How many cities offer a combination of bar/laundromat/pool hall? Austrian owner Igor has three lounges, but this is the most popular. Saint Charles is the upscale backdrop for much of the parade action but even in these mansion-lined streets, New Orleans's quirkiness permeates. Dramatic drapery and red velvet enhance the Victorian ambience, and you can channel your Mardi Gras spirit guide after a few rounds of sazeracs - made with rye whiskey and bitters in an Old Fashioned glass - a far superior local cocktail to the lurid Hurricane.Ĩ01 Chartres Street, +1 5, 4. Share bar space with one of the French Quarter's most famous phantoms (former owner Pierre Jourdan) in the opulent first floor séance lounges at this legendary restaurant and bar. Voodoo and the dark arts are never far from the surface in New Orleans and the Quarter is filled with spirits beyond the dubious shooters being downed by obnoxious Spring Break frat boys. Famously, it serves heated muffuletta (a New Orleans sandwich of marinated olive salad, capicola, salami, mortadella, emmentaler and provolone in Sicilian Bread).ĥ00 Chartres Street, +1 5, 3. Daytime menus of red beans and rice, gumbo, and jambalaya attract tourist crowds late nights are a much more eclectic affair, with plenty of dark corners to make Mardi Gras plans.
This place exudes colonial charm with its dim lighting and classical music. Since opening as a drinking haunt for bohemian locals in 1914, the house speciality has been the English Pimm's Cup. The building's first occupant, Nicholas Girod, mayor of New Orleans from 1812 to 1815, offered his residence to Napoleon in 1821 as a refuge during his exile – hence the name. Napoleon House bar, New Orleans Photograph: PR You can once again indulge in the real thing, though if you're wary of one of the more potent offerings around, you can substitute it for Herbsaint, just as they did when the main ingredient was still illegalĢ40 Bourbon Street, +1 5, 2. The brass and marble fittings at the bar were used to drip water over sugar cubes and into glasses of absinthe. Luminaries from Mark Twain to Frank Sinatra have sipped the house cocktail Absinthe Frappe, and you can conjure up almost any period in the city's recent history under the antique chandeliers.
The French Quarter alone has more than 300 bars. So, cheer on the parades, clamour for cheap plastic beads, and if it's your first time in town, you're hereby granted amnesty to get a Hurricane cocktail (first concocted in the 1940s) at Pat O'Brien's on Bourbon Street - still an institution, still gloriously touristy. Nowhere in America does decadence and unabashed hedonism quite like The Big Easy – the carnival has been stopped just 13 times since it began in 1854, including for both world wars, the Civil War and a yellow fever epidemic.