Best of The Hit List New Orleans
The 10 Restaurants That Defined New Orleans Dining in 2024
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We asked our contributors to the Resy Hit List to share their top dining experiences in their cities this year — to choose 10 restaurants that define the state of great dining right now. Welcome back our Best of The Hit List for 2024.
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It was another strong year for dining in New Orleans, particularly for Dakar, which returns to this list for the second consecutive year. But that wasn’t the only place to explore cuisines perhaps less familiar in town; more chefs and restaurateurs took a similar approach (Acamaya, Tatlo, and Origen Bistro), bringing additional vibrancy and diversity to the city’s dining rooms. We greeted them with enthusiasm — and increasingly they were women leading in the kitchen (again, Acamaya and Tatlo). And while we had more post-pandemic effects this year, with heartbreaking closures (among them Tommy’s Cuisine and Carmo), others opened to take their places.
Also notable this year: the resilience of reliable classics such as Clancy’s, or places that just feel that way (The Chloe and St. Pizza) as diners seek out the familiar and comforting in times that are anything but.
With that, here are the 10 restaurants most resonated with how we’re dining in New Orleans right now across all neighborhoods, ethnicities, price points, and levels of formality. Let’s get to it.
1. Acamaya Bywater
Photo by Paprika Studios, courtesy of Acamaya
James Beard Award-nominated chef Ana Castro opened Acamaya, with her sister Lydia Casto in June. Ana runs the open kitchen while Lydia greets guests with warmth. The hot and cold seafood-centric menu — which arrives with a glossary — celebrates both the sisters’ native Mexico City culture and precolonial Mesoamerican cooking. The most personal dish might be the earthy arroz negro, which is jammed with seafood and huitlacoche, a fungus grown among corn crops. So central is it to the Castro style that the highly regional, highly perishable ingredient is overnighted from a purveyor on the West Coast. Add in captivating design by Farouki Farouki — lime-washed walls, and carved stone light fixtures, and a wall of carved breeze blocks that Ana used a U-Haul to drag back from the border. Also flatware, tables, and chairs from Mexico City that the sisters imported, determined to convey the elegance of Mexican décor. The net result is an agenda-defining restaurant in a city not known for this particular cuisine. (Yet.)
Photo by Paprika Studios, courtesy of Acamaya
2. Saint John Central Business District
Done with the bureaucracy of running a business in the historic French Quarter, executive chef Eric Cook closed his celebrated haute Creole spot in May and relocated to the CBD, installing longtime collaborator Darren Chabert as chef de cuisine. The larger space allows for a more expansive menu where the duo explore the city’s complex culinary influences that date to the 18th century — Sicilian, French, Spanish, African, German, Native American, and Caribbean. Standouts on a menu of standouts include a wonderfully rich baked macaroni served with old-school red gravy; low and slow smothered turkey necks served with red bliss potato salad; duck lover mousse with smothered red cabbage and grilled pumpernickel; and rabbit fricassee with gnocchi, root vegetables, and bacon lardons. Ask for a table on the sidewalk and watch the streetcar roll by. Do it with a Gin Brigitte cocktail in hand, and enjoy a lesson in New Orleans deliciousness.
3. St. Pizza Lower Garden District
St. Pizza gained popularity after its Mardi Gras opening, perhaps capped by a New York Times mention as one of the top 22 pizza spots in the nation. Co-owner Tony Biancosino partnered with his wife Leslie Pariseau and Abhi Bhansal to create pizzas that track with his upbringing in southern New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia, but also with their own unique style. The result is a thin, crisp crust topped with high-quality ingredients like house-made fennel sausage and sweet ricotta. The bright and flavorful sauce is a vital presence on pizzas, meatballs, and chicken Parmesan. Pizzas are available at a walk-up window by the slice or pie, while whole pies can be enjoyed at the tavern, which offers well-crafted cocktails and low-intervention wines.
No reservations. No cash. Find more info here.
4. Hot Stuff University Area/Uptown
At a time when everything feels heavy, chef Mason Hereford has introduced Hot Stuff, a lively Southern meat-and-three on Maple Street. The decor is a colorful mix of plastic toys and quirky signs, creating a fun atmosphere. Hereford and his wife, Lauren Agudo, partnered with Nate Barfield, a long-time employee of Turkey and the Wolf, who leads the kitchen. Guests select from a daily-changing steam table menu that may include hamburger steak au poivre, fried chicken, marinated cucumbers with chili crisp, red beans and rice, and cornbread banana pudding. Our counsel: Arrive early for the popular Mountain Dew cake topped with lemon and lime. And if you’d like a cocktail, pour your choice of liquor into a paper cup and finish it with soda from the self-serve fountain. This spot is just what we need right now.
No reservations. Find more info here.
5. Dakar NOLA Uptown
In the spirit of inclusion, chef Serigne Mbaye and business partner Effie Richardson brought their entire staff when they went to Chicago in May to accept the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. Since they opened Dakar in 2023 to explore the foundational culinary contributions enslaved Africans made to the culinary canon of the American South, they have inspired others to follow suit. Mbaye’s menu explores the intersection of the pescatarian Senegambian cuisine of West Africa and New Orleans’ Creole cuisine — expressed through honed culinary skills, masterful storytelling, and exceedingly warm and gracious hospitality. Each of the chef’s seven courses arrive with a history lesson explaining the evolution of each dish from its native Africa, through slave-run kitchens, to where it is today. Mbaye continues to bring levity and warmth to the experience by serving most dishes family-style; it’s an object lesson in community building while also providing substance for body and soul.
6. Clancy’s Audubon
Beloved by locals, this unpretentious spot lingers in a residential neighborhood rarely visited by tourists. The recent death of longtime co-owner Brad Hollingsworth brought heartache. But the vibe, as they say, lives on. Yes, the menu is still seasonally driven. Yes, the linens are still white. (And there are linens!) The celebrated wine list exhaustively covers the U.S .and France, with a bent toward Burgundy. Creative fluidity in executive chef Jerry Harkins Jr.’s kitchen allows the 41-year-old restaurant to remain faithful to itself, neither succumbing to boredom nor idiocy. When in season the buttery goodness of a soft-shell crab is kissed by the smoker, then fried for a crisp exterior before hitting the plate. Yes, get a pile of jumbo lump crabmeat dumped on top. Finish things off with lemon icebox pie. Appreciate that Clancy’s doesn’t change, which in this town is a compliment among compliments.
7. Hungry Eyes East Riverside
Co-owners Mason Hereford and Lauren Agudo (Turkey & the Wolf) have hung the walls in this smallish space with stylized Patrick Nagel prints and pink neon that illuminates smoked mirrors, then started blasting a soundtrack of Duran Duran and the like as backdrop for a beverage list that includes Vespers and Cosmos (but is blessedly devoid of white Zinfandel, apropos as it might be). Co-owner and chef Phil Cenac’s limited menu, meant to accompany potent drinks, changes often but may include crab rangoon, or Roman-style artichoke hearts smothered under a blanket of artichoke dip, morita chile sauce, and Parmesan — chargrilled and served in ceramic oyster shells. It’s a return to the ’80s that we never knew we needed.
8. Cane & Table French Quarter
Now in its 11th year, chef-partner Alfredo “Fredo” Nogueira intensified his culinary exploration of his family’s Cuban heritage this year with a series of monthly specialty dinners. It’s just one way he’s keeping Cane & Table fresh. The mood hasn’t changed — if Hemingway were to visit the city, we would find him at this Lower French Quarter spot, which Nogueira co-owns with Neal Bodenheimer (CureCo) and Kirk Estopinal. But Nogueira’s rustic, seasonally-driven menus marry Caribbean flavors with Cuban influences and family culinary traditions like a Noche Buena pig roast. Grilled octopus is served with kalamata aioli and sweet pepper slaw. Chupe de mariscos is brimming with mussels, shrimp, and fish. Bodenheimer’s bar program means a raft of excellent tiki-esque cocktails, and after more than a decade, it all feels endlessly new.
9. Lagniappe Bakehouse Central City
In September, native-born pastry wizard Kaitlin Guerin and her partner, filmmaker Lino Asana, opened Lagniappe Bakehouse, a brick-and-mortar operation after Lagniappe’s long run as a pop-up. This was an unlikely path: Guerin studied dance, followed by restaurant work in San Francisco and Copenhagen. The pandemic brought her home, and now this historic, sun-splashed Euterpe Street townhouse location allows Guerin to explore creations that honor Southern Black culinary traditions, often through West African ingredients. Each pastry explores a connection: toffee sesame “benne” cookies, Moringa cheesecake, and Tanzanian pain au chocolate. A collaboration with Vaucresson Sausage Co., a legacy family business in the 7th Ward, led to the Vaucroissant, a savory masterpiece filled with Vaucresson’s celebrated Creole hot sausage.
No reservations. Find more info here.
10. The Chloe Uptown
Robert LeBlanc of LeBlanc + Smith teamed up with designer Sara Ruffin Costello for his first hotel project, transforming the 1891 Victorian Thomas Sully mansion into a representation of Uptown New Orleans culture. Among the higlights: the lovely dining room, as well as cozy nooks throughout the property that offer culinary and cocktail services, allowing guests to dine wherever they choose. Chef Ben Triola excels in contemporary Creole cuisine, with standout dishes like braised lamb shoulder with merguez and mushroom risotto with maitake mushrooms (Pro tip: get both and use the risotto as a shared side if necessary). Conclude your meal with a delicious brown butter ice cream sandwich, and appreciate this evolution of Creole flavors.
Explore our picks from coast to coast:
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