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Bourbon Street (1 evening)

Bourbon street, in the heart of the old French Quarter is perhaps not the most sophisticated street in the city, but when you start your visit to New Orleans, most probably this will be your first place to visit.

During daytime this is a regular street with traffic. At night it becomes a pedestrian zone with hundreds of bars and restaurants with live music. Of course it’s nice to see, but it’s not the true New Orleans, so after one evening here… move on to the other great places.

Frenchmen Street (1 - ? evenings)

If you like to experience the best music, don’t stay in Bourbon Street; you should go to Frenchmen Street, just outside the French Quarter. Here you will find many bars with the best live bands you can get. There are no souvenir shops or striptease acts here, just music and more music.

Every single night of the week, people from all ages mingle here to enjoy the music. Jazz, Dixieland, Blues, all styles can be heard here at Frenchmen Street. Don’t come too early, but enjoy until late night.

Some really great places are Spotted Cat Music Club (n# 623) and Cafe Negril (#606).

Cooking class (2 ½ hr)

When you’re hungry, you’ve come to the right place. The main culinary tradition in New Orleans is Creole, which has a mixture of influences including French, German, and Spanish with a strong West-African foundation.

If you like to learn how to cook these dishes you should go to the New Orleans school of cooking. You can learn how to cook Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish etouffee and much more.

The school is located at 524 St Louis Street. More information about the school and the classes can be found here. The cooking school includes a shop where you can buy all your ingredients, the Louisiana General Store.

Johnny’s Po-Boy Restaurant (1 hr)

For Breakfast or lunch you should try Po-boy and Muffaletta sandwiches. A muffaletta is a large, round bread around 10 inches (25 cm) across. A traditional sandwich consists of one muffaletta loaf, split horizontally. The loaf is then covered with a marinated olive salad, then layers of capicola, salami, pepperoni, Emmenthaler, ham and provolone.

A Po-boy is a typical New Orleans sandwich, which was first served in 1929 during a streetcar strike. The strike went on for several months, and the striking workers had very little money to survive. Two brothers decided to help their friends and fed them sandwiches made of one pound loaves of French Bread cut into three and filled them with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and mayo.

These sandwiches were fed to the men free of charge. As the men came into the restaurant, they would say: “here comes another ‘poor boy’ man”. And so, the po-boy became a part of New Orleans cuisine.

Try these local specialities at Johnny’s Po-Boy Restaurant at 511 St Louis Street. They claim to serve the best breakfast in the French Quarter and they say: ‘Even my failures are edible’.
They are open seven days a week from 8 am to 4:30 pm. More information can be found here.

Acme oyster house (1 hr)

For dinner you have to eat local specialities like fried oysters, boiled crawfish, other seafood dishes like étouffée, jambalaya, gumbo, and the favourite red beans and rice. And of course you have to try a local Abita beer.

A great place to try this is in ACME oyster house. It is located at 724 Iberville Street just around the corner of Bourbon Street. The opening hours are from Sunday to Thursday from 11 am to 10 pm and on Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 11 pm. You can call them to make a reservation: 504.522.5973.

Lafittes blacksmith shop bar (2 hr)

There are many bars in New Orleans, and especially in Bourbon Street. But there’s on very special one, Lafittes blacksmith shop bar. They claim to be the oldest bar in America.

It is located at 941 Bourbon Street at the corner of St Philip Street. It is the last bar at Bourbon Street. Don't mistake it with another Lafitte bar at Bourbon Street.

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Language of the world

Of course you like to speak a few words of the local language onboard the plane or at your destination. Here you find some simple basics of the main language spoken in New Orleans.