The Best Hotels in New Orleans, by the Record
The best hotels in New Orleans, by the professional record: Michelin Guide has weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. Blackbird Hotel comes out on top.
Henry Howard Hotel and The Drifter Hotel hold the next two places.
-
Thirteen rooms, each one a little different, wrapped in original fireplaces, forest greens, and Victorian wrought iron that feel genuinely of this neighborhood rather than borrowed from it. A small hotel in the Lower Garden District, the Blackbird leans into Southern Gothic without costuming itself. The pool bar runs craft cocktails and occasional live jazz, and the café handles food better than a room count of 13 has any business doing.
-
A Greek Revival mansion in the Garden District, built by the Irish architect whose columns and Roman arches still define half the neighborhood. The 18-room boutique hotel layers antiques and hand-painted furniture against boldly patterned wallpaper and geometric canopy beds, so the rooms feel less like preservation projects and more like someone with very good taste actually lives there. Polished wood floors, gilded oil paintings, and Beekman 1802 bathrooms.
-
A renovated mid-century motel in Mid-City, the Drifter trades gallery-lined French Quarter charm for a courtyard pool that becomes the whole point by afternoon. Rooms are spare, minimalist, and comfortable without pretending to be grand. Food trucks rotate through, craft beer and third-wave coffee are on hand, and live music runs most nights, so light sleepers should plan accordingly. The Michelin Guide has it in their 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.
-
Some of the loft-style rooms here come with spiral staircases separating the sleeping area from a small upper sitting space, which is either charming or mildly inconvenient after a late night on Frenchmen Street. This boutique hotel on the edge of the Lower Garden District went through a full overhaul, with herringbone floors, marble bathrooms, and a saltwater pool with a swim-up bar doing most of the convincing. Magazine Street is a short walk away.