city guides

Experience the reawakening of this indomitable southern belle.

New Orleans has 73 neighborhoods, each of them with a different story to tell in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. High-ground districts, including Uptown and the French Quarter, avoided the floodwaters when the levees failed, and today are every bit as engaging as before the storm. Visitors who confine their trip here will scarcely notice that anything has changed—other than residents’ new habit of beginning every other sentence with “before the storm” or “after the storm.”


The lower-lying areas, like Mid-City and Lakeview, are still struggling toward normalcy. Progress has been painfully slow, and block after block is still littered with the hulks of flooded homes awaiting either a carpentry crew or a bulldozer. New Orleans clearly tells a tale of two cities.

For travelers, the good news is that the historic sections along the Mississippi River have recaptured their old magic. A trip here is still like peering at an American metropolis through a kaleidoscope: It’s colorful and always changing; it takes the familiar and makes it unfamiliar. The music is brassier, the food zestier, and the architecture a riot of hues and ornamentation.

Above all, remember during your visit that New Orleans is all about the details: the evanescent taste of filé in a gumbo; the shadows from the cast-iron railings in the French Quarter; the small flourish in the trumpet solo of a sidewalk musician. Not even Katrina could wash those grace notes away.

Neighborhoods

Business travelers are likely to spend the bulk of their time in one of these three neighborhoods, which are all adjacent to one another: the Central Business District (aka “the CBD”), the French Quarter, and the Warehouse District.

The CBD is easy to spot—it’s the city’s only cluster of tall buildings (the spongy geology of New Orleans doesn’t allow skyscrapers elsewhere) and home to the major hotel chains and many corporate offices.

The French Quarter, first settled by the French in 1718 and occupied by the Spanish in the late 18th century, is the best known of the city’s historic districts. With its cast-iron balconies and French- and Spanish-style architecture, the Quarter has a uniquely Euro-Caribbean vibe. The Quarter is also home to Bourbon Street, with its 24-hour bars, strip clubs, and barhoppers swilling from go-cups on the sidewalk. This famous 10-block open-air party is a mandatory stop for visitors, who’ll either be enthralled or appalled.

The Warehouse District, located near the Morial Convention Center, was a collection of moldering warehouses a decade ago. Today, it hosts a lively scene, with many good hotels (some in wonderfully converted warehouses) and popular restaurants. The neighborhood’s hub is Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar (701 Tchoupitoulas Street), where residents congregate after work to plan their full-scale assault on the city’s nightlife.

Other popular neighborhoods to explore include the celebrated Garden District, just upriver of downtown, with its resplendent oak-shaded streets and grand homes. Just beyond it is Uptown, a more architecturally diverse, less opulent version of the Garden District.

The boho Faubourg Marigny, just downriver from the French Quarter, is filled with narrow, winding streets lined with colorful wooden houses. The center of commerce here is Frenchmen Street, which offers the city’s most eclectic collection of restaurants and nightclubs—think of it as a more sedate alternative to Bourbon Street. On any given night, a half-dozen bands will play in bars open to the street (most without cover charge), and you can hear everything from gypsy jazz to soulful vocalists to homegrown rock. Pick up a copy of the free local alternative paper, Gambit Weekly, to peruse the listings.

Where to stay

Tower hotels are situated chiefly in the CBD between the French Quarter and the Warehouse District. Harrah’s is the newest of the major hotels—the 26-story tower opened after Katrina, just across the street from its associated casino. The lobby is home to a Todd English restaurant and an intimate jazz club.

On Canal Street in the former Maison Blanche department store is the Ritz-Carlton, which reopened in December 2006 after extensive post-Katrina repairs and upgrades. The intimate W French Quarter has fewer than 100 rooms in a courtyarded French Quarter compound, and attracts an older clientele than its hipper sister in a glass tower, the W Central Business District.

For immersing yourself in traditional New Orleans, you can’t top the Hotel Monteleone, a well–maintained, family-run hotel with uniformed doormen, a marble lobby, and a rich literary past. (Truman Capote liked to say he was born here.
He wasn’t.) It’s notable for the Carousel Bar, built on the workings of an antique merry-go-round, in which patrons gradually revolve as they sip.

Where to dine

Like any good patient, New Orleans has been eating its way back to health.According to local bon vivant and restaurant critic Tom Fitzmorris, 828 restaurants are open in the city (as of early summer 2007)—more than were operating in the city before Katrina.

This figure speaks volumes about the local penchant for dining out, especially since the city’s population is still down by nearly half, and tourism has been slow to recover. New Orleanians live to eat: If a resident causally asks where you’re dining that night, don’t be surprised to end up in a 45-minute street-corner discussion about food.

Business lunches sometimes catch first-time visitors off-guard—they can start early (an 11:30 appointment is not uncommon) and run late. And, well, let’s just say the three-martini lunch isn’t an anachronism in New Orleans.

It’s hard to go wrong dining out in the city—even corner po’ boy shops (a po’ boy is a local variant of a submarine sandwich) can serve up food you’ll remember fondly months later. Among the most revered restaurants is Commander’s Palace, which was damaged by Katrina’s winds and rain and spent more than a year being restored. This Garden District institution is famed both for its well-heeled but friendly service and its Creole-inspired fare (Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse did stints as chefs here).

In the CBD, dining options include the Euro-elegant Restaurant Cuvée, which serves a delightful fixed-price lunch menu that offers good value. Restaurant August, headed up by homegrown star chef John Besh, consistently wows diners with its modern, intensely flavored dishes served up in a 160-year-old former warehouse. Reserve far in advance.

For well-prepared casual fare, the Napoleon House offers local favorites like a muffaletta (a hubcap-sized sandwich made with cold cuts and a tangy olive spread) amid a calculatedly scruffy Old-World elegance in the heart of the French Quarter. The Pimm’s Cup cocktails here have a devoted following.

Also in the Quarter, you can get an outsized dose of local flavor at Brennan’s, set around a lush courtyard. It earned a footnote in culinary history for inventing the sinfully rich Bananas Foster, which is prepared tableside in the glow of blue flames.

Inside the New Orleans Guide

Explore and share travel advice on:

• Getting there, getting around
  
• What to see and do in New Orleans
  
• Recommended hotels and restaurants in New Orleans
  

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WAYNE CURTIS is a freelance writer in New Orleans.