in his excellent culinary history
of the city, Hungry Town).RISE AND SHINE
You can’t go to New Orleans and
not, at some point, have coffee and
beignets. Beignets look like
doughnuts but are actually deep-
fried balls of choux pastry, dusted
with heaps of icing sugar and served
with distinctive (and delicious)
chicory coffee. The most famous
beignet spot is Café Du Monde
(shop.cafedumonde.com); the
original (there are 11 branches) is
at 800 Decatur St, in the French
Quarter, where you’ll probably have
to queue amid crowds of fellow
tourists and clouds of icing sugar.
For a more substantial start to
your day, a Southern breakfast is
hard to beat. At Ruby Slipper
(therubyslippercafe.net), which has
six locations across the city, you can
tuck into various Southern classics:
shrimp and grits, fried green
tomatoes, pancakes and ‘biscuits’
(savoury scones), which are
consistently voted some of the best
in the city. Ruby Slipper was set up
by husband and wife Erich and
Jennifer in 2008 when they
returned to the devastated city
post-Katrina. They took over
a corner store in the Mid-City
neighbourhood, with the intention
of making it a community focal
point, with an emphasis on locally
produced ingredients – and their
iced coffee will blow your socks off.THE HAUTE CUISINE SCENE
Fancy dining is alive and well in
New Orleans. There are several
longstanding fine-dining restaurants
on the New Orleans culinary scene- Galatoire’s (founded 1905),
Arnaud’s (1918) – but Antoine’s
Restaurant (antoines.com), in the
French Quarter, is the oldest of the
lot. It opened its doors in 1840 and
is still owned and operated by the
same family.
It’s unashamedly old-fashioned:
men are requested to wear jackets
for dinner, and waiting staff wear
black tie. But it’s also terrific fun.
Antoine’s is the home of oysters
rockefeller, so named because
they’re so rich: oysters are served
on the half-shell, baked with a
thick white sauce called a roux and
breadcrumbs. There are classic
Creole dishes such as turtle soup
and trout amandine, plus the
spectacular baked alaska, which
is blowtorched at the table.CREOLE COOKING
If you’re looking for authentic Creole
cuisine, head to the Tremé district.
Creole cuisine blends culinary
traditions from the many
nationalities living here before the
Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The
French influence is strong, but the
cuisine is given its distinctive
flavours by the cooks of Caribbean
and African descent who were
working in wealthy kitchens locally
in the 19th century. The world-
famous Dooky Chase’s Restaurant
(dookychase restaurant.com) is an
institution. This lunch restaurantwas an important meeting place
during the Civil Rights era –
Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther
King Jr and many others ate here.
Dooky Chase is known for its
gumbo, the classic Creole brown-
roux based stew, as well as a
dizzying array of other Creole and
Southern dishes (get the buffet and
you can try a bit of everything). Run
by Leah Chase – the Queen of
Creole – from 1947, Mrs Chase was
a fixture of the dining room until her
death in June 2019. The restaurant
remains family-owned and still
houses one of the largest African-
American art collections in the city.THE NEW GENERATION
Tradition is just one aspect of
New Orleans’ food scene. A new
generation of restaurants is taking
the city’s well-worn food traditions
in unusual directions. Marjie’s
Grill (marjiesgrill.com) opened in
2017 and was promptly named one
of Bon Appétit magazine’s bestSOUTHERN
HOSPITALITY
(CLOCKWISE
FROM THIS PAGE)
New Orleans
food with an
Asian twist at
Marjie’s Grill;
oysters
rockefeller;
Cochon Butcher,
a meaty
sandwich joint;
the unassuming
exterior of
Dooky Chase’s
Restaurant
PHOTOGRAPHS: SAM POLLEN, ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES