The Best Places to Stay in French Quarter & around

The signature scent is Southern magnolia, pumped through the lobby before you even spot the flowers. This Forbes Four Star hotel occupies a Beaux Arts building that spent its previous life as a department store, and the bones show in the best way: grand marble, a lush courtyard with a fountain, and guest rooms that feel lifted from a proper New Orleans mansion. Canal Street is right outside when you need it, and the jazz lounge is right inside when you don't.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Carousel Bar in the lobby actually revolves, one full rotation every fifteen minutes, which tells you almost everything about the Hotel Monteleone's commitment to a good time. This old-school French Quarter institution has marble floors, brass fixtures, and enough chandeliers to give the lobby its own weather system. A rooftop pool and full spa mean you can stay put, which, given the address on Royal Street, is a genuine temptation.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Crystal chandeliers run the full length of the marble lobby, which makes entering feel like an event before you've even checked in. This grand Waldorf Astoria hotel has been around forever, and the bones show it, from the vintage timepieces anchoring the corridor to the historic Sazerac Bar just off the lobby. The rooms are plush and numerous, the staff quietly expert at making famous guests disappear.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Fourteen rooms and suites dressed in retro European style, split between a busy French Quarter street and a quiet inner courtyard, with just enough eclectic detail to make you feel like you're staying somewhere rather than merely sleeping somewhere. The Celestine is a small hotel with a Michelin Key, and its social life pools around Peychaud's, the courtyard cocktail bar named for the local bitters, where guests gather as if on cue.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A former sugar factory at the quieter, river-facing edge of the French Quarter, ONE11 is a hotel whose exposed brick, timber joists, and original columns do most of the decorating. Rooms lean into the loft feeling without the austerity, landing somewhere warm and a little theatrical, which fits the neighborhood. Batture Bistro + Bar handles everything from morning coffee to late-night cocktails. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected New Orleans hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Three robin's-egg-blue cottages tucked right where Frenchmen Street meets the French Quarter line, this 27-room boutique hotel is the right base if you're here for the music and not the minibar. Rooms vary wildly in size and shape, the best ones with loft bedrooms or balconies over the street below. The in-house bar, Midnight Revival, doubles as a jazz venue, and there's a rooftop bar for when you need air.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels