It's hard to say no in New Orleans. Whether it’s hanging in for the last set of the Soul Rebels Brass Band or ordering that second crawfish sausage po’ boy, the answer inevitably seems to be “yes.” Knowing that your contributions to the local economy are helping a city struggling to rebuild only makes it easier—you can worry about your sleep cycle and your waistline later.
STATE OF THE CRESCENT
So, how’s New Orleans doing? Some visitors may find it easy to overlook the devastation wrought in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, since the main tourist areas, the French Quarter and the Garden District, sit on high land and largely escaped the flooding. But for residents, time is divided into “pre-storm” and “post-storm.” It would be a shame for any visitor to leave without witnessing the challenges still facing the city. At least two companies offer Katrina tours: Gray Line (800-535-7786; $35) and Tours by Isabelle (504-391-3544; $58).
As the mammoth relief effort proceeds, life in New Orleans moves on—but in new directions. History buff Joe Gendusa had planned to spend his retirement giving walking tours in the French Quarter. “Katrina changed that,” the lifelong resident says. Now a guide for Gray Line’s Katrina tour, Gendusa employs some gallows humor as he recounts his own evacuation after the storm. “When the buses finally came, do you think people got in line?”
The three-hour tour offers a historic overview of the city while also revealing some of the storm’s catastrophic impact. Even two years after Katrina, bank branches, sheriffs and thousands of residents make do with trailers. Utility poles are plastered with hand-lettered signs advertising stump removal and cut-rate home appraisals. At tour’s end, Gendusa gives everyone an assignment. “Go out and spend lots of money—and have fun.” Not a hard gig, given the city.
THE ASSIGNMENT
Since its woolly days as a frontier port town, La Nouvelle-Orléans has never been one for restraint. Given the rich mélange of food, from boudin sausage to beignets, and music, from stripped-down Cajun dance bands to hip-hop-inflected brass ensembles, it’s easy to see why visitors and locals alike have always tried to take in as much as possible.
The city once again seems buoyed: Though a little less crowded, it’s finding its old swagger. Aside from the music—which acts as a municipal heartbeat of sorts—the food scene serves as a good barometer of the city’s recovery. “If we can eat well again . . . then things must be okay, after all,” says Tom Fitzmorris, who hosts a food-themed radio program on local station WWL.
Indeed, dining is once again a serious matter in New Orleans. But like every other aspect of the city, the scene has changed. After Katrina, nearly every restaurant closed, and prized wine collections baked in the August heat. Upon reopening, owners struggled to find ingredients, hire staff and lure new customers to replace vanished tourists. Despite the upheaval, more restaurants are open today (some 830) than before the hurricane, according to Fitzmorris, who tracks openings at his website, nomenu.com.
But it’s more than raw numbers, says Ian McNulty, a restaurant critic for The Gambit, a free weekly newspaper. New Orleans, he says, is enjoying something of a culinary renaissance. “A lot of people had these carpe diem moments where they said, ‘If we’re coming back, we’re going to do something different.’”
For starters, McNulty points to Iris, an eclectic 11-table restaurant that opened a few months after the flood waters receded. Ian Schnoebelen, a former sous chef at the renowned Lilette, returned to the city thinking he might just pack up what was salvageable and start over in Alabama. “But we missed New Orleans,” Schnoebelen says. So he and partner Laurie Casebonne ended up buying an Uptown-area restaurant from friends. Since Iris’s opening, Schnoe- belen has earned national attention with a menu that blends Italian and French styles and flavors with a wide range of seafood and the occasional exotic Asian vegetable. His seared scallops, for example, come with Vietnamese greens and grapefruit butter.
Other ambitious chef/owners, like Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski of Cochon, also took the plunge. These two have raised simple country and Cajun cooking to a higher plane by carefully sourcing ingredients (bacon is made in-house; alligator tenderloin comes from a local farm) and stripping away extraneous flavors. To start, there are wood-fire-roasted oysters and a boucherie plate of homemade andouille sausage and boudin. Those are followed by a superb whole Gulf fish kissed by flames and seasoned with salt, pepper and little else.
Moving beyond Cajun and Creole standards, new ethnic food spots are offering Mexican fare, gelatgelato and more. Last November the city even got a top-notch cheese store, St. James Cheese Co., when a Tulane graduate left a job at London's 200-year-old Paxton & Whitfield cheese shop. No longer do denizens of the Big Easy need to fly elsewhere to sample a rare Burgundy cheese made by monks.
The old-line restaurants are shaking things up, too. The legendary Antoine's began serving brunch for the first time in its 167-year history. The wine list at Galatoire's, which once favored French classics, now offers a greater variety of new-world wines, some with-gasp-screwtops. Such changes may seem insignificant until you consider how closely these storied institutions have hewn to tradition, says McNulty. "A few years back, there was an uproar at Galatoire's when waiters started using cubed ice instead of chipping it off a block."
To track the changing restaurant scene, see McNulty's weekly food dispatches at bestofneworleans.com.
STICKING TO TRADITION
It's easy to part with money in New Orleans, even at breakfast. But you can save some cash and get a taste of traditional New Orleans at places like Café Du Monde (800 Decatur St.; 504-525-4544), where the beignets-a mini-mountain of four deep-fried pillows of dough, buried in powdered sugar-are a steal at $1.59. Since Du Monde's café au lait suffers from the assembly-line pace, you might prefer to get your coffee fix down the street at CC's Coffee (941 Royal St.), a local fave.
For lunch, grab a muffuletta (pronounced muff-a-lotta) sandwich at the century-old Central Grocery (923 Decatur St.). Two can easily share a half-sandwich ($7), built on a loaf of round Italian bread slathered with a pungent olive paste and stacked with cuts of salami, ham and provolone.
For a sit-down meal, try Napoleon House (500 Chartres St.; 504-524-9752), a charmingly decrepit French Quarter restaurant where the windows are always open and a Mahler symphony drifts down from the speakers. Get the gumbo and a roast beef po' boy.
MUSIC
In the city that begat Louis Armstrong, good music has long been taken for granted. That's changed since Katrina, says Lumar Leblanc, founding member of the Soul Rebels Brass Band. He's seen his bookings boom. "People used to think, 'Oh, I know where to find them any time I want back in New Orleans,'" says Leblanc. "Now people say, 'Oh, no, I got to get a hold of them now.'" At least once a week, Leblanc makes the 12-hour round-trip drive from Houston, where he relocated after his home was destroyed.
New Orleans's latest batch of brass bands-Soul Rebels, Hot 8 and Re-Birth-has reinvigorated the traditional "second-line" brass bands familiar to parade-goers, adding a funky stew of hip-hop, soul and reggae. Forget "When the Saints Go Marching In" (though all these bands can play it), and imagine rapper Jay-Z if he had trombone, trumpet and snare drums instead of a sampler and turntables. "Horns are a way of music life down here," says Leblanc.
CLUBS
Instead of the heavily touristed Bourbon Street, start on Frenchmen Street (considered the locals' Bourbon Street), just east of the French Quarter. On weekends, this busy two-block stretch of nightclubs and cafés looks and feels like a steamy block party, with dancing crowds spilling into the street and a barbecue smoker going.
Standout clubs include the Blue Nile (532 Frenchmen St.; 504-948-2583), the Spotted Cat (623 Frenchmen St.; 504-943-3887) and Ray's Boom Boom Room (508 Frenchmen St.; 504-248-0801), frequented by trumpeter legend Kermit Ruffins.
In the heart of the French Quarter, Preservation Hall (726 St. Peter St.; 504-522-2841; preservationhall.com) specializes in old-style New Orleans acoustic jazz in an old-style setting: wooden benches and no air conditioning. But the music swings, and the crowd inevitably smiles. During the band's set break, a friendly cat might just curl up in your lap.
If you're feeling adventurous, grab a cab Uptown to the Maple Leaf (8316 Oak St.; 504-866-9359). It became the first club to open after Katrina when bluesman Walter "Wolfman" Washington filled its skinny dance floor a month after the storm tore through the city. The ReBirth Brass Band's long-standing Tuesday night set is not to be missed. It cranks up at 10 p.m. If that sounds late, remember, recovery is hard. The Wolfman drove all the way from Ohio and powered his amplifier with a diesel generator. All you have to do is stay awake past midnight. You can do it for New Orleans.
For more information, check out www.neworleansonline.com.
STAY
RCI-affiliated resorts in New Orleans include:
CHATEAU ORLEANS
CLUB LA PENSION
For more information,
visit www.RCI.com or call
Weeks: 800-338-7777
Points: 877-968-7476
OTHER NON-RCI HOTELS
Soniat House
This elegant French Quarter oasis has 33 antiques-filled rooms. 1133 Chartres St.; 800-544-8808; www.soniathouse.com; doubles from $240
Hotel Monteleone
An expansive French Quarter charmer, 570 rooms and counting. 214 Royal St.; 800-535-9595; www.hotelmonteleone.com; doubles from $100
B&W Courtyards Bed and Breakfast
Five-room B&B near Frenchmen Street. 2425 Chartres St.;
800-585-5731; www.bandwcourtyards.com ; doubles from $100
EAT
St. James Cheese Co.
Savory sandwiches and salads. Ask the staff to pick a cheese board. 5004 Prytania St.; 504-899-4737; lunch for two, $20*
Cochon
Cajun country cooking goes upscale without losing its clean, strong flavors. 930 Tchoupitoulas St.; 504-588-2123; dinner for two, $65
August
One of the city's finest, combining French technique with local ingredients. 301 Tchoupitoulas St.; 504-299-9777; dinner for two, $120
Iris
A perpetually changing, seafood-focused menu, plus staples like veal-cheek-stuffed ravioli. 8115 Jeannette St.; 504-862-5848; dinner for two, $76
*Prices cover a three-course meal for two, not including drinks, tax or tip.