Since moving to New Orleans I’ve gotten SO MANY requests from readers visiting the city for the first time eager to eat, drink, and beignet. Now… if you’ve never been to New Orleans, it’s like you can’t go wrong. You could stumble into almost any bowl of gumbo and happily eat your way out. That being said, I totally understand wanting to know where to find the best of the best in the city.
I’m new to New Orleans. Really new. I’m no expert on where to find the very best jambalaya, but you can bet that I’m going to do my best to find it. I don’t care how many bowls I have to devour to find the best.
As I learn about New Orleans and explore the city, I’ll leave my suggestions in a part of my blog that you can always reference… right up in the header! It reads New Orleans! Click on that header and you’ll find yourself in an ever-growing list of the food, drink, and places I love in this city.
I hope you come for a visit! I hope we make awkward eye contact over a plate of beignets. I hope I stand next to you to listen to this band on Royal St. I hope I run into you at The Joint and you have BBQ sauce all over your face. Anything goes!
You can also follow my New Orleans adventures on Instagram. I made a hashtag (because that’s what we do now) #jtbnola. Let’s live it!
24 Responses
I would love to have a reg beignet recipe . Does Cafe Du Monde give out there recipe? I have been to New Orleans and adore it . I def plan on coming back to eat my way through town. I love the posts you make, I plan to get your cookbooks too. Youre a great blogger and im sure chef or baker. Hope you have a great week. I love the antidotes about Beignets i adore them also. Now i dont feel so bad cuz i feel the way you eat them, now i can come out and just make a piggy out of my self. If you ever come to Las Vegas please let me know id love to show you some great places to eat , I like it here but nothing like New Orleans and the southern hospitality. Love to you Joy best of every thing and bless your family they sound great XXX Love Cheyenne from Henderson NV
I just got back from my solo New Orleans adventure and just wanted to say thanks for all the amazing tips! From sitting at the Napolean house bar to listening to music on Frenchman, I met lovely people from the city and all over. I can truly see why you love this city :)
We lived in Baton Rouge for three years and recently moved back up north to Chicago. I know, they couldn’t be two more different extremes.
Hands down the best place to eat is Drago’s. If you like oysters, they make the best. They chargrilled them. I won’t eat them any other way.
I don’t miss the extremely oppressive hot weather, but I do miss the food and the people.
my husband and i might be going to nola next spring. if we do, i will definitely be using your site for food/drink/cool stuff recommendations!
This is awesome. Thank you! I’m a long time reader AND I’m heading to New Orleans from Canada for my honeymoon NEXT WEEK! I’ve printed off your list and hopefully we’ll be able to check a few places on there out. Thanks Joy!
Welcome to New Orleans! I have lived here forever and sometimes take for granted how amazing it really is. I am so excited to see your New Orleans-inspired recipes, and plan on making the Bourbon Pecan Pie with Dark Chocolate for a crawfish boil this weekend!
I can’t wait to read your continuing adventures in New Orleans. I have never been, yet I feel like weird calling to the city. Maybe I’ve read too many Anne Rice books, but I just know I would love it.
When I was 10, I lived in Metairie for a year.
This is weird but true. After reading this, I had a dream that I was doing your dishes and you were decorating a Christmas tree set up in your kitchen. The brain is so strange sometimes.
Waaat??! I’m so glad you’re doing this, I’ve been planning a trip to New Orleans since last October! I’m excited to see what you like! Lotsa thumbs up for this idea!
I’m so incredibly excited to follow along on your journey’s in NOLA. I’ve never been, can hardly wait to get there, but will have to content myself with your gorgeous photos and suggestions until then. Not a difficult thing to do at all..
Looks like so much fun!
Hope you are enjoying NOLA! I was born and raised there and miss it but go home more often than most… The restaurant list is so long, but I have to recommend Irene’s in the quarter. It’s a hidden gem if you haven’t been yet!
I fell in love with NOLA the first time I visited her. She has a magic about her! The food, culture, architecture, sights and sounds. She is a beauty. I will live vicariously through your blog!
Can’t wait to read all about your adventures!
It looks like a dream!! Never been there but would surely love to visit!
I hope I bump into you but I’ll be cool about it if I do! If you haven’t stumbled into Molly’s at the Market for a frozen Irish coffee, stop what you are doing now and run don’t walk! It’s THE BEST place for locals in the FQ. Just make sure you go to the one on lower Decatur not Toulouse.
I visited NOLA the week after you moved there and I kept thinking I would see you on the street and we would go grab a bite to eat like old friends. Then reality set in and I realized you don’t know me and I don’t really know you and if I was searching for you then that would be stalker-ish and well, you get the point. In the end, making awkward eye contact over beignets would have been perfect. Oh, and I totally had BBQ on my face while eating at The Joint!!! Get to Cochon Butcher if you haven’t already!
Visiting next week, in fact- so get those awkward glances ready ;) Ill be checking yr recs and hashtags for sure! Lvya!
I am new to your blog and I love when you write about New Orleans! It is my hometown, and I miss it greatly in my little corner in northern LA. I love to see my city thru new eyes and I hope you grow to love it as much as I do! Have you tried Hansen’s sno balls yet on Tchopitoulas??? It is a must this summer! Expect long lines when you go!
You make New Orleans sound like so much fun! Keeping this in mind if I ever make my way down there again!
I’m hoping to visit New Orleans in the next year or two, so this will definitely come in handy! Thanks!
xoxo
Taylor
The closet I’ve ever gotten to New Orleans is watching the Princess and the Frog Disney movie for the millionth time. And I’ve never sampled a bowl of gumbo either. Oh well. All in good time. Cool picture! I’m from Niagara Falls, where it’s still cold…but pretty in its own way.
I’m planning some state-side travelling at the end of the summer, following two months in Canada, and would love to travel down south. This looks like the perfect stop of my adventure – full of colour and vibrancy! I can’t wait!
Buy cooking up storm cookbook. Born out the recipes lost during Katrina. Comes either soft or hardback. Mine is a tad beat up & stained with an errant bit of roux & I am from NOLA & still live here.