The Best Places in French Quarter & around

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This is the old-line Creole dining room on Royal Street where bananas foster was invented, and the servers still set it on fire at your table without losing track of your questions. It's fine dining in the jacket-and-good-posture sense, so you'll find yourself saying "powder room" without being asked. The bar program has James Beard attention of its own, and the Sazerac arrives the way it should.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Restaurant
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant

Braised celery hearts with smoked beef tongue are a menu mainstay here, and they tell you everything: this is a French brasserie that means it. The chef owes more to Paris than to the French Quarter, though Gulf fish and red beans find their way in. His business partner runs one of the sharpest wine programs in town. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list in 2023, the same year Bon Appétit named it one of America's Best New Restaurants.

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
3. The New York Times The Restaurant List

Dry-aged swordfish is not something most seafood restaurants attempt, but it's the kind of move that tells you exactly what kind of place GW Fins is. This upscale French Quarter dining room goes deep on seasonal fish, running cuts like sheepshead and fish collars alongside the more expected. The chef's been a James Beard semifinalist, and the room draws people who came prepared to order carefully and stay a while.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans
3. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in New Orleans

Pulled pork pressed between two fried plantains, dressed with mango sauce and pikliz, is a reasonable introduction to what this Treme restaurant is doing with Haitian cooking. Fritai is a bright, welcoming room where the Caribbean flavors run vivid and the bar leans on clairin, the Haitian cane spirit that most New Orleans cocktail menus haven't caught up to yet. A James Beard semifinalist two years running.

1. Esquire #37 · The Best New Restaurants in America
2. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans
3. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

Tuna crudo in charred green tomato aguachile is not the Italian that built this city's red-gravy reputation, and that's the whole point. This trattoria in the Faubourg Marigny does vegetable-driven antipasti, fresh pasta, Neapolitan pizza, and roasted meat with a lightness that locals treat as a minor civic relief. The New York Times named it among the 25 best restaurants in New Orleans, which feels about right for the neighborhood canteen that quietly rewrote the local Italian conversation.

1. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in New Orleans Right Now
2. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans
3. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in New Orleans

1. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: South · Amarys Koenig Herndon and Jordan Herndon
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: South · Amarys Koenig Herndon and Jordan Herndon

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Friday lunch at this old-school Bourbon Street institution is a full-contact sport: pearls, suits, balloons, Champagne, and party hats arrive with the first seating and don't slow down. The mirrored, gold-accented dining room has been running French-Creole classics for generations, with tuxedoed servers and a menu that treats butter and cream as load-bearing ingredients. Come hungry and clear your afternoon.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Killer Po Boys started as a pop-up, which explains why it still feels like a place that has something to prove. Order at the counter, grab a table, and find a bottle of Crystal hot sauce waiting for you. The bread comes from Dong Phuong bakery, and the shrimp are seared rather than fried, dressed with sriracha aioli and pickled slaw. Barbecue chicken confit and a cheddar omelet round out a menu that takes the French Quarter's most obvious sandwich seriously.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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Bayona is a Creole restaurant in a French Quarter cottage, and the courtyard out back is the move. It's all plants and cobblestones, enough of them to make a Roman side street feel underpaved. Tables here are for lingering, not turning, so you can take your time with a friend or two without being swept along by a tourist parade. Expect a proper sit-down dinner, so dress like someone who's about to be served duck liver pâté.

1. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans

Budsi's is a sit-down Thai restaurant on a brick corner in the Marigny, a long way from the pop-up it started as. It's built for splitting things, so bring friends and let the table fill with wings, satays, and dumplings. Everyone gets their own curry or noodle dish, because sharing has limits. Going solo for a cocktail and larb is allowed, but the table does the real work here. The Infatuation includes it on its list of the city's best restaurants.

1. The Infatuation The 27 Best Restaurants In New Orleans

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in New Orleans

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in New Orleans

1. Eater The Best Coffee Shops in New Orleans

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Itai Ben Eli and Itamar Levy - Sof Hospitality Group