New On Resy: New Orleans’ Newest Restaurant Openings

Just steps from City Park, this restaurant born from the marriage of two hospitality professionals is also a clever marriage of genres: casual brunch and lunch restaurant mixed with sophisticated evening bistro. Chef Chris Borges serves a wide-ranging menu of Mediterranean flavors where comfort food (like Mom’s crab dip) is served alongside osso bucco arancini and porcini-dusted trout. An expertly curated wine list, playful cocktails, and refined desserts broaden the charm.  

Endearing, romantic, and welcoming — this second location of a downtown mezcal and taco bar is a whole quirky vibe. With a vintage feel and cozy ambiance, Espiritu is such a nice place to meet up with friends for festive weekday tacos and drinks, particularly on Taco Tuesday when deals abound. But it’s also a rare chance to sample excellent Mexico City cuisine, like aguachile verde, huitlacoche quesadillas, lengua tacos, and posole. Mid-City diners are lucky to add it to the rotation.  

To find Vegas-style dining in humble New Orleans, head to St. Charles Avenue for a steakhouse unlike any other in town. A simple storefront belies a surprising interior: the floor-to-ceiling wall of wine, dry-aging steak cooler built into the bar, and velvet roping signal the VIP experience that awaits. The menu is a cornucopia, offering seafood galore as well as tenderloin griddled in bone marrow or a bone-in tomahawk ribeye served with mint and caper chimichurri.  

Fans of a stylish steak night dinner at Doris Metropolitan will revel in the arrival of Studio, a neighborhood-friendly counterpart to the original French Quarter hotspot. The Uptown space is well-known for its dreamy patio, where diners can enjoy specialty steaks, produce-driven small plates, and fresh steakhouse sides on a tree-lined corner of Magazine Street. Perhaps most exciting for the neighborhood, the restaurant — which also boasts a lovely wine bar — doubles as a butcher shop.  

Modern elegance meets classic New Orleans at this corner restaurant on the edge of the French Quarter. It’s an Art Deco throwback with the kind of food that can satisfy curious visitors and Creole connoisseurs alike — think shrimp and grits, dirty rice with duck, succotash with fried okra, and oysters on the half shell. Beautiful vintage chandeliers and a quaint mural of City Park perfect the nostalgic vibe, a fitting aim for the historic space.  

A familiar local name is behind this ambitious downtown restaurant: chef Aom Srisuk, a Bangkok native who opened Uptown’s popular Pomelo in 2021. You can’t help but go big dining here, with seafood-centric specialties like fried whole sea bass, jumbo lump crab curry, and the eye-popping Ocean’s Treasures, a medley of scallops, crab, shrimp, mussels, and calamari in a chile-basil-garlic sauce. Plus, raw bar offerings and the cocktail menu are unexpected highlights.

This second home for Lufu’s much-loved regional Indian specialties thrives in the French Quarter, where a bigger space matches the expanded offerings of tandoori, biryani, and Indochinese dishes, all bursting with flavor. The stylish feel of the original restaurant in the Central Business District carries over, too, with intricate murals, Bollywood memorabilia, and colorful and inventive cocktails. You can taste the love that goes into the food here, thanks to chefs Aman Kota, Sarthak “Shan” Samantray, and Sachin Darade.  

The Resy Guide to the 2025 Michelin South Winners

Everything about Patula feels seamlessly effortless: its refined European cafe vibe, the trendy old-world-meets-new-school wine selection, and a succinct, globally-inspired menu of small plates. One taste of the food, however, and it’s clear just how much effort chef Rob Tabone puts into dishes like Moroccan-spiced meatballs with tomato and tzatziki sauces and mushroom toast with just the right balance of richness and brightness. Courtyard dining underneath the stars is yet another reason to visit.