Image via Complex Original
It’s hard to believe, but there will come a day, while hot and hungry in New Orleans, when you crave neither a hefty muffuletta nor messy, sugar-dusted beignets. The overstuffed po’ boys, the bowls of jambalaya, the red beans and rice—they are among the plethora of reasons why the Big Easy is one of the country’s most delicious cities. But with all due respect to these fail-safe classics, sometimes you seek more adventurous eats. When maxed out on crawfish etouffee, you’ll be grateful these 10 forward-thinking restaurants—all far from touristy Bourbon Street—exist.
Locals keep coming back to Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski’s Warehouse District staple—and its more casual sibling, Cochon Butcher for pork belly and mint sandwiches—because of the spot-on food. Traditionalists will slurp up the chicken and Andouille gumbo, but more ambitious eaters will appreciate the creative tweaks on Cajun cooking in the form of, say, fried alligator plunked into chili garlic mayo, and grilled beef short rib gussied up with pickled cabbage, field peas, and white BBQ sauce.
Milkfish
New Orleanians were so enamored with the new-to-Louisiana Filipino cuisine that Christina Quackenbush dished out at her popular Marigny pop-up, that Milkfish has now blossomed into a Mid-City brick-and-mortar destination. Here, Quackenbush serves homey recipes from her native Philippines like peanut butter-stewed oxtail and chile-spiked pork face and chicken liver with a sunnyside-up egg over garlic rice. For less carnivorous cravings, Quackenbush is happy to transform most dishes into still-piquant vegetarian ones.
On charming Magazine Street, in what was once a beloved tea, coffee, and butter emporium, California boy Justin Devillier reinvents the cuisine of his adopted city, but never loses sight of its roots. For example, instead of offering another tried and true rendition of turtle soup, he incorporates the prized meat into a bucatini Bolognese with sherry, parsley, and a fried soft-boiled egg. Or, order the shrimp and grits. They will arrive at the table accompanied by roasted shiitake mushrooms, smoked bacon, and thyme.
Ryan Prewitt snagged two James Beard Awards this year for all the magic he’s unfurling in the kitchen of the Link Restaurant Group’s Pêche Seafood Grill. Charred whole fish gets much of the rightful glory here at this Central Business District hotspot, but that’s no excuse to skimp on the shrimp and fontina croquettes or tangles of crab and jalapeno capellini.
As its name implies, carnivores will rejoice upon visiting this Mid-City restaurant from chef Isaac Toups. The charcuterie board is a fulfilling, if predictable, starter, but it only paves the way for a more captivating, protein-packed feast featuring BBQ goat with citrus slaw, cornbread, and pickled peppers, as well as lamb neck with fennel and black-eyed pea salad. Splurging on a round of boudin balls is inevitable.
This funky Bywater hangout, where the Wi-Fi and Stumptown coffee flow, is a global mash-up of small plates. After you’ve scoped out the premise’s art gallery, it’s possible to build dinner around treats as motley as pineapple salsa-laced drum tacos, octopus skewers dipped into Korean-style fermented chile sauce, and Puerto Rican yucca fritters stuffed with roast pork.
New Orleans has a vast Vietnamese community, and chef Michael Gulotta brings that dynamic culture to the forefront with his Southeast Asia-meets-Louisiana restaurant in Mid-City. Although comforting pho with tripe is a given, specials like pepper jelly-braised cedar key clams, with lamb lardo and annatto beignets need to be ordered. Boba teas are A-Okay on their own— the Guns + Roses, with strawberry, orange, and rosewater, should be ordered for its name alone—but even better when they get a jolt of booze.
The crispy pig ear and charred Brussels sprouts salad, or the black lacquered duck Phillip Lopez turns out at Root are impressive enough, but then he had to outdo himself by opening tasting menu-only Square Root, in the Lower Garden District. Lucky guests who gather around the intimate metal bar are not handed a menu, just plied with 9- to 15-courses of elegant dishes such as potato soup with smoked caviar and truffled and pickled peaches. Upstairs, charcuterie and cheese await at his more casual Root2.
To think that John Besh’s Domenica, inside the Roosevelt Hotel, on the cusp of the French Quarter, is a mere pizzeria is wrong. Yes, eating a tangy pie studded with mortadella or anchovies is de rigueur, but chef Alon Shaya pays painstaking attention to the rest of the menu as well. This is why crispy veal tongue gets paired with peach and heirloom tomato salad, and eggplant that’s just out of the wood-fired oven seems like it was always meant for marriage with olive oil-braised vegetables and tahini.
After devouring a bowl of handmade ramen, of course you want a slab of freshly baked pie for dessert. At least that’s how chefs Eman Loubier, Brian Armour, and Gustar Martin IV roll. At their uptown joint—sister restaurant to the popular Dante’s—dinner may begin with okonomiyaki fries, lead to noodles littered with shredded nori and slow-cooked pork shoulder, and end with a triangle of fig jam and custard pie.
