First timers to NOLA. Will be wife + kids (12 and 10). Can y'all please offer recommendations on the best places to stay, eat, and things we can all do together?

Cafe du Monde for beignets, aquarium, and mass at the cathedral were already on our list. What else?

Thanks in advance.

History fans? WW2 museum is one of the top museums in the world.

Du Monde is iconic, but Cafe Beignet is better IMO. Willie Mae's Scotch House has amazing fried chicken, but is in the hood with limited parking.
Dat Dog is cool and has a variety of different hot dogs and toppings (crawfish dog topped with more crawfish).
SnoLa has good snow comes with cheesecake inside. Sounds weird, but it's really good. Butcher is great, they make their own sausages and it's really a fun environment (near WW2 museum).

We like riding the trolley through the garden district to see the houses too.

All of that sounds great - thanks!

Hand grenade drinks in the street in the French Quarter. Adults only.

Also Acme oyster house is great but Felix's across the street is less crowded and just as good in my opinion.

If trying to splurge get an appetizer of chargrilled oysters at GW Fins. Reservation recommended. WW2 museum is insanely interesting cannot miss.

You could easily spend an entire day in the WW2 museum. Also, you can't miss Fat Tuesday.

WW2/D-Day museum is very good. As someone said earlier, you can burn almost an entire day there. Paddle boat on the Miss River could be fun for the kids. Mr B's Bistro is a good place for dinner.

chick79 said:

---

Hand grenade drinks in the street in the French Quarter. Adults only.

---

Will have a 12 and 10 year old in tow.

Ruby Slipper for breakfast/brunch. Best eggs benny on earth.

Save a bunch of money and go to Shreveport, its less of a dump with the same semi-decent cajun food.

Great_I_Am said:

---

Save a bunch of money and go to Shreveport, its less of a dump with the same semi-decent cajun food.

---

Noted.

What's a upscale bar to go to in New Orleans (hopefully not on Bourbon st)?

Carousel Bar would be good.

Second GW Fins as well

Commanders Palace if you take the Trolley through the garden district.
I would go to one of the Cemeteries in the Garden a district area

Mothers is nice for a meal that is family friendly.
Tour Jackson Square while art is on display during the day and maybe take a carriage ride along with watching street performers.

While the person who said Cafe Beignet just as good as Cafe Du Monde and I agree the people watching makes it a better experience

Hit up Central Grocery for a Muffalatta and eat it as a picnic in Jackson Square. My kids love the Gumbo Shop to eat
Cochon Butcher for some serious meat related sandwiches. burger from Port of Call for kids but if dive bar.
Adults only on Bourbon Street at night probably would be best but for a better experience that is a bit more tasteful hit up Frenchman Street.
AND I CANNOT ECHO this sentiment more like others have said WW2 museum is top notch and worthy of a all day thing but if first time you might give it less time but will want to spend hours here to do it justice.

Also if driving from Texas on way or way back hit up Avery Island and or Laura Or Oak Alley plantation along with a possible swamp tour

If you go to the WW2 museum, walk over and grab lunch at Cochon Butcher.

I never wear open toed shoes in NOLA. It's so nasty they have to hose the streets down every morning.

Arnaud's French 75

Arnaud's Bar is great. Outside the quarter, we like the Hot Tin Roof Bar in the Pontchartrain Hotel along St. Charles Ave

iParty said:

---

Ruby Slipper for breakfast/brunch. Best eggs benny on earth.

---

Haven't had the eggs benny but I second Ruby Slipper. They have a few different locations.

If you want to splurge, go eat at Commander's Palace, check out the cemetery across the street, and then go walk around the Garden District a bit and check out some of the palatial homes. There's also a Ruby Slipper just a few blocks away from Commander's, so if you want something more casual and a little less expensive, you can do your Ruby Slipper breakfast and then go walk around in the morning.

Its out away from the tourist areas, which is good but makes it a little harder to get to, but I'm a big fan of stopping by the Camelia Grill after visiting Audobon Park/Audobon Zoo. Its an old school counter service grill with bowtied staff, and the kids might have fun sitting at the counter and watching the kitchen do its thing.

It is on Bourbon but the Bourbon O is a fantastic bar. It is the bar for the Bourbon Orleans hotel but there is an entrance from Bourbon St. In our experience there isn't any typical B St riff-raff since they don't serve gallon beers or high ABV sugar drinks in tourist glasses. There bartenders are what I think of when I hear "professional mixologist".

The 21st Amendment is another nice cocktail lounge without the typical trash. It is 1/2 a block off Bourbon.

Both of these locations typically have live jazz or whatnot at night.

Muriels on Jackson Square is a fancy restaurant. Walk past the host stand to the bar in the back corner (opposite corner of the front door). Grab a drink and head upstairs. If you are facing the bar the door is on the wall to your back, on the opposite end of the room.

Upstairs explore the Seance Lounge, Magnolia and Cotillion rooms, then sip your drink outside on the balcony.

It is a fantastic way to wind down for the evening, looking out over Jackson Square. Often there is nobody else up upstairs so you have it to yourself. Sometimes it is reserved for parties however.

Nearly forgot, The Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone. Beautiful bar. Tough to get a seat on the weekends for more than 1 or 2 people unless you are waiting when they open.

Perfect. Thanks guys.

Electrical_Ag said:

---

chick79 said:

---

Hand grenade drinks in the street in the French Quarter. Adults only.

---

Will have a 12 and 10 year old in tow.

---

Stack them on top of one another and you've got a 22 year old. You've seen little rascals right?

The Audubon Zoo is actually pretty decent if you come across a mild or cooler day. Would not recommend in Summer.

For chargrilled oysters, Drago's cannot be beat. Always my first stopping point.

Plantation tours south and west of NO can be a nice diversion as well. Got engaged under the oaks at Oak Alley.

I like Surrey's Juice Bar for breakfast. A little hippie place in the Garden District.
Court of Two Sisters for dinner or Sunday Brunch.
Muriel's is great. A little dressier than most places.

WWII Museum is definitely worth the time/money.

Ruby Slipper for brunch. There will be a wait, so plan accordingly.

I posted this in the food forum as well, but thought I would share my thoughts based on extensive NOLA experience and having been there just this past weekend.

To sum up advice to the rookie NOLA visitor with youngish kids, I would say don't skip the quarter but don't stay there for now or spend much time there in the evening, and avoid some of the areas I've described below completely. The kids will enjoy the Jackson square street performers during the day, and there should be enough people around, especially on the weekend, that you will feel safe.

More advice for youngish kids: WW2 museum is a must. Sleep in the CBD/warehouse district closer to the museum and you can walk to it, and you can catch a streetcar closer to the quarter or into the garden district which the kids would find fun. The above ground cemeteries are something my kids thought was cool at that age, and there is a great one next to commander's palace which I would recommend for jazz brunch if your kids can sit thru a nice meal and dress up a bit. The roving jazz trios in the dining rooms keeps it interesting for the kids.

As to my observations from just having been there this weekend:

I've been to NOLA probably 15-20 times, but this past weekend coming back from Florida was the sketchiest it ever felt to me. To put this in perspective, I typically embrace everything about NOLA, the good, the bad, and the ugly/smelly. And we spent several days there within 6 months of Katrina.

CoVID has not been good to the quarter from what I've seen. First, the mask paranoia is much more palpable there right now than anywhere I've been since Boston this past summer. It was a noticeable difference from TX or anywhere else on the gulf coast.

But the bigger difference, and I don't know how much this might have been due to being much cooler weather than expected or what, was that there were more homeless per capita than I've ever seen, both because there were more homeless and less tourists/non-homeless than I expected.

We ate dinner at Adolfo's which I highly recommend if you can get in. It's small, neighborhoody and they might take your attempt to make a reservation by text, or you might have to hang out in the downstairs bar for an hour or two if there are seats available. Great seafood with an Italian/Cajun spin.

Adolfo's is in Fauborg Marigny (residential neighborhood plus great jazz on Frenchmen St, adjacent to the quarter) so we walked there a little before dusk, passing by Jackson Sq to Esplanade on Decatur. That area of the quarter has generally been going a little downhill the last few times I've been there, but it was essentially only homeless people and more than half of the businesses after you got past a hundred yards or less from Cafe du Monde were boarded up. It honestly looked like that section of the quarter has basically been given up on.

To add insult to injury, to all the people who were waiting in the long lines to get into cafe du Monde, the prime live music area next to the cafe had been taken over by one of the "homeless bands." Instead of the itinerant musicians who normally play there, who can be quite talented and are always at least organized and entetrtaining, the homeless bands are led by a guy or two with a modicum of musical ability and several guys who have been handed instruments and told to blow loudly. It was a cacophony of sounds and ruined those folks' Cafe du Monde experience.

It seems to me that the sole proprietor type restaurants and shops in the quarter have taken a big hit, resulting in more homeless encroachment into the quarter. It also appeared that the chains are continuing to push in from Canal a bit, so the character of the quarter is being squeezed on two fronts.

With more hotels and restaurants popping up in the CBD/Warehouse district every year, I hope this isn't a long term trend the quarter can't bounce back from.

I appreciate uptown and the garden district, and the CBD certainly has plenty of good hotel choices and increasingly good dining options, and I enjoy my time in those areas, but the quarter is what makes New Orleans truly unique among US cities IMO. Having traveled to San Francisco fairly recently as well, I hate to see two of my favorite cities struggling with some of the same issues.

The next morning it wasn't as bad, with more tourists to cover up and/or push out the homeless. So maybe my observations are skewed by time and place, a cool evening in that particular part of the quarter. Cafe du Monde was back to a good group of musicians outside the next morning, and the line was longer than I've ever seen it. While it's a tradition, that length of wait was crazy so we skipped it. Pro tip which I don't know if it is available in CoVID times anymore: you can get your latte and beignets thru the to-go line and grab a seat somewhere and still get pretty much the same ambiance.

I just remember being a poor broke college student and being able to live on mudbugs, red beans and rice, and Gator sausage from the French market, drinking a beer and sitting right on the sidewalk without any concerns or issues. It was always an interesting mix of folks, but felt safe and way less sketchy. NOLA has been through a lot in recent years, and I hope the trend in the quarter is reversible.

Grab dinner at Aldolfo's off of Frenchman St. Call and make reservations ahead of time, small restaurant but great food, I would get the stuffed flounder or the steak with ocean sauce. My favorite restaurant/meal on the planet, have recommended several times and always getting glowing reviews.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g60864-d445261-Reviews-Adolfo_s-New_Orleans_Louisiana.html

I feel like alot of the recommendations posted in this thread so far are from people who have not been to New Orleans since COVID. It is a very different experience than normal. I would absolutely avoid the Quarter and Bourbon Street especially with wife and kids in tow. I'm not saying this as if its "eww gross" because my wife and I are plenty familiar with the normal level of disgusting that the FQ can be. With the lack of tourists and crowds, the seediest parts of NOLA have reemerged and you don't have the protection (whether perceived or actual) of strength in numbers. I know most people are on decently high alert in situations like that, but the trash's aggressiveness has absolutely increased. I didn't go to Frenchman St since covid, so I cant speak to that though.

That being said, the Garden District was as delightful as always, though significantly less busy. Maybe things have picked up, but this was as of about 6 weeks ago.

My recs that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• Shaya or Herbsaint for a nice dinner. Every thing on those menus are amazing
• Domileses for poboys. Or a less named A+ poboy is Parasol
• Cochon Butcher - already mentioned but worth mentioning again
• Turkey and the Wolf - small sandwich place and pretty hipster, but absolutely slamming. Was actually named Best New Restaurant in the country by Bon Appetit a couple years ago.
• You asked about nice cocktail bar, so yes the Carousel Bar at the Monteleon would be great. It usually gets crowded though and no one gets up from a seat at the rotating bar, so either get there early if you want to sit at the rotating part.
• Absolutely do the WW2 museum. I believe they are still doing limited capacity, so be sure to get them ahead of time.
• The Audobon Zoo is a pretty good, but if you are coming from Houston and are a regular there since renovation it won't blow your socks off.

NOLA has a nice little aquarium.

Similar situation as OP. We are driving back from Florida this summer and are stopping in New Orleans for a day. Kids are 14 and 11. Already planning on doing the major things. The answers on this post are from the beginning of the year. Have things improved?

Any recs on which area to find a hotel? Would like it to be under $200 if possible.

Thanks in advance.

T
T
T

We had friends just travel to NO for Mother's Day weekend with an 8yo and 11yo. They had a blast.

Echo a lot of the recommendations above. Have been to New Orleans many, many times and I was actually trying to wave them off as we have friends and family in the 'burbs and they are still avoiding heading into New Orleans... but the friends went anyways.

They stayed in the Ritz in the Quarter and felt safe and ventured out via car or during day walking. Said they felt safe the whole time.

As mentioned above, the Warehouse District is a nice balance of being close to the Quarter but not in the Quarter. Renaissance Warehouse District is a nice place and should be well under $200/nt.

Staying only a day or two, options are limited. If you want to do a plantation, Oak Alley is the go to. But that's a half day by the time you drive out, do the tour, walk around and drive back. I would instead opt for the aquarium and WWII D Day museum. Two awesome experiences, particular for the ages, and is indoors / air-conditioned to boot.

Wake-up, go to Cafe Du Monde's, walk the beignets off with a morning stroll down Bourbon. Hit the aquarium. go over to the Hilton Riverside and have chargrilled oysters at Drago's, then D Day museum. Then go blow it out at Commander's.

We were there over Memorial Day and things have completely opened back up. It was HOPPING! Things seemed "normal" (as far as NO goes.

Ate at two new places:

Tommy's is an Italian wine place with some seafood influences a block or two from the convention center. Awesome food, great wine selection, and pleasant service. Highly recommend as an off the beaten path, non touristy place.

TOAST for brunch. WOW! They've got a few locations and the menu is a tiny bit different at each one it seems. I can't recommend it enough! Aebelskivers, chicken and waffles (chicken was off the rails good), all of it was ridiculous good.

The music crowd around CDM seemed to be back to normal and was fun.

Love that city and all of its differences and quirkiness.

I agree with this poster! Adolfo's is terrific. Get the rack of lamb! It is to die for

"We ate dinner at Adolfo's which I highly recommend if you can get in. It's small, neighborhoody and they might take your attempt to make a reservation by text, or you might have to hang out in the downstairs bar for an hour or two if there are seats available. Great seafood with an Italian/Cajun spin."

Also there is a place that builds the floats for all the parades called Mardi Gras World. Check them out as you and the kids will be amazed at the place.

https://www.mardigrasworld.com/

The zoo as has been stated is good but if it is hot the animals are few and far between.
Ride the trolley, visit Magazine street.

Forget the quarter!