners to safely enjoy quality raw seafood year-round, Casamento's stays closed all summer to ensure it’s serving only the freshest. Raw oysters on the half shell are the star here, though you’ll also find seafood gumbo, crab claws, catfish dinners, and more Southern seafood delicacies on the menu. While you can seek out a solid fried oyster elsewhere — notably the unassuming Drago’s and Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar — the Casamento’s supply is always locally sourced and freshly shucked, provided you’re lucky enough to find its lights on. 

Casamento’s Restaurant

With a neon sign and a tiled exterior, Casamento’s on Magazine Street is a prime example of the city’s distinct old-school charm that has yet to fade.

Outside this wooden building on St. Ann Street in the Tremé neighborhood, you’ll always find two things during dining hours: the wafting scent of blistered, salty fried chicken and a line of people waiting for it. Willie Mae Seaton’s namesake institution opened in 1957 as a bar, restaurant, and beauty shop. As discussion of her legendary fried bird grew, the place transitioned to serving just food. The menu now includes options like fried catfish and a seafood platter, but it remains devoted to offering its original three-piece fried chicken combo — no substitutions. There’s no alcohol and little flair. The tables and plates are plain; the walls a standard eggshell with haphazardly hung art. The best seat is beneath a lovely portrait of Seaton, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 99. 

Willie Mae's Scotch House

Outside this wooden building on St. Ann Street in the Tremé neighborhood, you’ll always find two things during dining hours: the wafting scent of blistered, salty fried chicken and a line of people waiting for it.

The garden at this beloved Bywater mainstay might as well be a portal to France, honoring the city’s Francophone roots with a daily rotating menu of house-made charcuterie and macarons, plus an exhaustive wine list. Founded by filmmaker Aaron Walker and chef Yuki Yamaguchi, the restaurant infuses hints of Japanese flavor into its offerings. Named for a French highway, the Nationale 7, N7 has woven bistro chairs and a vintage red Citroën parked in the courtyard, completing the Gallic fantasy. 

The garden at this beloved Bywater mainstay might as well be a portal to France, honoring the city’s Francophone roots with a daily rotating menu of house-made charcuterie and macarons, plus an exhaustive wine list.

Owen Brennan’s charm was said to be contagious. Nicknamed “the one-man Chamber of Commerce,” he opened the Old Absinthe House first, and then, in 1946, signed a lease just across the road from his namesake restaurant. In the 1950s, when American author Frances Parkinson Keyes published a mystery called Dinner at Antoine’s, Owen Brennan felt the neighboring restaurant was stealing his business. He cheekily announced he would be providing “Breakfast at Brennan’s.” Thus America’s brunch culture began, elevating the day’s first meal to a grandiose event. All that elegance and inviting pomp still stands. The Roost Bar, with its painted mirror frescoes and kelly-green walls, is a scene of revelry on the weekends. Champagne bottles are sabered outside frequently, and they flow continuously into mimosas. This cocktail, though invented in Paris, was made famous at Brennan’s. Culinary renditions are classic Crescent City –– eggs Sardou, Gulf fish amandine, and spicy gumbo –– and the courtyard is the prettiest place to try bananas Foster, which was invented there. 

Brennan’s

Owen Brennan’s charm was said to be contagious. Nicknamed “the one-man Chamber of Commerce,” he opened the Old Absinthe House first, and then, in 1946, signed a lease just across the road from his namesake restaurant.

It’s easy to dismiss this stand-alone Garden District café and boulangerie as the stuff of kitsch, with its teal windows, pink door, striped awning, and neon sign. But this Vietnamese-meets-French restaurant at the foot of Hotel Saint Vincent is serving some of the best examples of the hybrid cuisine in a city with no shortage of it. Find pho and banh mi, along with a miso peanut butter cookie and everything-seasoned croissant with a chunk of butter at its center. Checkerboard floors, a pastel palette, and an impressive roster of natural wines are a few more reasons to take a seat in this charming, dopamine-drenched space. 

Elizabeth St. Cafe

It’s easy to dismiss this stand-alone Garden District café and boulangerie as the stuff of kitsch, with its teal windows, pink door, striped awning, and neon sign. 

If you can’t get invited to a local shotgun house for red beans and rice, the next most intimate New Orleans culinary experience can be found in the 1898 Victorian home of Mosquito Supper Club, where two dozen diners are seated at three intimate communal tables. What started as a pop-up during the height of the pandemic has now become the city’s buzziest reservation, and for good reason; owner and chef Melissa Martin, who grew up in a family of fishermen on the nearby bayou of Petit Caillou, has repurposed her family’s Cajun recipes into a prix fixe menu that celebrates the biodiversity of the wetlands and the value of sustainable living. Once a thriving home to dozens of bird species and a teeming bounty of fish and crustaceans, the region is now in danger from rising sea levels and increased hurricane activity. Martin’s dishes, which also feature in her cookbook, Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou, are seasonal, sustainable, and locally sourced. Martin herself is a climate-change advocate who sources strictly from the community in which she grew up. While the menu is ever-changing, it might include crab cakes served in the shell (no breadcrumbs or stock added); salad with heirloom tomatoes and rare soft-shell shrimp, served in a family-size mason jar; or a briny oyster soup with salt pork, sweet tomatoes, and alliums, a childhood favorite recipe passed down from her grandmother. Naturally, everything is served family-style, encouraging neighboring diners to reach across the farmhouse table and embrace the art of talking to strangers. 

Mosquito Supper Club

If you can’t get invited to a local shotgun house for red beans and rice, the next most intimate New Orleans culinary experience can be found in the 1898 Victorian home of Mosquito Supper Club

The staff at Sylvain wears shirts with a tagline that embraces a particularly unflattering Yelp review: “Too dark. Too loud. Est. 10/10/10.” Sylvain was named for the first opera performed in the city — a classy yet riotous affair — and the restaurant aims for the same vibe. Entering Sylvain requires stepping past the antiques shops along Chartres Street and traversing a narrow stone alleyway, in which the ghosts of New Orleans’s past feel alluringly alive. Inside, chandelier sconces light up the charcoal walls with red neon, the moody milieu contrasting with an upbeat soundtrack featuring the likes of Paul Simon. Whether you choose to dine in the actual bistro space, with its rickety chairs and large oak bar (where members of the city’s in-the-know service industry love to pull up after a long shift), or you opt for alfresco, there’s not a bad seat in the house. Their newest chef, Chris Hamm, has altered the menu slightly, and while Sylvain’s storied Southern-inspired comforts remain –– a medium-rare burger served with a big bowl of house-made pappardelle noodles smothered in Bolognese, or $90 champagne and frites –– Hamm’s own history now makes an appearance, too. Raised by a Filipino-Hawaiian mother in Seattle, he brings a bit of his childhood to dishes like the sesame-soy-glazed short rib and red adobo pork shoulder, with “kimcheese” rice grits, pickled tomatillo, and marinated onions.

The staff at Sylvain wears shirts with a tagline that embraces a particularly unflattering Yelp review: “Too dark. Too loud. Est. 10/10/10.” Sylvain was named for the first opera performed in the city — a classy yet riotous affair — and the restaurant aims for the same vibe. Entering Sylvain requires stepping past the antiques shops along Chartres Street and traversing a narrow stone alleyway, in which the ghosts of New Orleans’s past feel alluringly alive. Inside, chandelier sconces light up the charcoal walls with red neon, the moody milieu contrasting with an upbeat soundtrack featuring the likes of Paul Simon. Whether you choose to dine in the actual bistro space, with its rickety chairs and large oak bar (where members of the city’s in-the-know service industry love to pull up after a long shift), or you opt for alfresco, there’s not a bad seat in the house. Their newest chef, Chris Hamm, has altered the menu slightly, and while Sylvain’s storied Southern-inspired comforts remain –– a medium-rare burger served with a big bowl of house-made pappardelle noodles smothered in Bolognese, or $90 champagne and frites –– Hamm’s own history now makes an appearance, too. Raised by a Filipino-Hawaiian mother in Seattle, he brings a bit of his childhood to dishes like the sesame-soy-glazed short rib and red adobo pork shoulder, with “kimcheese” rice grits, pickled tomatillo, and marinated onions

Sylvain 

Sylvain was named for the first opera performed in the city — a classy yet riotous affair — and the restaurant aims for the same vibe. 

If you can tolerate generic pop music and elbow-to-elbow bar dining, it’s worth a stop at this local hot spot, where the real focus, apart from the charming floral wallpaper, is the food: innovative Vietnamese fusion, with a hefty dose of Southern and Japanese flavors. Like everywhere in New Orleans, inspirations are so mixed it’s hard to tell what exactly you’re eating; sweet corn and crawfish flirt with chile oil in wonton form; hamachi kama (yellowtail collars) are double-fried. Don’t skip the raw bar, which includes a “feed me” sampler with sake or wine pairing. The Monkey Snack, which wraps sesame-crusted banana slices in pockets of salmon sashimi with a sweet soy glaze, is a strong example of Luvi’s surprisingly harmonious marriage of Asian and Southern cooking. 

Luvi 

Innovative Vietnamese fusion, with a hefty dose of Southern and Japanese flavors.

Luvi

With burgundy velvet walls, tin ceilings, hexagonal floor tiles, and sky-high windows that let the lunchtime light pour in, Lilette on Magazine Street is a classic example of a New Orleans French bistro. Lilette’s all-day menu includes updated classics like an heirloom-tomato grilled cheese with Taleggio and shishitos, though the local favorite — unsurprisingly, considering the climate — is the chilled corn broth with a bed of avocado, chives, and Louisiana crabmeat. This savory-sweet dish is the perfect antidote to the New Orleans heat, and it’s best enjoyed from the private booth, which is tucked away in a quiet corner by the back entrance. Service is friendly and remarkably quick, leaving you more time to stroll through the Garden District. 

Lilette

With burgundy velvet walls, tin ceilings, hexagonal floor tiles, and sky-high windows that let the lunchtime light pour in, Lilette on Magazine Street is a classic example of a New Orleans French bistro.

In New Orleans, everyone has an opinion about food, and perhaps no topic is more contested than where to get the best po’boy. Domilise’s is a crowd favorite, with crowds lining up at nearly all times of day to snag one from the simple yellow house with a hand-painted sign. But the crowds are half the size — and the shrimp twice as flavorful — at Liuzza's by the Track, a homey Cajun restaurant on a quiet corner by the Fair Grounds racetrack. While you’ll find po’boys of every stripe there, from catfish to corned beef, you’d be remiss not to try Liuzza’s signature BBQ shrimp po’boy dish, with shrimp sautéed in a smoky sauce and tucked into a French pistolette roll. Don’t forget to ask for extra napkins; you’ll likely need them. 

Liuzza’s By the Track

In New Orleans, everyone has an opinion about food, and perhaps no topic is more contested than where to get the best po’boy.

"The late Leah Chase, chef and co-owner of Dooky Chase’s, remains the undisputed queen of Creole cuisine and a much-missed American culinary icon. When she passed away in 2019 at age 96, the New York Times recounted her passion and grit, citing her role in feeding the Freedom Riders during the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as her warm sense of humor; when President Obama visited the restaurant, she pulled no punches in admonishing him for splashing hot sauce in her gumbo. “In my dining room, we changed the course of America over a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken,” she was fond of saying when asked about hosting meetings for the NAACP during the 1960s, or about being among the first in the nation to provide fine dining to the Black community. Her work in food not only brought dishes like shrimp Clemenceau and Creole gumbo to the lexicon of American dining — it also brought people together in the fight for equality. To dine at Dooky Chase’s is to eat in a historic space, which continues to be a cultural anchor in the city. Today, her relatives still operate that same lunch buffet and weekend dinners, and the menu remains dedicated to Louisiana classics: The oysters Norman come delicately fried atop spinach, garlic, and Parmesan, and that aforementioned shrimp Clemenceau finds the crustaceans sautéed in garlic sauce with peas, mushrooms, and Brabant potatoes, each dish coming with a carefully paired wine suggestion. The dining rooms are cozy with warm tones, upholstered chairs, and one of the largest collections of Black art in the city. "

"The late Leah Chase, chef and co-owner of Dooky Chase’s, remains the undisputed queen of
Creole cuisine and a much-missed American culinary icon. When she passed away in 2019 at age 96, the New York Times recounted her passion and grit, citing her role in feeding the Freedom Riders during the turbulence of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as her warm sense of humor; when President Obama visited the restaurant, she pulled no punches in admonishing him for splashing hot sauce in her gumbo. “In my dining room, we changed the course of America over a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken,” she was fond of saying when asked about hosting meetings for the NAACP during the 1960s, or about being among the first in the nation to provide fine dining to the Black community. Her work in food not only brought dishes like shrimp Clemenceau and Creole gumbo to the lexicon of American dining — it also brought people together in the fight for equality. To dine at Dooky Chase’s is to eat in a historic space, which continues to be a cultural anchor in the city. Today, her relatives still operate that same lunch buffet and weekend dinners, and the menu remains dedicated to Louisiana classics: The oysters Norman come delicately fried atop spinach, garlic, and Parmesan, and that aforementioned shrimp Clemenceau finds the crustaceans sautéed in garlic sauce with peas, mushrooms, and Brabant potatoes, each dish coming with a carefully paired wine suggestion. The dining rooms are cozy with warm tones, upholstered chairs, and one of the largest collections of Black art in the city. "

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant

"The late Leah Chase, chef and co-owner of Dooky Chase’s, remains the undisputed queen of Creole cuisine and a much-missed American culinary icon.

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant 

Mason Hereford gained a global following for his outrageously decadent sandwiches at a tiny Irish Channel joint called Turkey & the Wolf in 2016. His second venture is this larger space in the Lower Garden District, with a reliable all-day breakfast menu; a biscuit with bacon and salty collard greens is a fine order, but don’t skip the house burrito with scrambled eggs, Hatch chiles, nopalitos, and slivers of corn tortilla. At Molly’s, it’s hard not to crack a smile: The salt and pepper shakers are attached to tiny toy cars, the walls are adorned with murals by the same artist who did Hereford’s tattoos, and the shelves are packed with nostalgia, including everything from Mr. Potato Head to a Michael Jordan Wheaties box.

Molly's Rise & Shine

Mason Hereford gained a global following for his outrageously decadent sandwiches at a tiny Irish Channel joint called Turkey & the Wolf in 2016. 

"In the fall of 2020, Meg Bickford became the first female executive chef in this restaurant’s illustrious 129-year history. That history includes seven James Beard Awards and names like Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme. Under Bickford’s skillful direction, Commander’s continues to be one of the biggest names in Southern dining. The menu has grown somewhat –– you’ll find a splash of Vietnamese, Italian, and German flavors now –– but it remains overall haute Southern, sourcing ingredients from within 100 miles whenever possible. The locals have long-standing reservations here for the holidays, as well as regular Friday lunches, where the 25-cent martini special is understandably popular. From the turtle soup au sherry with veal fond and chopped egg, to the white shrimp with tasso ham, pickled okra, five-pepper jelly, and a beurre blanc infused with local Crystal hot sauce, the menu is devoted to Louisiana’s cornerstone ingredients and bayou-born techniques, all served on bone china and white tablecloths. The most famous menu item is for dessert: the Creole bread pudding soufflé, finished tableside with a sensual presentation. "

Commander’s Palace

"In the fall of 2020, Meg Bickford became the first female executive chef in this restaurant’s illustrious 129-year history. That history includes seven James Beard Awards and names like Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme.

Part of the beloved Donald Link empire — which is also responsible for Cochon, a pork-heavy Cajun restaurant, as well as the fish lover’s Pêche — Herbsaint is named for the brand of anise-flavored liqueur created as an absinthe substitute in New Orleans during the 1930s. And, like its name, it’s distinctly Orleanian, serving the kind of highbrow fusion you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Under copper pendant lights, chef Link serves signature haute-Southern dishes like his dark roux gumbo and duck confit with dirty rice and citrus gastrique. For a larger group, the private dining room can accommodate up to 45 guests at a long wooden table, or 60 for a standing affair. 

Herbsaint

Part of the beloved Donald Link empire — which is also responsible for Cochon, a pork-heavy Cajun restaurant, as well as the fish lover’s Pêche — Herbsaint is named for the brand of anise-flavored liqueur created as an absinthe substitute in New Orleans during the 1930s.

When you tire of gumbo and po’boys, head to Alon Shaya’s modern Israeli restaurant on Magazine Street. Don’t expect to skimp on indulgence, though; there, in a sun-drenched space surrounded by whitewashed brick, the pita is thick and the hummus is whipped. Small plates include fattoush salad and crispy Halloumi with apricots, while hungrier diners should opt for larger portions of slow-cooked lamb with date molasses and whipped feta, or Kvarøy salmon with caramelized harissa, sweet corn, and couscous “risotto.” As with many restaurants in this city, a back patio allows you to dine under the Southern sun for a bit of Mediterranean on the Mississippi.  

Shaya

When you tire of gumbo and po’boys, head to Alon Shaya’s modern Israeli restaurant on Magazine Street.

Wherever you go in New Orleans, you’ll hear whispers of Chris Hannah, the bartender at this local landmark, and something of an institution himself. As the longtime bartender of Arnaud’s French 75, a haven of elegance just half a block from Bourbon Street, he gained a cult following for his elevated take on the classic cocktail, as well as his generosity and good conversation. Those in the know have followed Hannah to Jewel of the South, where he’s both a partner and bartender, offering a cocktail list that includes seasonal specialties (in summer, try the Sweet Corn Colada and a watermelon and sherry blend called the Bastille Cup) as well as year-round NOLA classics like the French 75 and Sazerac. If you’d like a bite, the foie gras or house-made focaccia will not disappoint, but the real star is the liquor (and its maker). The backyard garden is the maraschino cherry on top. 

Jewel of the South 

Wherever you go in New Orleans, you’ll hear whispers of Chris Hannah, the bartender at this local landmark, and something of an institution himself.

Jewel of the South

Quite simply, New Orleans is a drinking town. And while there’s no shortage of options for to-go daiquiris and karaoke bars in the French Quarter, it’s the Bywater where you’ll want to spend the night for some more sophisticated debauchery. On the far end of town, right on the Mississippi, Bacchanal started as a sleepy little wineshop before emerging as a hub for open-air dining, backyard parties, and some of the city’s best live jazz seven days a week. Every other Tuesday in the summers and early fall, Bacchanal hosts Primal Night, where a guest chef cooks in the courtyard; 100 percent of this season’s proceeds went toward the ACLU and New Orleans Abortion Fund. If you’re looking to take advantage of the city’s loose open-container laws, the shop is still there, home to more than a hundred wines from across the globe. Or walk up Poland Avenue to some of the city’s best haunts for live music. 

Quite simply, New Orleans is a drinking town. And while there’s no shortage of options for to-go daiquiris and karaoke bars in the French Quarter, it’s the Bywater where you’ll want to spend the night for some more sophisticated debauchery. On the far end of town, right on the Mississippi, Bacchanal started as a sleepy little wineshop before emerging as a hub for open-air dining, backyard parties, and some of the city’s best live jazz six days a week. Every other Tuesday, Bacchanal hosts Primal Night, where a guest chef cooks in the courtyard; 100 percent of this season’s proceeds go toward the ACLU and New Orleans Abortion Fund. If you’re looking to take advantage of the city’s loose open-container laws, the shop is still there, home to more than a hundred wines from across the globe. Or walk up Poland Avenue to some of the city’s best haunts for live music. 

Bacchanal Fine Wine & Spirits

Quite simply, New Orleans is a drinking town. And while there’s no shortage of options for to-go daiquiris and karaoke bars in the French Quarter, it’s the Bywater where you’ll want to spend the night for some more sophisticated debauchery.

Built between 1722 and 1732, Lafitte’s is said to be the oldest working bar in the country, and for this reason, it’s as much an essential stop on a sightseeing tour of New Orleans as it is for drinking. The legend of Jean Lafitte, the French pirate and privateer, is palpable in the bar’s peeling walls, low ceilings, and brick fireplace. Lafitte became a household name for his role in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, during which he provided powder, flint, and troops to General Jackson, securing the win against the British. Legend has it that the property was used by Lafitte and his brother Pierre as a New Orleans base for their Barataria treasure-smuggling operation — though, as the owners are keen to point out, “like most New Orleans legends, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop is a gumbo of truth and French, Spanish, Cajun, and American embellishments.” Get the Purple Drank; like the establishment’s history, no one really knows what’s in it, but they drink it up nonetheless. 

Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar

Built between 1722 and 1732, Lafitte’s is said to be the oldest working bar in the country, and for this reason, it’s as much an essential stop on a sightseeing tour of New Orleans as it is for drinking.

Few opportunities are more delightful than those that allow you to revisit childhood pastimes, only with alcohol. Herein lies the joy of the French Quarter’s Carousel Bar & Lounge, located in the historic Hotel Monteleone, where the likes of William Faulkner and Truman Capote were known to down more than one Sazerac. (The building’s vintage marquee, which can be seen across town, is jokingly referred to as New Orleans’s Hollywood sign.) The 25-seat revolving bar, which overlooks the famed Royal Street, re-creates the classic carnival merry-go-round, inviting patrons to get dizzy in a good way. It’s one of the kitschier things to do in New Orleans, but that’s part of the fun; when in NOLA, as they say.  

The Carousel Bar & Lounge

Few opportunities are more delightful than those that allow you to revisit childhood pastimes, only with alcohol. Herein lies the joy of the French Quarter’s Carousel Bar & Lounge, located in the historic Hotel Monteleone, where the likes of William Faulkner and Truman Capote were known to down more than one Sazerac.

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The Bittersweet History of Sugar in New Orleans

The Bittersweet History of Sugar in New Orleans > Left Column

The Bittersweet History of Sugar in New Orleans 

Beignets. King cakes. Daiquiris. New Orleans is filled with many sweet flavors, but Louisiana’s history with sugar has long been tainted. 


Beignets, king cakes, daiquiris: for many, the taste of New Orleans is undoubtedly sweet, but Louisiana’s history with sugar has long been tainted. 

The Bittersweet History of Sugar in New Orleans Link

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 What to Do

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A dark brick-lined haunt on a corner in the French Quarter, A Gallery for Fine Photography is exactly what it sounds like. Founded in 1973 by documentary photographer Joshua Mann Pailet, it both exhibits and sells work from names you’ll surely recognize: Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts. On its deep-blue walls, the self-described “museum for sale” regularly hosts exhibitions by local New Orleans photographers and contemporary artists from around the world. The gallery also includes a bookstore with premium photography books, many by the celebrated photographers found in its impressive inventory. 

A Gallery for Fine Photography

A dark brick-lined haunt on a corner in the French Quarter, A Gallery for Fine Photography is exactly what it sounds like.

In the years since Katrina, with the city seeing an influx of new residents seeking out cheap rents, the St. Claude Corridor, a micro-district within the Bywater area, has emerged as an unforeseen haven for artists and young creatives. In a stretch of just under three miles, visitors can find a host of local favorites, including the chef-centric St. Roch Market, a light-filled multi-vendor food hall that was converted from an 1875 market; the French wine bar and restaurant Saint-Germain; and several small theaters, record stores, and performance spaces. But the artistic nucleus of the St. Claude Corridor, which sits along its titular avenue, is Good Children Gallery, an artist-run space that takes its name from the neighborhood’s original moniker. The gallery shows evocative contemporary work by artists local, national, and international — many young and emerging — in an ever-evolving roster of exhibitions. 

Good Children Gallery

An artist-run space that takes its name from the neighborhood’s original moniker. The gallery shows evocative contemporary work by artists local, national, and international — many young and emerging — in an ever-evolving roster of exhibitions.

You can’t turn a corner in New Orleans without stumbling upon a mural by Brandan “Bmike” Odums. The New Orleans native’s vibrant, large-scale artwork, which delivers commentary on racial justice through spray paint, stretches across the city’s brick walls, buses, and housing developments — most notably the Florida Projects in the Ninth Ward, where, in 2012, his graffiti spawned something of a guerrilla exhibition space for a community of emerging artists. When the Housing Authority of New Orleans shut down the development, Odums opened Exhibit BE in an abandoned apartment complex, which over the course of six years became the largest single-site public art exhibition in the South, with contributions by more than 40 artists. In 2016, Odums decided to re-create the space, albeit in a more permanent gallery setting, with Studio BE, a 36,000-square-foot warehouse in the Bywater filled with murals, installations, and reconstructions of works that were demolished with the Florida Projects. The cavernous space is a powerful reflection of Black joy, as well as a reminder of the work that remains ahead. One mural depicts Muhammad Ali speaking to the press post-win next to an image of the boxer being brutalized by the police; two side-by-side claw machines, titled Free Em All, illustrate the racial disparity of prisons through toy plushies of men in orange jumpsuits. While most of the work is made by Odums himself, some is created in collaboration with students and emerging artists through Studio BE’s nonprofit, Eternal Seeds. 

Studio BE

You can’t turn a corner in New Orleans without stumbling upon a mural by Brandan “Bmike” Odums. The New Orleans native’s vibrant, large-scale artwork, which delivers commentary on racial justice through spray paint, stretches across the city’s brick walls, buses, and housing developments

From lectures to film screenings, concerts to literary celebrations, the Ogden explores every medium of art from artists past and present in the American South. Opened in 2003 in the city’s historic Warehouse District, the museum was founded with a single private donation of 600 pieces by entrepreneur and philanthropist Roger H. Ogden. It has evolved to 4,000 permanent pieces –– sculptures, photography, oil paintings, and woodwork, ranging from the contemporary to priceless antiquities. The Ogden is now the largest and most comprehensive collection focused on the American South in the world, and it’s housed in two main buildings: Stephen Goldring Hall spans 47,000 square feet, with five stories of glass and stone; the adjoining Patrick F. Taylor Library was built in 1889 and was designed by renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson. On the walls, you’ll find noted names of Southern history and creativity, including the works of Walter Anderson, Benny Andrews, Clementine Hunter, and George Ohr. Most recently, the Ogden has teamed up with the local Helis Foundation to present “Unframed,” a series of murals on buildings around the city by a handful of international and Southern artists.

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Opened in 2003 in the city’s historic Warehouse District, the museum was founded with a single private donation of 600 pieces by entrepreneur and philanthropist Roger H. Ogden. It has evolved to 4,000 permanent pieces –– sculptures, photography, oil paintings, and woodwork, ranging from the contemporary to priceless antiquities.

If the weather allows it, there’s no more peaceful way to take a break from Orleanian debauchery than a quiet afternoon in City Park, where you’ll hear nothing but birds chirping, trains whistling, and old cypress trees swaying in the breeze. At 1,300 acres, City Park is one of America’s oldest urban parks and also one of its largest. It boasts the world’s largest collection of live oak trees, including an old grove section, where you’ll find the 800-year-old McDonogh Oak. Behind NOMA, the New Orleans Museum of Art, which sits at the entrance to the park, this sculpture garden is a small paradise for art lovers. Across 11 acres of magnolia trees, curving footbridges, and a duo of lagoons, you’ll find works both familiar and surprising: one of Louise Bourgeois’ spindly spiders beneath an oak tree; a Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture; oversize glass beads strung across branches in a nod to Mardi Gras, by Jean-Michel Othoniel; and works by George Rodrigue, Claes Oldenburg, Isamu Noguchi, and Barbara Hepworth, among others. If you’re with kids, head to the antique carousel or Putt-Putt course, or watch geese waddle while snacking on a beignet from an outpost of the famous Café du Monde. 

Sydney & Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden

If the weather allows it, there’s no more peaceful way to take a break from Orleanian debauchery than a quiet afternoon in City Park, where you’ll hear nothing but birds chirping, trains whistling, and old cypress trees swaying in the breeze.

New Orleans was practically built by free people of color, or gens de couleur libres — those who were born free or escaped slavery before it was abolished in 1865. Before the Civil War, free people of color made up a higher proportion of the New Orleans population than in any other American city. Le Musée de F.P.C. celebrates that heritage in an intimate house museum along Esplanade Avenue, which, in the 19th century, was majority-owned by French-speaking Afro-Creole free people of color. Though museum tours are available to visitors by appointment only, the mansion’s salons and parlors tell a comprehensive history of free people of color, which included artists, artisans, and musicians as well as laborers and sugar factory workers. Their impact can be felt virtually everywhere, from the city’s architecture to its press; Beverly McKenna, who owns the museum with her husband, Dwight, is also the founder of the New Orleans Tribune, a newspaper serving New Orleans’s Black community. McKenna, along with the dozen guides she employs, are descendants of Louisiana’s free people of color. The McKennas founded the museum just days after Hurricane Katrina, with their comprehensive collection of artifacts untouched by the hurricane’s devastation. Even as the Black population of their Tremé neighborhood dropped drastically after the natural disaster, the museum has remained an emblem of their long-standing legacy. 

Le Musée de F.P.C.

Le Musée de F.P.C. celebrates that heritage in an intimate house museum along Esplanade Avenue, which, in the 19th century, was majority-owned by French-speaking Afro-Creole free people of color.

It’s impossible to understand the city of New Orleans without a visit to one of its neighboring plantations, and the Whitney is the only one that refuses to sugarcoat what happened there. Skip the Disneyfied antebellum mansions turned wedding venues and rent a car to visit the only former plantation in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on slavery. Though the grounds of this former sugarcane plantation are beautifully groomed, it’s impossible to ignore that this is where more than 350 slaves lived, worked, and suffered. Preserved historic buildings, exhibits, memorials, and first-person narratives tell of Louisiana’s enslaved African people, rather than those who profited off their labor. Visitors can take an accompanying tour through the Whitney app, and not only is it appropriate for children, but an essential aspect of any American education. 

Whitney Plantation

It’s impossible to understand the city of New Orleans without a visit to one of its neighboring plantations, and the Whitney is the only one that refuses to sugarcoat what happened there.

One of the defining features of New Orleans is its awe-inspiring abundance of greenery, largely thanks to its average of 56 days of rainfall a year (the third highest in the country). Though you’ll find the characteristic oak trees — with their stout trunks and wide, spindly branches stretching in every direction — throughout the city, there’s nowhere better to go out on a limb than Audubon Park. Situated on high ground along the Mississippi’s natural levee, the park’s allées of ancient live oaks were fortunately spared from most of the Hurricane Katrina flooding, though a few were blown down. Once a plantation that belonged to Étienne de Boré, a sugar planter and New Orleans’s first mayor, the park is now an urban oasis for all, with a zoo, playgrounds, golf course, tennis courts, and several picnic areas. A 1.8-mile jogging path winds throughout the park, popular with students from the neighboring Tulane University campus, and you’ll find a glorious mélange of Gothic, Roman, and modern architecture along the way. As this is Audubon Park, named for the artist and avian enthusiast John James Audubon, in the middle of the park lagoon lies Bird Island, a mystical wildlife refuge home to rare egrets, cormorants, and all kinds of herons. 

Audubon Park

Though you’ll find the characteristic oak trees — with their stout trunks and wide, spindly branches stretching in every direction — throughout the city, there’s nowhere better to go out on a limb than Audubon Park.

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Joie De Mort Image

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Joie De Mort 

Bob Dylan once said, “The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds." Indeed, the Big Easy celebrates the after life with lively aplomb, from roaming brass-band processions to mystical mausoleums.

“The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds — the cemeteries — and they’re a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here.” 

Joie De Mort Link

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Joie de Mort

Where to Shop

Where to shop > New Orleans > view more

This Black-owned bookshop and café in the Marigny pays homage to its namesake with a wide selection of books by writers of color, celebrating the community that built New Orleans. Fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books fill the space, which hosts a lineup of intellectuals that has included Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times journalist and creator of the 1619 Project; professor Eddie Glaude Jr.; and Atlantic columnist and professor Imani Perry. At the back of the space, a podcast studio is available by reservation, and poetry events and children’s readings are held in the courtyard. A sister bar-restaurant around the corner, New Orleans Art Bar, also sells work by local street artists. 

Baldwin & Co.

This Black-owned bookshop and café in the Marigny pays homage to its namesake with a wide selection of books by writers of color, celebrating the community that built New Orleans.

Like many writers before and after him, William Faulkner found inspiration in the storied streets of the French Quarter, bunking up in a former carriage space turned cheap boarding house on Pirate’s Alley, a winding cobblestoned street just off Jackson Square.

You don’t have to be one of the last remaining record-player owners to find something at Peaches, a New Orleans vinyl mainstay. Anyone who loves music can spend hours lingering among the aisles of rare collectibles, which include pre-Nicks and pre-Buckingham Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s joint Milk and Honey album, and late Hendrix. For the slightly more modern Luddite with a boom box, there’s the CD collection of your 1990s hip-hop dreams. Kitschy fictional hotel key tags, band T-shirts, and more pop-culture tchotchkes abound along with an original diner’s counter.  

Peaches

You don’t have to be one of the last remaining record-player owners to find something at Peaches, a New Orleans vinyl mainstay.

With its minimalist Craftsman-style homeware — some new, some antiques — Sunday Shop brings a bit of California to the Lower Garden District. Think linen robes, waffle cotton hand towels, vintage Turkish rugs, handcrafted feather dusters, and woven pillows — everything that embodies a good lazy Sunday. The shop invites shoppers to poke into nooks and crannies filled with artisanal soaps, leather-bound notebooks, and even some bird taxidermy. (This is New Orleans, after all.) The shop is open by appointment only on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it is open to the public the rest of the week. 

Sunday Shop

With its minimalist Craftsman-style homeware — some new, some antiques — Sunday Shop brings a bit of California to the Lower Garden District.

The Bywater is arguably New Orleans’s coolest neighborhood, home to artists, live musics, and a mélange of industrial architecture and charming Victorian houses coated in a sherbet palette. The strongest case for that argument can be made at Low Timers, a vintage-clothing boutique that embraces the old-school bravado of the Southern cowboy. The shop sells faded Levi’s, workwear overalls, football jerseys, and stacks of old T-shirts, but the real draw is the ambience: faded Turkish rugs, beat-up signs, Johnny Cash on the speakers, and vintage ads that say things like “Cowgirls Like Tall Boys.” The store also prints original designs on vintage T-shirts, which incorporate motifs of Louisiana culture (barbecue, bars) and the Peanuts characters.

Low Timers

The Bywater is arguably New Orleans’s coolest neighborhood, home to artists, live musics, and a mélange of industrial architecture and charming Victorian houses coated in a sherbet palette.

In the golden age of men’s hair, barber shops were a destination, equipped with marble counters, crystal chandeliers, blown-glass tonic bottles, and chairs of genuine leather and oak wood. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, barbershops rivaled saloons as the nucleus of male social life, a weekly ritual that risked extinction after World War II, with the advent of the mass-market safety razor and the unkempt look of the 1960s and ’70s. Entrepreneur Aidan Gill went on the front lines of barbershop conservation, creating a store on the quaintest strip of Magazine Street that recalls the grander barbershops of yore: rich wooden cabinetry, antique towel heaters, wide mirrors, and stacks of old Playboys from an era when a one-piece swimsuit was still the stuff of scandal. After a highly personalized haircut, nurse a glass of Irish whiskey and peruse the store’s comprehensive selection of men’s shaving paraphernalia, which treats men’s grooming less as a hygienic requisite than a mark of pride. 

Aiden Gill for Men

In the golden age of men’s hair, barber shops were a destination, equipped with marble counters, crystal chandeliers, blown-glass tonic bottles, and chairs of genuine leather and oak wood.

A little pocket of Sicily in the Big Easy, Sud is the brainchild of architects William Brockschmidt and Richard Dragisic, the design-minded duo behind the restored Casa Grotta in Modica, Italy. The shop, tucked away on Magazine Street, is distinctly Sicilian, reflecting the diverse tapestry of influences there. Gilded baroque mirrors, white-washed head vases, hand painted ceramic platters shipped from Palermo, and more Italianate curiosities— both vintage and modern— fill the airy space. Cubic tile floor cloths, inspired by 18th century Sicilian and Neapolitan maiolca tiles, complete the fantasy. 

A little pocket of Sicily in the Big Easy, Sud is the brainchild of architects William Brockschmidt and Richard Dragisic, the design-minded duo behind the restored Casa Grotta in Modica, Italy.

The French Quarter is filled with high-end antiques destinations — one-stop shops for 14-karat gold cocktail rings from the 1940s, wall tapestries from the 1920s, and crystal chandeliers of every shape, size, and provenance. Unless you’re keen to spend your days running in and out of high-blast air conditioning, you really only need to go to M.S. Rau, a two-building antiques warehouse that has provided Orleanians with fine jewelry, traditional furniture, and original paintings for more than a century. If you ask nicely, the staff will let you inside the secret room, in which you’ll find every kind of rarity, from a Dutch Old Master to a Frank Sinatra etching — all at a starting price of $100,000. 

M.S. Rau

The French Quarter is filled with high-end antiques destinations — one-stop shops for 14-karat gold cocktail rings from the 1940s, wall tapestries from the 1920s, and crystal chandeliers of every shape, size, and provenance.

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A stroll through the French Quarter's cobblestone streets or the ancient oak-line paths of Audubon Park will confirm what the world’s greatest artists have long known to be true: In New Orleans, magic is in the air. 
