Restaurants in New Orleans
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Marigny Brasserie
Marigny Brasserie is as chic as the Marigny gets. The food is modern American with a bit of a Louisiana kick; think blackened drum with wild rice and orange cardamom chutney, and roasted lamb with garlic grits. The overarching vibe is friendly, even laid back, but the food is as rich and refined as the sort you find in the city’s poshest restaurants.
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Commander's Palace
It's no small coincidence that some of the most famous Nola chefs – check that, US chefs – got their start in this kitchen (Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse); this New Orleans grand dame is outstanding across the board. Chef Tory McPhail's (remember that name!) shrimp-and-tasso appetizer swimming in Louisiana hot sauce and the hickory-grilled pork are two of the most explosively satisfying dishes you will ever encounter. It's an impeccable mainstay of Creole cooking and knowledgeable, friendly service, in the heart of the gorgeous Garden District. Pop in for the lunchtime 25¢ martinis and a cup of the signature turtle soup ($8), or a prix fixe extravaganza. No shorts…
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Louisiana Products
On historic Julia Row, Louisiana Products has the feel of an overcrowded country store, but it's really a deli, with limited seating and inexpensive breakfasts and lunches. If you're headed to a nearby museum, join the construction workers and office workers for ham, eggs and cheese on a French roll for breakfast or a mini-muffuletta for lunch.
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La Crepe Nanou
New Orleans is a city that loves its bistros, but it all too often Creole-izes steak frites, and sometimes, you want your sweetbreads simple and unadorned by crawfish. Crepe Nanou feels your pain; it stays true to classically French form here, slinging mussels, steaks, excellent frites and, of course, some very fine crepes.
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La Petite Grocery
La Petite is one of the many cozy bistros squeezed into the crowded Uptown dining scene. The dinners are good but not great for the price, consisting of bistro mainstays such as braised lamb shanks. We prefer the lunches, which consist of some very fine sandwiches and salads, including sweet pepper and eggplant with goat cheese and aioli.
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Surrey’s Juice Bar
Here comes the controversial assessment: Surrey’s does the best cheap breakfast, and perhaps the best breakfast period, in New Orleans. Boudin (Cajun sausage) biscuits, eggs scrambled with salmon and a shrimp-grits-and-bacon dish that should be illegal – you won’t go wrong. And the juice, as you might guess, is blessedly fresh.
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Guy’s
Guy’s owner is also the cashier, head shopper, chef and prep staff. Ergo your sandwich is made fresh and to order, with a level of attention you don’t get anywhere else in the city. Even when the line is out the door – and it often is – each po’boy is painstakingly crafted. So yes, that loaf will take a while. But damn is it worth it.
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Blue Plate Café
Cheap and cheerful and colorful, too, the Blue Plate does some solid servings of breakfast and lunch stuff that’s firmly of the Louisiana diner genre. The three-egg omelets are a satisfying treat. It gets packed on Saturday mornings, and justifiably so – this is one of the city’s better cheap breakfast options.
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Reginelli's Pizzeria
A casual and upbeat place for lunch near Audubon Park. The crowd is a friendly mix of university students and gallery hoppers. Pizzas and focaccia sandwiches get the contemporary treatment, with ingredients such as sundried tomatoes, goat and feta cheeses, artichokes and roasted walnuts making frequent appearances.
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Liuzza’s by the Track
The quintessential Mid-City neighborhood joint does some of the best gumbo in town, a barbecue shrimp po’boy to die for and legendary deep-fried garlic oysters. Always start your visit with a beer and an inspection of the daily specials (red beans and rice, pork chops and the like), which are always up to scratch.
reviewed
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Mona Lisa
An informal, quiet local spot in the Lower Quarter, dim and dark and candlelit romantic in its quirky way. Kooky renditions of da Vinci’s familiar subject hang on the walls. In hair curlers, 50lb heavier or in the form of a cow, she stares impassively at diners munching on pizzas, pastas and spinach salads.
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Juan’s Flying Burrito
The answer to that perennial question, ‘What happens when you cross a bunch of skinny-jean-clad hipsters with a tortilla is, ta da: Juan’s. The food is about as authentically Mexican as Ontario, but it’s still good. The hefty burritos pack a satisfying punch against your hunger and the margaritas are damn tasty.
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Café Reconcile
Café Reconcile fights the good fight. By recruiting at-risk youth to work as kitchen and floor staff, the restaurant is training a generation of New Orleanians to realize their best potential. The food is humble New Orleans fare: red beans and rice, fried chicken and shrimp Creole, all cooked exceedingly well.
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Kahve Royale
Kahve is a bit more lo-fi than other Marigny cafes. It’s cash only and the entire place feels a bit like it was assembled on a shoestring. This, of course, is the romance of the place, the most rustically charming caffeine haven in the neighborhood. The friendly service obviously doesn’t hurt.
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Croissant D'Or Patisserie
This ancient and spotlessly clean pastry shop is where many Quarter locals start their day. Bring a paper, order coffee and a croissant and bliss out. On your way in, check out the tiled sign on the threshold that says 'ladies entrance' – a holdover from pre-feminist days that is no longer enforced.
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Tee-Eva’s Creole Soul Food
Just search out the little yellow shack with the singing lady painted on the side. That’s Tee-Eva, who once sang backup to late, great local legend Ernie K-Doe. Now she whips up snowballs, pralines and some fine hot lunches like baked chicken, plates of red beans and rice, and sweet and savory pies.
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Sake Café Ii
Believe it or not, fish in this town doesn’t have to come fried, swimming in a thick sauce or stuffed with bacon/crawfish/crabmeat/whatever. Sake II (the original is in Metairie) serves decent sushi that’s popular with the younger, yuppier types that populate the Lower Garden District and around.
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Fair Grinds
Fair Grinds is simultaneously airy and comfy and hip and unpretentious, and the coffee’s good to boot. It showcases local art and generally acts as the beating heart of Mid-City’s bohemian scene; plus it supports, through donations and promotions, any number of community development associations.
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Taqueria Corona
Corona serves the best Mexican food in town. It’s a friendly spot that gets jam packed every evening with families, young Uptown professionals and Tulane kids chowing down on some excellent burritos (we like the bean), tacos (go for the fish or chorizo) and flautas (mmm, the shrimp).
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Central Grocery
Here, in 1906, a Sicilian immigrant invented the world-famous muffuletta sandwich – a round, seeded loaf of bread stuffed with ham, salami, provolone and marinated olive salad that's roughly the size of a manhole cover. This is still the best place in town to get one.
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Lil’ Dizzy’s
One of the city’s great lunch spots, Dizzy’s does mean soul-food specials in a historic shack owned by the Baquet family. The fried chicken is excellent, the hot sausages may be better and the bread pudding is divine. Our one gripe is the gumbo, which was more like thin brown water.
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Casamento’s
This is as good as oysters get in New Orleans: a 1949 soda shop-esque sparkling white interior and a big man behind a marble counter shucking shells to order. Get your raw boys with a beer, or try the famous oyster loaf (a sandwich of breaded and fried oysters on white bread).
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Franky & Johnny’s
If you took a New Jersey Italian diner, plopped it by the Mississippi River and replaced the pizza with red beans and rice and fine crawfish off the bayou, there, friends would be Franky & Johnny’s. It’s a local favorite for casual Cajun food. Opt for the daily specials.
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Joey K’s
Just great Southern diner fare: we’ll personally vouch that the cheese fries should be patented, while specialties like fried pork chops and white beans and turkey with stuffing, yams and green beans is as satisfying a meal as you’ll find for under $20 in the Lower Garden.
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St James Cheese Co
St James was founded by an Englishman obsessed with all the right things: namely, meat and fermented milk product. There’s a veritable atlas worth of cheese on sale, plus excellent sandwiches like mozzarella with basil pesto and salami. Hosts frequent cheese tastings.
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