New Orleans: A Cultural Treasure Designed for Good Times
A French Quarter street poet on the job Photo: Bruce Northam
Posted May 6, 2025
New Orleans has an unparalleled tradition of comfort cuisine and infectious music. It’s also a big-time art town that overflows with culture. Arguably the Caribbean’s northernmost outpost, the homeland of funk and soul music has long been one of the world’s most celebrated cities. From the bustling French Quarter to pastoral Audubon Park, this storied destination provides every angle of having a good time. There are also a few really cool places to stay, too.
Music from the Source
Ground zero for getting into the traditional New Orleans jazz groove is the intimate Preservation Hall, which has been showcasing unamplified piano, drum, and horn talent in the French Quarter since 1961. Here, local master musicians create acoustic magic 360 nights a year. These memorable live jam sessions are set in a racquetball-court-sized room with the audience seated on simple benches, allowing a truly up-close-and-personal experience with the ultra-traditional band.
Catch a show by George Porter, Jr., best known as the bassist of The Meters, for a less orderly live roots-music experience and a wonderful chance to hang out with locals and visiting music lovers. He plays in a fantastic funk quartet every Monday night at the storied Maple Leaf Bar. You’ve also got to hit the king of the dives, Fat Harry’s, and look for a porch party, where bands play on people’s suburban front porches.
George Porter, Jr. (yellow shirt) is best known as the bassist of The Meters Photo: Bruce Northam
Fun Fact: When Jimmy Buffet was an aspiring singer-songwriter in the late 1960s, he busked on the streets of the French Quarter before moving on to playing gigs in Bourbon Street bars.
Experience New Orleans Culinary Scene with Doctor Gumbo Tours
Doctor Gumbo Tours’ Combo Cocktail and Food History Tour is a festive four-hour French Quarter odyssey. Encounters include four storied restaurants, a hot-sauce tasting palace, and a bakery starring just-made pralines. The perfect pairings include category-five hurricanes with alligator-sausage gumbo and dessert-like bourbon milk punch with a deconstructed muffuletta sandwich. This makes getting your New Orleans’ Creole and Cajun-legacy PhD easy. Ps, I heard from various folks, both visitors and locals, that a gaggle of other food tours here don’t deliver.
Doctor Gumbo Tours makes getting your New Orleans’ Creole and Cajun-legacy PhD easy Photo: Bruce Northam
More Tasty Options in New Orleans
The serene Audubon Clubhouse overlooks the golf course within gorgeous Audubon Park, where live oaks mingle with palm trees. This country club groove is open to the public. The sprawling outdoor veranda has ceiling fans. The blue crab lump cakes pair nicely with fried oysters Rockefeller.
The dynamic and award-winning Palace Café steals the show on Canal Street with its homey cuisine and cheery atmosphere. It features a mobile jazz trio during brunch on weekends. I enjoyed a Dauphine (tequila, dragon-fruit syrup, lime) and the Creole-spiced, pecan-crusted catfish with haricot verts, Louisiana popcorn rice, and Creole meuniere sauce.
The Audubon Clubhouse—where live oaks mingle with palm trees Photo: Bruce Northam
An exciting new kid on the block is La Cocinita, a fast-casual restaurant that evolved from a Venezuelan-couples’ New Orleans food truck—thus a menu inspired by Latin American street food. This uptown delight offers the usual meaty suspects as well as vegetarian and vegan options, and a bar. It’s located right next door to a popular ice cream parlor, Creole Creamery, and these neighbors collaborate on specialty desserts, including a horchata ice cream and a churro sundae. A captivating mural by local artist David Lovell adorns the side of La Cocinita representing New Orleans’ natural environment through massive, intertwined oak trees with intricate bark patterns.
An engaging mural decorates the side of La Cocinita restaurant Photo: Bruce Northam
Epic Digs
Some places truly rise above it all. The Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans is a landmark tower at the end of iconic Canal Street alongside the Mississippi River. It gets luxury right at every corner. While looking down on the city it embodies, a bit of New Orleans’ gutsy soul chimes in every now and then when you hear either faint freight-train or river-barge whistles. The outdoor resort-style pool has a bar, and of course, an amazing view of the city. The rooms and suites are a retreat in and of themselves—spacious, modern, and elegantly appointed, with floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the space with natural light and frame postcard-worthy views of the river or skyline. It’s the kind of comfort that makes you want to linger inside a little longer, even when the city beckons.
Atop the Four Seasons is Vue Orleans, a 35-story panoramic view of the sprawling landscape. Discovering this riverside city from the region’s only 360° observatory is a doozie. Along with indoor and outdoor viewing areas, exhibits highlight the Crescent City’s history, culture, river transportation, food, art, festivals, and music. Up there, I finally comprehended how the city is pinched between a river and a lake. As a bonus, the ground floor of Vue Orleans is also an interactive Louisiana history museum.
Dining Options at The Four Seasons
The hotel’s two in-house restaurants recast innovative Louisiana cuisine. The fifth-floor Chemin à la Mer, a grand steakhouse and oyster bar, is adjacent to the pool and has indoor and outdoor seating options. Here, you’ll enjoy a curated menu of Louisiana fare expertly executed with French technique. The simple-but-stellar one-page menu includes the 1855 Black Angus and Maggie’s Mushrooms. This celebratory hotspot has vibrant energy and casual elegance.
The signature lobby-level restaurant of the hotel is Miss River, a “love letter to Louisiana,” which celebrates an innovative twist on Southern cuisine—in style. This blissful dining experience in an upscale parlor atmosphere showcases the chef’s spirited take on beloved local dishes such as carved buttermilk-fried chicken. The Maison Salad (charred avocado, sunflower seeds, lemon vinaigrette) was the perfect prelude to the redfish court bouillon stewed with oysters, crab, shrimp, and the Holy Trinity (onions, bell peppers, and celery). Enjoy the indulgence!
The Four Seasons outdoor pool has a bar and an amazing view of the city Photo: Bruce Northam
More New Orleans Lodging Gems
The Copper Vine Wine Pub & Inn is a three-story 10-guestroom gem with rock-solid charm. Every lofty design-savvy room enjoys floor-to-ceiling windows with black-out drapes. Built in the 1800s, olden meets modern as locally curated artwork adorns the walls. The Volkswagen-sized bathtub and rainfall shower didn’t disappoint either. It’s located on a city block in the heart of historic downtown New Orleans, which means that it is surrounded by modern skyscrapers that underscore the inn’s bygone value and appeal. From outside, this place literally beckons you to enter. The ground-floor Wine Pub has a simple yet far-reaching wine list. The Cajun carrots (buttermilk ranch, pumpkin seeds, BBQ-seasoning, dill) make eating healthy easy while the short-rib ragu & pappardelle is a smash hit.
Copper Vine Wine Pub & Inn has rock-solid charm Photo: Bruce Northam
The Roosevelt New Orleans, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel, is both an old-style-classy time capsule and an architectural phenom. This iconic grand dame overlooking the French Quarter remains wonderfully elegant, 130 years and counting. Uniquely New Orleans, the famed Sazerac Bar is one of the hotel’s several finely appointed bars and restaurants. Every one of its 14 floors of chic-décor guest rooms and suites can tell a story. Along with an expert massage in the world-class spa, I entered dreamland courtesy of one of its Recovery Lounge’s Mind Sync Anti-Gravity Loungers. While reclined, you spend an hour enjoying the combination of soothing headphone music and vibrations that later makes you feel like you’ve just had a four-hour nap!
The Roosevelt New Orleans is an old-style-classy time capsule Photo: Bruce Northam
For more information on getting your New Orleans party started, visit NewOrleans.com.
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