Editor’s note: On January 1, 2025, the city was struck by a terror attack in which 14 people were killed. Find out more about how New Orleans is protecting citizens and visitors—and coming together as a city.
New Orleans is home to those who live here but also, in a way, to those who visit. It’s a city both European and American, ancient and young, silly and sacred, polite and profane. You cannot pin her down, this three-century river town, ever-rising from events wondrous and awful. This is a proving ground of American sound and literature. It’s a culinary powerhouse. It’s a port that has also endured slavery, plagues, hurricanes, and fires. Yet, she rises, always. New Orleans will simply not be denied. Here’s how to spend an unforgettable long weekend in the city.
Clockwise from left: Prince Lobo, Jaime Lobo, and Dr. Biruk Alemayehu, the family that runs Ethiopian restaurant Addis Nola
Photo by Rita Harper
Day 1: Celebrate African American culture and the great outdoors
If New Orleans were a body, the neighborhood Tremé would be its soul. These blocks are the everyday New Orleans, full of historic churches and sunny shotgun homes, storm-bent palms, and independent bakeries. “More so than just about any neighborhood in New Orleans, the Tremé is where you witness New Orleans’ cultural traditions and history on a regular basis,” says Ron Rona. He’s the artistic director at Preservation Hall—a historic music venue in the French Quarter with a nonprofit foundation, protecting and promoting music culture in the city since 1961. “Many consider Tremé to be the birthplace of American music,” Rona continues. “And I agree.”
Catching music here is easy, but it’s not always planned. It happens without marketing. Second line parades and gatherings at the historic St. Augustine Church occur on weekends, musicians may gather in Congo Square on a Tuesday, or a high-school band may practice in the road. Rona says to stay flexible. “Be curious. Keep your eyes, ears, and heart open. Most happenings aren’t listed anywhere visitors can reference. Don’t be shy. Ask folks! People here are very open and happy to guide you.”
The Inn at the Old Jail is a wildly cool home base. The stone, Queen Anne Victorian building was a police station and jail in the early 1900s. Cell blocks are now rooms, with premium linens, flea-market antiques, and Persian rugs. Guests arrive to a warm welcome from innkeeper Todd Schwartz, who lives upstairs, drives a 1967 Lincoln Continental, and stirs a mean Martini. Schwartz knows many of the town’s musicians, inviting them to play on the roof terrace or in the lobby, where guests will find a pool table, two pianos, and a tiki bar.
There’s no on-site restaurant, but great food is near. Rona recommends breakfast at Backatown Coffee Parlour. “It’s got a neighborhood vibe, with locals talking about what they got into the night before,” he says. “Grab coffee and the BBQ crawfish and grits. If you’ve got space, take in a little banana-nut coffee cake.”
Then it’s time to wander and learn. Tremé is the oldest African American neighborhood in America. The Museum of Free People of Color (Le Musée de f.p.c.) preserves the stories of New Orleans’ free Black artists, doctors, journalists, and educators living here prior to the Civil War. (Advance bookings required.)
Post–museum tour, lunch at Addis Nola—a 15-minute flat stroll—for authentic Ethiopian jollof rice, decorated in succulent, spiced lamb and a fried egg, before checking out St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, only one mile away. After visiting the iconic, raised mausoleums, head two blocks north to the Bayou St. John neighborhood and City Park, where you can kayak past Creole Colonials or explore the park’s 1,400 acres, including a 500-year-old oak grove, a driving range, the Museum of Art, and a sculpture garden.
End your day in the Bywater neighborhood (just five minutes by car from City Park) starting with dinner at Acamaya, opened in 2024. This sexy temple to single-estate tequila is also a testament to chef Ana Castro’s deep comprehension of contemporary Mexican flavors, brought forth in octopus with walnut salsa negra and hamachi al pastor. The Bywater has another place ideal for mingling with the locals: the ramshackle, graffiti-scarred Vaughn’s Lounge, a beautiful dive with cheap beer and live music most nights.
Ayu Bakehouse (right) says it “celebrates flavors both local and far-flung through the lens of a baker"—and it delivers on that promise.
Photos by Sinna Nasseri
Day 2: European history, rum bars, and raw oysters
The Marigny and the French Quarter are touristy but essential explorations. Start in the Marigny, at Ayu Bakehouse, for Nola twists on classic pastry, like muffuletta breadsticks with olives and pepperoni, and the Boudin Boy, which is Cajun sausage wrapped in phyllo.
Your pictures will be filled with color here—lavender shutters, tropical foliage, hot-pink woodwork—as the Marigny is a nexus of vibrant shotgun architecture. Art lovers should also tour massive, impactful murals at Studio BE or pop into JamNola a few blocks away. It’s an immersive cultural art “funhouse” with 17 exhibits.
The French Quarter is next, and don’t skip Napoleon House simply because it’s touristy. To enjoy a gumbo, beneath the peeling walls and haphazard art, at the beaten bar or in the shady courtyard, is to fully soak in the city’s haunting charms.
“I’d then spend an afternoon having cocktails around the French Quarter,” advises Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, author, rum expert, and owner of the Quarter’s tiki bar, Latitude 29. (If you have the time, he suggests beginning any cocktail adventure over in the CBD, at The Sazerac House, a multifloor, interactive museum dedicated to the city’s Sazerac, which is regarded as America’s first cocktail.)
For French Quarter drinking, “first have a Vieux Carré cocktail at the Hotel Monteleone. It was invented there,” Berry says. The Carousel Bar and Lounge inside the hotel is a sight to behold, with carved cherubs and jesters on the rim and barstools that operate like a ride, rotating around the bartenders. The French 75 cocktail, meanwhile, was not invented at the French 75 Bar at Arnaud’s two blocks away, but “it kind of claims them, and makes them perfectly,” laughs Berry.
You’ll need oysters for a proper French Quarter happy hour, and Fives, just off Jackson Square, has an awarded raw bar and a Parisian, old-world atmosphere. “If you’re not too toasted yet,” Berry laughs, “Black Duck is a hidden rum bar above the Palace Café on Canal Street. They have a fantastic team, and a lot of local labels.”
For a soothing, restorative dinner post-cocktails, try MaMou. On a quiet corner, it’s a single, candlelit room, with a menu imagining what Louisiana cuisine might look like, had France not agreed to sell. Inventive dishes—like braised celery hearts with beef tongue and garlic almond-milk soup with saffron, poached egg, and ham—are paired with a killer by-the-glass fine-wine program.
The Columns Hotel is well positioned for viewing many of the Mardi Gras parades, and offers day passes to its patio and other amenities for $40.
Courtesy of The Columns hotel
Day 3: French croissants, Japanese knives, and Chinese noodles
Yawn, stretch, and remember . . . it’s a decent drop from the huge four-poster beds at The Columns. The 18-room, Uptown hotel was once a single-family home. Savvy hotelier Jayson Seidman purchased the Italianate mansion (built by architect Thomas Sully in 1883) in 2019 and, in a thoughtful overhaul, created a true city living room. Fringed lampshades and claw-foot tubs sustain a sleek bordello mood in the rooms, and downstairs, lavish parlors showcase folk art exhibits, a coffee counter, and a dreamy, dark saloon scene.
A 20-minute stroll through Uptown, west on St. Charles Avenue, you’re shaded by gnarled live oak branches, as the streetcars clang past antebellum homes. Cut south to La Boulangerie on Magazine Street for sourdough boules and savory biscuits, as well as an almond croissant with a revelatory crème d’amande.
Ten minutes northwest by taxi, the neighborhood of Carrollton was a separate city until 1874. Long since annexed into New Orleans, snug against the Mississippi River’s bend, it’s anchored by Oak Street. “Oak still looks like a small-town Main Street, thanks to our historic 1920s and ‘30s building facades,” says Penny Francis, interior designer and owner of Eclectic Home, the street’s furnishing and decor shop, where you can find a small souvenir (or a shippable chandelier). There are more retail shops on Oak, such as the chef-loved, culinary outpost Coutelier. This knife shop has Japanese blades, Canada-crafted oyster shuckers, and hardback cookbooks. Check out local Melissa Martin’s Bayou for Cajun recipes. Sibyl is another stop; this industrial-style art gallery, with six-week exhibits, solely features emerging artists.
Freret Street is five minutes by cab from Carrollton and another worthy Uptown corridor, with an array of independent restaurants for lunch. Vals serves tacos and craft cocktails in a revamped filling station that oozes Route 66 charm. Chef Alfredo Nogueira insists on house-made tortillas, and his Tijuana-inspired Caesar with tinned anchovies is a sleeper hit.
If you’re after a classic, Southern lunch, High Hat Café is no-frills and caloric as they come. Get the fried chicken—salty, blistered skin with juicy, tender meat—aside braised turnip greens and buttered cornbread. Wash it down with exceptional pecan pie.
Freret Market is held in the parking lot at the corner of Freret and Jena Streets on the first Saturday of each month, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., from October through February—excluding January. The market features more than 70 art and food vendors and live music.
Go early for dinner at Miss Shirley’s. The massive shrimp har gow dumplings, sweet-and-sour ginger orange chicken, and crabmeat udon are so good, it’s understandable that the lines are long—and that proprietor Carling Lee Gannon is a town hero.
“Keep good furniture in service, not in the trash,” says Floor 13 in New Orleans.
Photo by Rita Harper
Day 4: Fly over alligators, bite into barracuda, and hunt antiques
Grab a quick (but exceptional) quiche at the hotel Columns before a 20-minute drive to the Maurepas Swamp, northwest of New Orleans. With estuaries full of reptiles, swooping egrets, and thick tangles of mangroves decorated in Cajun hibiscus, this is wild Louisiana. At ZipNola, guides give you confidence (and fun local lore) as you zip-line from six tree-top platforms over gator-filled marshes.
Back in the city, head for Porgy’s in Mid-City. At this small retail fish market and restaurant, co-proprietor and skilled fishmonger Caitlin Carney wields a boning knife and an infectious personality. The ceviche rotates daily, as do the huge po’boys, because Porgy’s sells only whatever independent fishermen caught that day.
It’s time to take a piece of the city’s past home. Floor 13 is a 17,000-square-foot emporium owned by artist Holis Hannan, five blocks from Porgy’s. Victorian fainting couches, rattan divans, or an Elvis-image lacquered toilet seat? There’s no telling what you’ll score. Serious architectural salvage may be found at Ricca’s, two blocks over—a treasure trove of bird baths, bank lamps, and vintage door knockers.
For a finale dinner, it has to be Zasu. Chef Sue Zemanick put Mid-City on the map, and her résumé includes a James Beard Award and frequent judge appearances on TV’s Top Chef. Inside a slender, sage-green shotgun, she serves dishes like fettuccine with blue crab and lemon tarragon crème. Her American red snapper gets a smokey bacon vinaigrette infusion, and every check arrives with a realization. You don’t want to leave. Not the restaurant . . . and certainly not New Orleans. Don’t worry. She isn’t going anywhere. New Orleans rises, always.
Where to stay in New Orleans
New Orleans hotel options are ample and varied, with newcomers including Hotel Henrietta in the Garden District—with suites of mosaic tile and custom millwork—and Blackbird, a Gothic Victorian with a Palm-Springs–worthy central pool in the Lower Garden District. Hotel Peter & Paul, occupying a historic former schoolhouse and church in Marigny, continues to win awards, and in the French Quarter, check into One11. The former molasses warehouse is right on the river, now with a Scandinavian-chic design.
