Trip Review: 4 Nights, food focused, fun and romantic. Mid-30s married couple.
Stay: 4 Nights for $625
*Dauphine Orleans Hotel: comfy stay, great location, cute pool and a cute little bar called May Baily’s that’s haunted and charming, big king room with a tub
Eats & Drinks:
One of the main appeals of New Orleans for us are the restaurants and bars. Here’s highlights of the spots we went to this time, but not an all inclusive list.
*Carousel Bar: located inside hotel monteleone, first come first served, we didn’t wait long for a seat. one rotation lasts 15 minutes, we stayed for 30 minutes, one round of drinks. there was live music in the lounge and a good vibe. worth doing once!
*Bacchanal: buy a bottle and some bread and cheese in the front shop, then enjoy it (self service) in their backyard. upstairs they serve liquor drinks and you can order food from a window in the back too. jazz band at night. great vibe, another favorite of the trio!!
*Commander’s Palace: the $0.25 martini lunch (wednesday-friday) was so worth it, we loved it and will definitely do it again. they send so many warnings about required dress/attire, but we saw multiple tables in jeans and gentlemen in short sleeves. service is still very high standard, food was pretty good. the green melon martini was the best one, I think, but we tried them all (limit three per person, “cause that’s enough!”).
*Verti Marte: a deli in the back of a small convenience store, order with the cashier, no longer cash only! the standard rec seems to be the “all that jazz” po-boy, but I got the roast beef on a roll with cheese and gravy and it was perfect. sloppy, salty, delicious. can’t wait to eat it again next trip. a favorite.
*Li’l Dizzy’s: get the daily special! would love to come back on a day when they do their red beans and rice, or the catfish jourdain. best fried chicken I’ve ever had, good family vibe, very welcoming.
*GW Fins: we loved the lobster dumplings and the scalibut, the service was great, they made our anniversary feel special
*Molly’s Rise and Shine: same people behind turkey & the wolf, we really loved this one! the popular chicken biscuit was not our favorite, though, it wasn’t easy to eat (or cut) and kind of dry in a few ways. but the miso gravy on a biscuit was excellent and the mcmuffin riff was, too. will definitely be back to try more of the menu, particularly the mccavier (hashbrown with crème fraiche and roe) which I regret not ordering.
*Turkey & the Wolf: we loved the collard green melt here, the cocktails looked good but we weren’t ready to drink yet, so will come back for more next time
*Erin Rose: get the frozen irish coffee, only $5 from 10 AM - 2 PM, a classic, we love it
*Sylvain: dark & loud just as described, vibe is very, very, good, drinks are very good, food was yummy
*MRB: we came here to watch a specific sports game and they agreed to put it on for us! pub crawls seemed to wash in and out every once and awhile and it was a rowdy, good time, very lively
*Holywater: newly opened, very cute, friendly bartender, good snacks and drinks, this was a stumble upon kind of spot that we liked
*Napoleon House: old, historic, cute, get the pimm’s cup flight, we like their red beans and rice too, idc if it’s touristy, it checks the box
*Pierre Maspero’s: we like their crawfish etoufee and their red beans and rice, so we almost always make a quick stop here for that at some point. idk argue with someone else, we like it and it’s convenient. someone tell me who has the best crawfish etoufee?
Activities:
We like to walk so we did leave lots of time for wandering around, people watching, reading random plaques, looking at cool buildings. This time we enjoyed walking around the Garden District and Bywater for our first time. We have done our fair share of enjoying Bourbon Street, including coming for Mardi Gras last February, so that’s not how we wanted to spend most of our time this trip. Here are some specific activities we enjoyed:
*Cajun Encounters Swamp Tour: one of our favorite parts of the trip, if you’re visiting and on the fence I recommend it if you have time! our pickup was 1:15 PM and we were back to our hotel by 6ish so it is a long experience with the transportation time included but so unique
*JAMNOLA: a cultural funhouse, this was very cool. did not previously realize how much of it was made from recycled materials, and the artistry and care put into the whole project really surprised us. we easily spent an hour here without even trying, and didn’t even do a lot of the photo opps either, so I see why it’s a go to rec for getting indoors for a bit. highly recommend even if you’re not escaping some kind of unpleasant weather
*Psychic in Jackson Square: a man named Jeff did our palm & tarot readings and both were great, and reasonably priced
*Great American Alligator Museum: small, cute, donation based. I liked their gift shop and bought a cute souvenir here. magazine street is fun for wandering if the weather is pleasant.
Missed out:
We had planned to go to a few spots that we didn’t make it to for one reason or another (it’s a marathon, not a sprint, gotta call it sometimes!), so we will make them top of our list for next visit. This trip the ones we missed were:
*N7, *Dakar, *Loretta’s, *Ayu Bakehouse, and *Brennan’s for brunch
Best tip: Get the Jazzy Pass, we paid $16 for 2 adult 3-day passes, then took transit everywhere (we used it 8 times). We also like to walk, so we saved a lot of money and really enjoyed seeing more of the city that way.
Total Spent: $2,100 for two adults
Includes hotel, all transportation around city (and airport taxis), food and drinks, gratuities, souvenirs— but *not including* travel in and out of NoLa (airfare, etc)
Not sure how to include photos, but hope this helps someone looking for advice on their trip!