Louisiana restaurants in New Orleans
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A
Crescent City Brewhouse
A micro-brewery that produces passable pilsners and wheat beers. The menu features Louisiana standards, with a seafood emphasis: redfish, softshell crabs, crabcakes, steaks and burgers. There's often live music. It's a lively, upbeat place that can take care of an entire family's needs.
reviewed
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B
Café Maspero
Maspero's is another New Orleans restaurant that oozes atmosphere without trying very hard. Its smoky, brick arches make its street-level eating rooms feel underground. Its large menu touches all the bases of cheap local cuisine: fried catfish sandwiches, red beans and rice, cold Abita on tap delivered to your table by an alert waitstaff.
During peak tourist season out-of-towners are usually lined up on the sidewalk to get in, but during the slow season, many locals sneak back in to reclaim an old haunt. Cash only.
reviewed
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C
Gabrielle
At this writing, Gabrielle's original location on Esplanade Ave was closed after Hurricane Katrina, and owner-chef Greg Sonnier had announced plans to relocate to this historic social hall near Audubon Park. It's a relief to know one of the city's best restaurants hasn't become a Katrina casualty. Sonnier captures the attention of both locals and a national audience with his innovative Creole and Cajun dishes.
Look for signature dishes like homemade sausages, slow-roasted duck and barbecue shrimp pie. And save room for dessert. Greg's wife, Mary, creates outstanding pastries. If the phone number we've listed here is no longer in service, check the website for current info…
reviewed
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D
Bank Cafe
Beautiful spaces such as this, with high ceilings, warm lighting and an impeccable Art Deco bar, create a sense of anticipation. It's in a former bank, and has preserved the grandeur and dispensed with the stodginess. The menu follows through wonderfully. It's Louisiana cooking with unintrusive updates. Fresh vegetables, while perhaps not exactly qualifying as innovations, are welcomed for their snap and color.
Dishes like Moroccan braised lamb shanks, served with gremoulata and cous-cous, gently bend culinary categories. American classics such as seared red snapper are accompanied by a bounty of veggies. The menu follows the seasons, and fresh and organic are the bywords…
reviewed
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E
Restaurant Indigo
With its exquisite tropical suavity, Indigo creates a sultry mood. It's set in a 19th century corner grocery, a rustic touch that is played off and elevated by a veranda that opens to a garden filled with palmettoes and other leafy plants that thrive in balmy climes. Colorful cocktails add a festive look on the tables. Polished service and Chef Michael Sichel's contemporary regional cuisine buoys the experience.
Sichel's toned-down haute style is built on surf and turf mainstays that are prepared with sophistication. Look for items like short ribs with marrow mashed potatoes or whole fried redfish served with white beans and sautéed calamari.
reviewed
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F
Powell's
You don't have to trek far from the French Quarter for honest to gosh soul food, but you do have to be somewhat adventurous. Often, you'll know you're approaching it because it's the only place on the block you're likely to see people hanging out on the sidewalk. It's the real deal, where friendly folks are pleased to set you up with heaping plate lunches of red beans and rice, pork chops, smothered chicken and the like. It's all slid into a styrofoam container for your takeaway pleasure.
Powell's, just a few blocks from Rampart St and facing a side of Louis Armstrong Park, is down an unpromising stretch of vacant houses.
reviewed
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G
Café Sbisa
A Vieux Carré institution (since 1899), Café Sbisa remained closed for nine months after Hurricane Katrina damaged its facade. Nice to see this one come back. It has a reputation for innovative regional cuisine. Tasteful restoration of the ancient building, with exposed brick and strikingly decadent art above the long bar, helps make this one of New Orleans' most stylish dining rooms, while New American touches spruce up a solid menu, which includes speckled trout, bouillabaise and huge steaks and chops.
Café Sbisa also has a nice brunch on Sunday with a roving 'trad' jazz unit.
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