Foodie Adventure Through The French Quarter

Every good trip to New Orleans starts with a plate of powdered sugar-topped beignets and a cup of chicory coffee from Cafe Du Monde. For good luck, blow the sugar off the top of your beignet before you take a bite!

Central Grocery is a must-see for foodies. The old-school grocery store is loaded with imported goods from across Europe (mostly Italy). Grab some fancy olive oil or jars of giardiniera as souvenirs, and pick up a muffaletta for the road. A muffaletta is a massive sandwich made out of a whole loaf of bread, with layers of Italian meats, cheeses, and olive salad—it’s one of New Orleans’s many signature dishes.

For a change of pace from the muffaletta you bought from Central Grocery, make a reservation at Antoine’s. You’ll need to dress up, and you’ll probably want to prepare yourself for the bill at the end of the meal, but every bite will be worth it. The elegant menu of French-Creole cuisine (don’t skip out on the oysters Rockefeller, which were invented here) is to die for, and remember to save room for dessert because the bread pudding is out of this world. It’s also worth it to stop by during lunch for their $20.00 lunch special and 25-cent martinis (limit three per customer)!

If you’re looking for activities to fill in the time between meals in New Orleans, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum is a great little stop. Voodoo, New Orleans history, soda fountains, questionable medical devices, and more all combine together to paint a fascinating picture of what life was like in the 1800s through a unique lens.

Inside the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in the Riverwalk Marketplace, you’ll find the Museum of the American Cocktail. Here you’ll learn the history (and art) of mixing drinks, from the nineteenth century through Prohibition and into the present day. It’s an interesting stop on a foodie tour of the city. Some days, they even have a bar where you can sample some of the drinks you have learned about!