French Quarter

The French Quarter: What the Name Gets Wrong and the City Gets Right

The Vieux Carre’s cast-iron balconies are Spanish Creole work, not French. The street grid, laid out in 1721, is the French part. The name “French Quarter” stuck despite the fact that the most visually distinctive architecture – the lacework ironwork, the interior courtyards, the coloured stucco facades – was added primarily during the Spanish colonial period after 1762. New Orleans is a city of accumulated misattributions, and the French Quarter leads the list. None of this makes it less worth visiting. If anything, the layered history – French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, American – is the reason the neighbourhood looks like nowhere else in the country.

The Vieux Carre covers about one square mile between the Mississippi River and North Rampart Street. It survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005 relatively intact because it sits on the highest ground in the city. Most of the destruction from Katrina was in neighbourhoods built on reclaimed swampland at lower elevation.

Bourbon Street exists. It is loud, crowded, smells of beer, and operates strip clubs on multiple blocks. Most of the worthwhile things in the French Quarter are not on Bourbon Street.

Jackson Square and the Cathedral

Jackson Square faces the Mississippi with St. Louis Cathedral behind it. The cathedral’s current structure dates from 1794, rebuilt after a fire, and was enlarged in 1850. The Cabildo and Presbytere on either side are colonial administrative buildings turned Louisiana State Museums (approximately USD 10 entry each, closed Mondays). The whole composition – cathedral, flanking civic buildings, formal park, river beyond – is the most coherent public space in New Orleans.

Cafe Du Monde, on the downriver side of the square, has been open continuously since 1862 (except during Katrina). It opens at 7am and never officially closes. Beignets cost USD 4 for three and come covered in powdered sugar. The outdoor tables, the river light, the coffee with chicory, the pigeons: this is the quintessential cheap New Orleans morning experience.

Frenchmen Street

Seven minutes’ walk downriver from the Quarter’s eastern edge, in the Faubourg Marigny neighbourhood, Frenchmen Street has the highest concentration of genuine live music in New Orleans. The Spotted Cat, Blue Nile, Snug Harbor, and the Maison are all within a short stretch of each other, with jazz, brass band, and funk playing every night from around 9pm. No mandatory cover charges at most venues. This is where New Orleans residents go when they want to hear music, which is a better recommendation than any review.

Blue Nile is credited as one of the original clubs that established Frenchmen as a music destination; Snug Harbor books strictly jazz and has national touring acts alongside local names. The Frenchmen Art Bazaar operates from 7pm each night selling work from local artists alongside the music. You can wander the street, go where the sound takes you, and end up with a night better than anything you could have planned.

Preservation Hall in the Quarter is also excellent – USD 20 cover, strict capacity limits, traditional jazz in an intimate setting that has been running since 1961 – but Frenchmen is louder and more unpredictable.

Eating

The muffuletta at Central Grocery on Decatur Street is the French Quarter’s signature sandwich: a round Sicilian loaf loaded with olive salad, salami, mortadella, capicola, and provolone. Central Grocery makes it correctly and has since 1906. A half runs around USD 14 to 16. Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street (founded 1905) and Antoine’s on St. Louis Street (founded 1840, the oldest restaurant in New Orleans) are the traditional establishments for dressed Creole lunch. For Cajun cooking at its most serious, Cochon on Magazine Street in the Warehouse District is the benchmark.

Commander’s Palace is in the Garden District but belongs on the same list: the flagship of New Orleans Creole cooking, famous for its Saturday jazz brunch and still one of the better ways to spend a midday in the city.

Hotels

Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street, a National Literary Landmark connected to Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and William Faulkner, is the historically significant luxury option (USD 200 to 400 per night). The Audubon Cottages on Dauphine Street are private villa-style accommodations within the Quarter that book out months in advance for Mardi Gras (February, variable date) and Jazz Fest (last weekend of April, first weekend of May).