New Orleans is a city of sensory-fueled experiences. The sound of brass bands and jazz, the taste of gumbo and hot beignets, the sight of oak trees draped over a pastel-colored cottage home—such elements give the city a magnetic character. “There’s music . . . just coming up from everywhere at all times,” says Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Company. “You’ll hear it on the street corner, you’ll hear it coming out of bars and clubs, out of the restaurants. . . . There’s definitely a little bit of a bounce in your step as you move around.”
Much of New Orleans is delightfully walkable, with several dynamic neighborhoods running into each other. Whether you’re after live music, architecture, or an all-night party (or all three at once), here are six neighborhoods in New Orleans to explore.
Tremé
Best for: Delving into the heart of the city’s culture
Tremé is considered the oldest African American neighborhood in the country and is an important part of the Civil Rights Trail. Few places in New Orleans exude cultural vibrancy and pride quite like it, and the neighborhood’s impact on the city’s identity is undeniable. You’ll find generational recipes from this district in restaurants around New Orleans and joyous second line parades. (Historically a neighborhood celebration, the first line is made up of the band and parade leader, and the second line is everyone else.) All Bout Dat offers walking tours of the area, including a Black Heritage & Jazz City Tour that makes a stop at Congo Square, where free and enslaved Africans once met to celebrate their culture through music and dance. Through the exhibitions at the African American Museum, visitors can better understand the impact of Black culture on New Orleans. If you’re there the third Saturday of the month, enjoy a lively, family-friendly festival with food, music, and vendors. In the evening, get a true taste of New Orleans music at Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge, where musicians serenade crowds into the early morning.
Where to eat
Lil Dizzy’s Cafe and Dooky Chase are both soul food institutions that have drawn people from around the world for a bowl of gumbo or crunchy fried chicken. At Fritai, chef Charly Pierre celebrates Haitian street food like plantains, stewed pork, and dumplings.
Where to stay
Book now: The Brakeman New Orleans
This 18-room boutique hotel is housed in a former railway station from 1904. The building, which has retained its original brick, now doubles as the Basin St. Station (New Orleans’s visitor center) making it particularly convenient for first-timers. The hotel sits directly across from the city’s oldest still-operational cemetery, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where famous New Orleans’ voodoo queen Marie Laveau is buried.
Architecture in the Garden District includes a wide range of styles, such as Greek revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne Victorians.
Photo by Jade3234/Shutterstock
Garden District
Best for: Architectural wonders
The Garden District’s beautiful oak-lined streets are full of impressive homes with elaborate ironwork patios. Also referred to as Uptown because of its upriver location along the Mississippi River, it’s an appealing neighborhood to stroll through and admire colorful gardens and Victorian mansions shaded by regal oaks and magnolias. Prytania, Coliseum, and St. Charles streets are lined with mansions in Greek Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne Victorian style from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Magazine Street is full of shops like Magazine Antique Mall, where you can find antique furniture and vintage house appliances. In the afternoon, take a ride on the St. Charles streetcar, which runs some 6.5 miles around the city and is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world.
Where to eat
For breakfast, add your name to the list for a table at Surrey’s Natural Juice Bar, then enjoy its addictive bananas Foster french toast. Turkey and the Wolf, in the Lower Garden District, is a popular sandwich joint known for its short menu of unusual sandwiches, like the collards green melt and the fried bologna with potato chips. For a break from to-go cocktails, stop for a glass of wine in the light-strung courtyard of the Tell Me Bar, whose 10-page menu runs from Georgian skin-contact white to an Oregon chardonnay.
Where to stay
Book now: Hotel Saint Vincent
Check into Hotel Saint Vincent for eclectic design and festive energy. Located in the heart of the Lower Garden District and close to boutiques, restaurants, and cafés on Magazine Street, this 75-room property in an 1861 building debuted in 2021 with brightly colored accommodations that include floor-to-ceiling windows and vintage art. Guests can lounge by the large pool or enjoy an iced coffee and snacks at its French-Vietnamese Elizabeth Street Café. At night, don’t miss dinner at the hotel’s Italian-meets-Gulf-seafood San Lorenzo restaurant or cocktails at the guests- and members-only Chapel Club.
The French Quarter is full of lively bars—but only steps from the calm riverbanks of the Mississippi.
Photos by Laura Dannen Redman
French Quarter
Best for: Partying the night away
Though often associated with bacchanalia, beads, and mega-size Hurricane cocktails, New Orleans’s French Quarter does provide an accessible introduction to some of the city’s best food and quirky personalities. There’s more to do here than just partying. Check out the Cabildo, a Louisiana State Museum in a grand Spanish colonial building that was once the Supreme Court. Exhibitions include a retrospective of George Rodrigue’s work (best known for his blue dogs) and a look at Louisiana’s medicinal plants and how they’ve evolved over time. For unusual souvenir items, pop into at Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, to pick up such items as spell kits and tarot cards.
Where to eat
GW Fins, an upscale seafood restaurant, has a menu that changes daily based on what seafood comes in at 4 p.m. Dishes include barbecue shrimp with goat cheese grits and swordfish bolognese. For contemporary cuisine and a setting to match, Saint John Restaurant is a popular brunch spot in the Quarter, but consider chef Eric Cook’s dinner menu for the slow-cooked white bean cassoulet with braised pork belly, which you will remember long after your trip ends. Kick off or round out your night with with a drink or two. Pulsing Bourbon Street offers plenty of action, including a bevy of music-filled hangout bars like Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar and Black Penny. Old Absinthe House, first opened in 1806, still serves cocktails like a frothy absinthe frappé, while Cane and Table offers a rum-inspired cocktail list paired with Caribbean bites.
Where to stay
Book now: Hotel Mazarin
Although only a minute’s walk from Bourbon Street, this 102-room hotel feels worlds away from its noisier neighbor. Room balconies, an intimate and tranquil courtyard where complimentary breakfast for guests is served, and a Prohibition-themed bar are among its charms.
Roasted shrimp at the Elysian Bar is an unmissable dish in a city full of them.
Courtesy of the Elysian Bar
Faubourg Marigny
Best for: Live music
Make your way past the French Quarter to the pastel cottages and artist enclave that is Faubourg Marigny. Home to Frenchmen Street, a hub lined with jazz clubs and cafés, this neighborhood’s draw is a vibrant nightlife that’s not quite as overwhelming as the Quarter can be at times. For live music, Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro occupies a renovated 1800s storefront and brings in artists from across New Orleans and beyond for performances. At Studio Be, street artist turned gallery owner BMike has transformed a 35,000-square-foot warehouse into a space celebrating Black culture through mixed media art. Flip through a wide selection of books at independently owned Baldwin & Co., then head over to Botanicals Nola to cool down with smoothies featuring fun names like Ya Heard Me and Beaucoup Berries.
Where to eat
At Bywater American Bistro, James Beard Award–winning chef Nina Compton and her team create dishes of roasted Gulf fish and wagyu beef lasagna as an ode to global comfort foods. In a former 19th-century hosiery factory, Paladar 511 serves Italian-leaning fare such as arancini with a short rib ragu and excellent pizzas, including one with merguez and tzatziki.
Where to stay
Book now: Hotel Peter and Paul
A truly splendid conversion of a 19th-century church and its outbuildings led to this hotel’s 71 antique-filled rooms, some with their own fireplace and lofts with a spiral staircase. Enjoy a Sazerac cocktail with small plates of brioche toast and roasted Gulf shrimp at the Elysian Bar on the ground floor.
The Contemporary Arts Center is housed in a handsome 1904 former warehouse.
Courtesy of Louisiana Travel/Flickr
Warehouse District
Best for: Discovering new art
Enjoy some of the city’s most popular restaurants, retail shops, and art galleries in the Warehouse District, located 15 minutes by foot from the French Quarter. Every first Saturday of the month, Julia Street comes alive with galleries opening their doors for free entrance to new exhibits, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Contemporary Arts Center—where you can fuel up inside at Mr. Wolf Espresso while enjoying vibrant art and books on its shelves that celebrate Black culture. At the National WWII Museum, a new special exhibit highlights Japanese American veterans.
Where to eat
Seafood in an industrial-cool setting is the vibe at Pêche, where you can scoop up smoked tuna dip or tuck into fried oysters with pickled corn and kimchi. Nearby at Cochon, a tender suckling pig with stewed okra, tomato, and pork jus is certainly worthy of its reputation.
Where to stay
Book now: Kimpton Hotel Fontenot
Whether or not you have IHG points burning a hole in your pocket, book at Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, where you’ll sleep on Frette linens and wash up with Atelier Bloem bath products. The hotel, which was expanded in March 2023, has 235 rooms and suites, as well as a French brasserie called King. For an easy nightcap after a long day out, stop into the hotel’s Peacock Room, which has three solid alcohol-free cocktails, among them A Whole New World, a warm-weather tipple with jasmine tea, mango, pineapple, basil, lemon, and soda water.
After a night or two of revelry in packed bars, the calm and green expanse of the Botanical Gardens beckons.
Photo by Suzanne C. Grim/Shutterstock
Mid-City
Best for: Escaping other tourists
For a real neighborhood experience that feels far enough from the tourist center, but close enough to reach it via taxi in about 10 minutes, consider Mid-City. Located between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, the neighborhood is home to the annual April Jazz and Heritage Festival (which draws nearly 500,000 people) and the Botanical Gardens, offering more than 2,000 flower plant species. Mid-City is also home to the New Orleans Museum of Art, whose collection of 40,000-plus pieces includes Native American and Ghanian textiles, pre-Columbian sculptures, and Korean landscape paintings. The free Besthoff Scultpture Garden here has 90 colorful, large-scale artworks across 11 acres and is a fun place to bring kids.
Where to eat
Though the best po’ boy in the city is always a hot topic of debate, many will name Parkway Tavern Bakery their favorite, especially the roast beef option. For classic Creole food with a lively atmosphere, make a reservation at Neyow’s for a bowl of its well-loved filé gumbo. Zasu, run by James Beard Award–winning chef Sue Zemanick, deals in vibrant contemporary U.S. cuisine using Gulf Coast seafood—think red snapper with lentils and an Aleppo-pepper/orange beurre blanc.
Where to stay
Book now: 1896 O’Malley House
This eight-room historic bed-and-breakfast on a quiet street has a relaxing courtyard and homey dining room with a communal table. Breakfast is included and changes daily, sometimes offering blueberry waffles or Creole eggs Benedict with a biscuit. The hotel is just a 15-minute streetcar ride from downtown New Orleans, making it a tranquil base to return to after a day of sightseeing.
This article was originally published in 2023 and most recently updated on July 22, 2025, with current information.
