It was our anniversary. The stock market was in the toilet. We had dreamed of a European weekend: great meals and music and bars and no car. High-end, on a Recession-era budget. Could a too-tall order be met in the new economy?
We suspected it might, in New Orleans. After dropping our bags at the International House Hotel (www.ihhotel.com), we hit the streets. It’s true what the natives say: the French Quarter is cleaner these days. It feels scrubbed. We lingered at the Napoleon House for its cross-breeze, Spanish guitar and Pimm’s Cup, a house drink infused with fruit and spices. Looking around at the guests, intent only on conversation, I remembered why people take to this city. Here, you live in the moment.
You revel in the slow pace of pleasure. Should you recall something urgent and grow anxious, you would feel the need to apologize.
We strolled down Bourbon Street. Competing bands blared from contiguous bars. A falsetto voice insisted "You Don’t Have to Be Rich" so much like Prince that we poked our heads in the window. The young singer motioned us inside. It was 3 p.m. Everyone in the joint was dancing. The Dow Jones had just dropped 700 points.
We were having the best time we’d had in months. We had been in town for two hours.
Beyond the indigenous Creole cuisine, what sets New Orleans apart from other great food cities is how well one can eat so affordably. A friend sent us to Grand Isle (www.grandislerestaurant.com), whose slogan is "fresh seafood and cold beer." There’s no wine list, so we ordered Abita ale and whatever the chef, a wild boar hunter in his spare time, recommended. Out came plates of alligator sausage and grits; quail stuffed with shrimp and rice; and a just-off-the-boat bouillabaisse so purely unadorned that, had we had straws, I would have stuck them in the bowl to get the last drop of pot liquor.
Back at Loa (www.ihhotel.com/bar.html), the hotel bar, urbanites gathered around candelabras— which somehow doesn’t look affected in the Quarter—sipping cocktails more complex than most meals I make. My husband ordered Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a concoction of Sazerac, herbsaint, simple syrup, mint leaves and egg white. I tried Le Martelinh St.- Germain elderflower, ypioca cachaca and ginger beer. We took the elevator to our room cross-eyed.
We woke Saturday with an unashamed craving for beignets and chicory coffee at the touristy Café du Monde. The café has tripled in size since the 70s, and you almost always have to stand in line, but it’s still the place to meet folks from every town but yours. We chatted up a couple from Kansas and asked them to join us for breakfast. The bill came for four. We gave the waiter twenty dollars. He handed back change.
In the French Quarter flea market, gorgeous hand-carved necklaces were going for the price of four dried baby gator heads. We crossed the street to Central Grocery, grabbed a Muffeletta sandwich, and strolled around Jackson Square. On Decatur Street, we stumbled on Beckham’s Bookshop, an anachronistic wonder. "We have 150 years of experience between the two of us," the proprietors finally confessed—slightly fewer than their bookshelves. We were combing through out-of-print books when the phone rang. A salesman pitched a sign that would last a century. "I’m not sure we’ll need it," Carey replied, politely.
Saturday’s dinner was a no-holds-barred piece de resistance: all we’d been saving for. We headed uptown to La Petite Grocery (www.lapetitegrocery.com), a French bistro in the Garden District. The neighborhood was buzzing, its shops and galleries’ doors open to the night air. Joel Dondis, the owner, stopped by our table to suggest a Gruner Veltliner to accompany oysters, seared foie gras, potato gnocchi, and tuna tartare. He tried his best to finish his sentences, but patrons kept approaching to speak to or hug him. He told us to save room for dessert. We forgot.
Excess is a virtue in New Orleans. We ventured to Sucré (www.shopsucre.com), an artisanal dessert shop that was cranking at 11:00. We took a tour of chocolates so layered in flavors, we had to close our eyes to taste them. For all of his artistic genius, Chef Tariq Hanna keeps his eye out for the common man. "Customers today want good food, understand good food, and wish they could afford good food," he said plainly. "So give it to them."
The doorman was grinning when we returned. "Still enjoying yourselves?" he asked. "Good manners," wrote Jonathan Swift, 300 years ago, "is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse.
Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred," he added, perfectly summarizing a city he’d never seen, where waiter and concierge have the grace of restaurateur and hotelier. They come by it honestly. New Orleanians seem born knowing how to ask, "What do you need?" Or, as our cab driver put it, "When ya comin’ back?" I thought of all the cash we still had in our wallet. "Soon," we said.
"Soon."