The Resy Hit List: Where In New Orleans You’ll Want to Eat in Sept. 2025

Still arguably the defining restaurant of New Orleans, in spirit, cuisine, and history. Over seven decades, the late Leah Chase built an iconic gathering place for the city, nourishing with spectacular renditions of Creole classics like shrimp Clemenceau, crawfish etouffee, and gumbo z’herbes. Today, the next generation upholds Chase’s legacy with the same attention to detail and emphasis on warm hospitality, along with a renewed dedication to fine dining and maintaining the iconic restaurant’s relevance today.

This Treme-proud restaurant from the Sonnier family perfectly encapsulates New Orleans dining: comforting, worldly, smooth, and inviting. It’s a white-tablecloth restaurant in a small, homey cottage full of regulars who return for Greg Sonnier’s dark roux guinea hen gumbo, barbecue shrimp sweet potato pie, and anything that features duck — it’s the restaurant’s most prized protein and a central part of its claim to fame. Radiating with authenticity, Gabrielle is a place to get a feel for old-school New Orleans away from the hype of the French Quarter, where restaurants so often rely on their name alone. An exceptional cocktail program from daughter Gabie and standout desserts complete its distinction.

Recent years have brought the Caribbean roots of New Orleans cuisine to the forefront, sparked in part by Nina Compton’s Compere Lapin. Charly Pierre has picked up the torch at Fritai, where a mellow, attractive space gives but hints of the most inviting dinners in town. Pierre energetically explores New Orleans tradition in several dishes, but this is a Haitian restaurant at its core. Start with the crispy snapper collar, vegetable akara, and grilled shrimp pikliz, and try an entree with sos pwa, a deeply savory black bean sauce that you’ll want to drink straight from the cup. Order a setup of the Clairinha, and everyone at the table gets a sweet little punch bowl glass in which to enjoy the refreshing clairin-based cocktail.

Former Sylvain chef Martha Wiggins is doing remarkable things at this longtime Central City lunch destination, even beyond its feel-good mission of serving the community as a job-training program for teens and young adults. It’s also one of the best places in town to try lesser-known New Orleans specialties like shrimp and white beans, smothered turkey necks, and fried catfish. It stands out among its peers for its joyful, inviting atmosphere, attentive service, and large portions, but above all else the food is exceptionally well-executed. It’s a dignified representation of local cuisine that would make the city’s culinary forebears proud.

Find more info here. 

Jacqueline Blanchard helped introduce New Orleans to the majesty of the traditional Japanese izakaya with her 22-seat sushi tavern, opened in 2022. Carefully modeled after the tiny pubs she’s encountered in her extensive Japan travels, the Oak Street restaurant is a casual, minimalist space that focuses on a small number of high-quality, well-executed staples: temaki (hand rolls), traditional sides like Japanese potato salad and ohitashi (spinach in dashi broth with sesame and bonito), and specials like onigiri and sashimi of rare fish. The menu is accompanied by a curated selection of Japanese whisky, shochu, sake, beer, and natural wine, rounding out an expert offering as sleek as the space.

After two years, this Lower Garden District restaurant has quietly built a reputation as one of the neighborhood’s strongest. It’s from the New Jersey-born Dilonno family, who run the restaurant with a combination of friendly charm and brusque humor, to the delight of diners. The food, however, is pure elegance, mixing seafood uncommon to New Orleans menus like calamari, scallops, and swordfish with global flavors. It also has one of the most sophisticated cocktail menus in town, which suits its stunning interior: design-heavy but tasteful, it’s full of soothing purple, exposed brick, brass fixtures, and ’70s-inspired murals and antiques. It’s especially great for brunch, when pear toast, tuna crudo, and shrimp panzanella salad make appearances.

Informed by years of research, months of travel across the Indian subcontinent, and a deep reverence for the cuisine, Tyler Stuart and Merritt Coscia opened Plume Algiers after years of pop-ups, in large part due to demand from their Algiers Point neighbors. That’s just the kind of relationship the couple has with their customers — close, appreciative, and thoughtful. Try dishes not found on typical Indian restaurant menus in the U.S. — like Bengali-style fried fish, Indo-Chinese stir-fried rice dumplings, Kashmiri lamb meatballs, and appam — in a quaint, homey setting that you’ll want to return to regularly.  

This Magazine Street Chinese restaurant has a devout fan base that’s ever eager to line up for a table at — or before — 5 p.m., so plan your visit accordingly. (Pro tip: weeknights.) Shirley and Tang Lee, the original proprietors of Royal China in Metairie, have reasonably made Orleans Parish grateful for their move into the city. The menu of delicate dim sum; comforting soups; slick noodle dishes, and fiery Cantonese specialties is large but focused compared to Royal China, making every option a winner. The refreshed space has touches both modern and familiar, with comforting navy and gold highlights, glowing Chinese lanterns, and nostalgic fish tanks – a bonus for the many families with kids who dine there.

No reservations. More info here.

There is much to take in upon entering this beautiful Ethiopian restaurant on Bayou Road, a corridor that existed before the city was called New Orleans and was later known as its Black Wall Street. The stunning eight-seat bar is near a small tiled coffee ceremony stage devoted to the ritual of coffee roasting. You’ll see throne-like seats and half-moon booths partially enclosed by drapes and thatch-covered roofs, and basket-weave pendant lights that help highlight the warm, rich-colored art that adorns the walls. It’s all part of the exuberant atmosphere that accompanies a traditional menu of sambusas, kitfo, jollof, stews, and more, with no shortage of vegan and vegetarian options.

Saint-Germain is the little engine that could – a scrappy enterprise dreamed up by three friends with minimal investment, a small budget, and wildly ambitious goals. It has emerged as one of the very best restaurants in town, recognized nationally for a 10-course tasting menu that physically moves diners throughout its eclectic, romantic Bywater space. Chefs Trey Smith and Blake Aguillard channel modern Parisian bistros while infusing every course with remarkable creativity, using ingredients like white asparagus, guineafowl, lima beans, and geoduck. It is world-class dining in a kitschy, relaxed atmosphere. If the tasting menu is too much of a commitment (and splurge), the wine garden is worth visiting Thursday through Monday nights.

Book via Tock.

This Mid-City tavern is the rare opportunity to experience the down-home, everyday side of a Beard award-winning chef best known for her fine-dining cuisine. In 2016, Bayona chef Susan Spicer, with help from executive chef Allison Birdsall, created this funky, off-the-beaten-path restaurant that shines through familiarity, not nuance — and it’s been a locals’ favorite ever since. The menu is deceptively simple but succinct for a reason, with every dish serving a purpose: the pimiento cheese sandwich evokes nostalgia, the taramasalata is an ode to global influences, the mushroom and butternut salad is nourishing, and the shrimp Creole is born of Louisiana pride. A sprawling patio and family-friendly feel make this a frequent destination for nearby New Orleanians.

The beauty of simplicity is captured at this elegant neighborhood restaurant exclusively serving Neapolitan pizza, salads, natural wine, and cocktails in the Seventh Ward. Here is the kind of pizza that will reignite your appreciation of food, and life: sourdough crust that is bubbly but not too charred, and chewy but not too doughy; with light, slightly spicy red sauce that tastes so fresh (the white pies are also divine, like the one topped with mushrooms, truffled ricotta, fontina, and pickled red onions). Dine early among happy families or come later when the bar is full and the specialty Negronis, espresso martinis, and spritzes are flowing, and don’t shy away from any special pies on offer — they are always unique and rewarding.

Find more info here.

Since its opening in 2015, Paladar has offered something decidedly different: California-style cuisine with an Italian tilt, using Gulf Coast ingredients. Fresh pastas like squid ink spaghetti with shrimp and crab and corn agnolotti are bright and balanced; the pizzas, especially the mushroom, leek, and fontina, and farm egg, bacon, and collard green, pack a flavorful punch; and the desserts are exceptional. Staff navigate the lively, loud warehouse atmosphere with artful grace, framed by the view of a large open kitchen that periodically dances with flames.

Dining at this Mid-City restaurant continues to feel like scoring an invite to an exclusive supper club. The quaint sliver of a space on Carrollton Avenue is Beard award-winning chef Sue Zemanick’s first solo restaurant, a long-awaited step for the chef who helped make Gautreau’s Restaurant a local icon. Here, Zemanick combines Gulf Coast ingredients with techniques from her Slovak heritage in dishes like ever-changing pierogies, grilled baby octopus, ora king salmon with mustard spaetzle and charred cabbage, and citrus-poached Gulf shrimp with red and gold beets. Its succinct menu reads deceptively simple, but Zasu is a powerhouse, serving meticulous but approachable food in a relaxed setting.

The impossibly cool scene at this combination restaurant in Bywater is layered: there’s the hip clientele and staff, the quirky but serene atmosphere, and the wildly inventive menu that leans on vegetables and vegan-friendly ingredients while offering some of the best meat and fish dishes in town. There’s a rustic feel to items like the white bean dip sprinkled with fiery peanut salsa macha accompanied by misshapen grilled flatbread, or the fat, hand-ripped squid ink noodles with creamy crab and shrimp. Non-vegans stand by vegan dishes here, too — maybe grilled trumpet mushrooms atop cashew cream grits with pistachio chimichurri. But the wagyu bavette steak with blue cheese pistou competes with any steakhouse, and the pan-seared snapper gives the city’s grande dames a run for their money. Cocktails are outstanding.

Find more info here.

It’s no secret that downtown dining can be a crapshoot in any city. This magnetic tapas restaurant, in close proximity to theaters and music venues in the heart of the CBD, is an unexpected bright spot off Canal Street. Billed under a catch-all Latin American umbrella, the cuisine encompasses Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Venezuela, and more, with several countries represented by their approach to ceviche. As such, brightness is the theme here, carried through dishes like tuna aguachile, watermelon salad, and shrimp mofongo; and in tropical, herbaceous cocktails featuring mezcal, pisco, and rum. It’s a sweet little reprieve amid the bustle, with a sophisticated international energy thanks to its closeness to the HI New Orleans Hostel.