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An insider’s guide to New Orleans: the US city putting community at the heart of everything
Chief curator Gia M Hamilton at the New Orleans African American Museum (NOAAM) in front of an installation by Joiri Minaya for Prospect 6Maya Visnyei
Each resident is a guide who will take sightseers down streets well trodden and hidden, to tourist sites that locals frequent and seemingly abandoned buildings that light up on Sundays with crowds of neighbours, $2 beers and smoking grills. Their list of recommendations might include McHardy’s black-pepper-flecked fried chicken, served from a counter in Mid-City; or the fried chicken pop-up at Pete’s Out in the Cold in the Irish Channel; or the golden fried chicken on a white-linen-swathed table at Dooky Chase in Tremé.
Slice from St PizzaMaya Visnyei
It’s best to set aside judgments and preconceived notions, leaving behind what you know to be true in other places. This is what Mbaye means when he calls New Orleans a “city of mood”. But it depends on the day, and what you need from it. Some days, it’s a po’boy from Parkway, others it’s jerk chicken from Queen Trini. Others still, a martini lunch at Commander’s. “It’s not fair,” he says, “to compare New Orleans to anywhere else.”
Nola know-how
Pool at The ChloeMaya Visnyei
Ray Charles-themed room at Dew Drop InnMaya Visnyei
Where to stay
At The Chloe, set in a Victorian-era house in the Garden District, each room is a treasure chest of detail, with claw-foot baths and cane rocking chairs. Hotel Saint Vincent on Magazine Street promises Lower Garden District creature comforts, and Hotel Peter & Paul in the Marigny is a quiet oasis arranged around a restored 19th-century church and school. For mingling with ghosts of Central City past, Dew Drop Inn is a revived live music venue and hotel. It channels the years when Irma Thomas, Fats Domino and Little Richard played there.
Pastel de nata and espresso martini at 34 Restaurant & BarMaya Visnyei
Entrance of Emeril’sMaya Visnyei
Where to eat and drink
New Orleans is a display cabinet of culinary institutions, from Dooky Chase to Brigtsen’s and Clancy’s. But it also has room for newcomers that might stand the test of time: Melissa Martin’s heartfelt Mosquito Supper Club, one of the few true homes of Cajun food; Dakar Nola, Serigne Mbaye’s modern ode to traditional Senegalese fare; 34 Restaurant & Bar, a culinary temple to the Portuguese heritage of Emeril Lagasse, owner of much-loved Emeril’s; the Little House, a cottage café and wineshop-bar in Algiers Point; and Martha Wiggins’s Café Reconcile, a teaching restaurant that serves New Orleans cuisine in a workaday lunch canteen.
Fried catfish with collard greens and sweet potato at Café ReconcilMaya Visnyei
Staff in the St Pizza kitchenMaya Visnyei
New neighbourhood go-tos include Lagniappe Bakehouse, where Kaitlin Guerin’s pastries nod to Southern and African influences, with benne-seed toffee cookies and honey-butter-adorned cornmeal muffins; and Queen Trini Lisa, whose jerk chicken, oxtail and pigeon peas and rice highlight the city’s close ties to the Caribbean. NightBloom is a Bywater cocktail bar from the Bacchanal team that serves seasonal drinks and hosts DJs until late. My wineshop and bar, Patron Saint, and our pizzeria-tavern, St Pizza, were created as extensions of our home.
Exterior of Kermit’s Tremé Mother-in-Law LoungeMaya Visnyei
Open mic night at Dew Drop InnMaya Visnyei
Where to listen
On any given day, there are a hundred different musical acts -performing in dive bars, hotels and venerated music halls. WWOZ, the best radio station in the world, plays traditional jazz, Brazilian samba, 1950s R&B and rare soul, plus the day’s live-music line-up recited every hour. No one ever regrets attending a gig at famed trumpet player Kermit Ruffins’s Kermit’s Tremé Mother-in-Law Lounge (“I’m sitting right where jazz was born,” he’ll tell you in his characteristic rasp) or a show at Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, and the newly revamped Chickie Wah Wah. No regrets going far afield, either, to Bullet’s Sports Bar for a live music night, Saturn Bar for a mod dance night or a Cher-themed party, or just wandering down Frenchmen Street, where jazz pours from every open doorway.
Preservation Hall’s stageMaya Visnyei
Painting by Abdi Farah at the Contemporary Arts CenterMaya Visnyei
Things to see and do
There is no place more atmospheric than the old groves of live oaks at City Park. Scattered among these century-old curiosities hung with Spanish moss are the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Botanical Gardens and acres upon acres of grounds that include bayou trails, wildflower fields and weekly farmers’ markets. Born of the tradition of Black brass-accompanied funerals, and hosted by the city’s many social clubs, New Orleans’s famous second lines, or parades, are one of the most moving ways to understand the city’s African roots and unbridled joy. These celebratory street affairs are held nearly every Sunday, except in summer.
