New Orleans New Orleans Travel Guide: Best Hotels, Restaurants & Experiences

The former World Trade Center now houses 337 rooms beneath a dazzling Chandelier Bar, where 15,000 Czech crystals illuminate craft cocktails. Chefs Donald Link and Alon Shaya helm two destination restaurants—the former carving côte de boeuf beside Mississippi River views, the latter presenting salt-crusted Gulf snapper tableside. Louisiana's only Biologique Recherche spa and a 75-foot infinity pool with underwater music complete an address suited to families and gourmands alike.

A striking reinvention of a Central Business District address, Kimpton Hotel Fontenot channels the city's French heritage through 235 rooms appointed with custom mattresses and Atelier Bloem amenities. The Peacock Room delivers cocktails from an authentic 19th-century bar beneath eccentric period décor, while Gospel Coffee and Boozy Treats offers the local twist of spiking any café order. Pet-friendly throughout.

Fifth-generation family ownership defines this Royal Street landmark, where marble floors and ornate chandeliers evoke the French Quarter's Old World grandeur. The legendary Carousel Bar—a rotating merry-go-round serving Vieux Carré cocktails—has drawn literary giants from Hemingway to Faulkner, cementing the hotel's status as one of only three Literary Landmarks worldwide. A rooftop pool, Spa Aria, and Criollo Restaurant complete the experience.

A century of New Orleans history unfolds beneath crystal chandeliers and the famed Paris Exhibition Clock, crafted for the 1867 World's Fair. The Sazerac Bar—carved from a single piece of African walnut, its mural bearing a bullet hole—poured drinks for women long before other establishments dared. Upstairs, a rooftop pool with cabanas and poolside popsicles offers refuge from Louisiana heat, while the Waldorf Astoria Spa draws local athletes and guests alike.

A striking contemporary structure on Saint Charles Avenue, Hotel Henrietta weaves classic New Orleans gestures—arched colonnades, traditional galleries—into a decidedly modern silhouette. Inside, the reception's marble walls meet an unexpected parquet ceiling, while forty rooms layer mid-century lines with Art Deco flourishes, furnished with Tivoli radios and Le Labo amenities. The Avenue Room Coffee pivots from morning bagels to evening cocktails, and local art fills every corridor.

E.J. Lagasse now steers his father's storied dining room, bringing contemporary precision to three decades of Creole tradition. Two Michelin stars reward cooking that balances heritage and invention—BBQ shrimp tarts, deeply layered gumbo, golden cornbread with French butter. Floor-to-ceiling glass reveals a gleaming open kitchen, while generous spacing and attentive service create an atmosphere suited to celebratory evenings.

Chef Serigne Mbaye channels his Harlem upbringing and Senegalese heritage into a West African tasting menu served in an Uptown cottage on Magazine Street. Two nightly seatings unfold at an unhurried pace amid African artifacts and dark wood accents. Dishes like okra soup enriched with fish broth and crab, or Gulf fish paired with jollof rice and tamarind broth, deliver layered, peppery depth.

A late-1800s building houses three dining rooms, each with its own character—carpeted wood floors, white tablecloths, eclectic art. The kitchen leans heavily on Louisiana seafood: crabcakes arrive golden and crisp with Creole sauce, while grilled redfish comes topped with jumbo lump crab in citrus beurre blanc. The bread pudding, warm with blueberry compote and bourbon-spiked white chocolate sauce, delivers a proper Southern finale.

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, husband-and-wife duo Alex Perry and Kumi Omori deliver a tasting menu steeped in Japanese technique—bafun uni, matsutake mushrooms, koji—while grounding dishes in Southern ingredients like guinea hen, grilled yakitori-style with black truffles and charred eggplant. Modern art lines the walls of a dining room where ambitious cooking arrives without ceremony, the complexity matched by genuine warmth.

Three hand-painted murals by Auseklis Ozols line the walls of this refined dining room, depicting turn-of-the-century New Orleans with Tennessee Williams and Louis Armstrong among the figures. The kitchen delivers contemporary American plates inflected with local tradition—seared duck breast with wild mushrooms and pomegranate reduction draws consistent praise. Live jazz trios and brass-backed blues singers perform nightly as bay windows frame the courtyard's alligator-slayer sculpture.

A bubbling fountain sets the tone at the entrance to this 25,000-square-foot retreat beneath the French Quarter's grandest hotel. The signature Voodoo Massage draws on local tradition with absinthe, bourbon, cypress, and vetiver, while relaxation rooms offer daybeds draped in rich fabrics alongside complimentary champagne. The boutique stocks SkinCeuticals, Dr. Dennis Gross, and Cinq Mondes.

Gray-toned treatment rooms and stone-tiled wet areas create a meditative retreat steps from the French Quarter's jazz clubs. Therapists work with Augustinus Bader's science-backed formulas and 111Skin's Celestial Black Diamond facial, which deploys retinol and diamond particles for intensive anti-aging results. The ritual extends beyond the table: wine, champagne, or mimosas arrive before and after each session, encouraging full surrender to the experience.