Gambit's Twenty One

gambit’s

21

to Know t a h W

ON THE FIELD. OFF THE FIELD. WE CLIMB TOGETHER.

©2016 COORS BREWING COMPANY, GOLDEN, CO

E X PLORE

New Orleans

LIK E A LOCA L

NEW ORLEANS’ NEIGHBORHOODS HAVE THEIR OWN CHARM AND CHARACTER AND THERE’S MUCH TO SEE IN EACH OF THEM. Here are Gambit editors’ picks (arranged

by neighborhood) for places outside the French Quarter and downtown that you won’t want to miss.

6

ESPLANADE AVENUE

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History, architecture and smooth bike paths.

9

FRERET STREET Business by day, entertainment by night.

11

GENTILLY AVENUE

13

MAGAZINE STREET

15

OAK STREET

17

Horse racing, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and more.

The commercial strip draws college students, residents and tourists.

The night belongs to eating, drinking and dancing.

21 23

POLAND AVENUE The bohemian neighborhood attracts fringe elements and their respective arts.

ST. CLAUDE AVENUE The revitalized street is a popular place to end a night on the town.

TULANE AVENUE

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THE OTHER DIRECTORY

ORETHA CASTLE HALEY BOULEVARD

GAM BIT ’ S 2 1 GU I D E

Find eclectic retail outlets and hangouts poular with locals.

25

New businesses meet an old shopping district.

4

PIETY STREET

2017 – 2018

The new medical corridor is dotted with dining and entertainment options.

Local breweries and taprooms.

On the cover: Photo by Dora Sison.

Enamel “local life” pins from Dirty Coast.

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5

Esplanade AV ENUE

PHOTO BY K ATHERINE M. JOHNSON

Who you’ll

see :

Millennial residents, tourists, bicyclists, Hari Krishnas.

Where to

eat :

Any restaurant in the 31003300 blocks, including side streets. It’s a trip around the culinary world — from Italian to French to Mediterranean to vegan to cuisine hailing from the Southwest, brunch (or lunch or dinner) is covered.

Where to drink :

Buffa’s Bar & Restaurant for the live music.

Where you’ll get a good history lesson: No, not the Degas House, although the museum tour is led by a great-grandniece of the master impressionist painter. Le Musee de Free People of Color explains the history of New Orleans’ population of free people of African descent and their economic, social and civil contributions to the development of the city.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW 6

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THIS GRAND THOROUGHFARE CONNECTS BAYOU ST. JOHN TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER and spans Mid-City and the French Quarter. Thanks to recent repaving projects, the street is smooth from end to end, perfect for a Sunday bike ride (but be careful at the Claiborne Avenue/I-10 intersection).

Esplanade Ridge, the neighborhood anchored by the avenue, boasts one of the largest concentrations of buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The City Park terminus of Esplanade is full of understated restaurants, local grocers and public green spaces, and the French Quarter side ends in the crescendo of the Dragon’s Den, a two-story house of anything-goes entertainment including reggae, samba, swing music and comedy.

The Old U.S. Mint was the only federal mint in the South to reopen and resume printing duties following the Civil War. It’s now home to the New Orleans Jazz Museum and frequently hosts small music festivals.

2017 – 2018

BREWED BELOW SEA LEVEL

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2017 – 2018

Freret S T REE T

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

IN LESS THAN 10 YEARS, Freret Street has shifted from a seedy-seeming row of faltering businesses into one of the city’s trendier commercial corridors.

There are hip cocktail bars (including Cure, the eminence grise of the city’s cocktail scene), coffee joints, globally-inspired restaurants and more. Music venue Gasa Gasa draws a younger crowd to see local and touring indie, punk and dance acts. It’s definitely a “New New Orleans” vibe, but not unpleasantly so. The annual Freret Fest block party is a highlight of the spring festival calendar.

Who you’ll

see :

Tattooed hipsters, undergrads, the odd tourist.

Where to

eat :

Modern soul food is all over the place these days, but the comfortable High Hat Cafe stands out for its catfish plates and sides (pimiento cheese grits, anyone?). Good cocktails, too

Where to drink :

The Other Bar has a neighborhood feel and is especially nice and uncrowded on weeknights. Pass the time with board games and a seen-better-days Skee-ball machine.

Where to get a schmear: Humble Bagel. The city’s long-lamented authentic bagel drought has come to an end, in part thanks to this bustling storefront. Hey! Cafe cold brew is served in Mason jars.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

According to the Data Center, some of Freret Street’s first merchants were Italian and Jewish immigrants in the 1920s and ’30s.

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2 01 7 – 2 01 8

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2 01 7 – 2 01 8

11

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2017 – 2018

Magazine S T REE T

PHOTO BY INFROGMATION NEW ORLEANS/CREATIVE COMMONS

THE 6-MILE STREET RUNS from Audubon Park all the way downtown. There are upmarket boutiques, white-tablecloth restaurants, record stores, pizza places, snowball stands, antique dealers, greasy spoons, galleries, bodegas, coffee shops, college bars, bakeries, barbers, yoga studios and ice cream parlors.

Shopping on Magazine is popular with tourists, but the street’s bars and restaurants generally are full of people who live in Uptown neighborhoods, from families eating hash browns and eggs at Slim Goodies Diner to waiters drinking after hours at Rendezvous Tavern.

Who you’ll

see :

Society ladies out shopping, college kids, families with toddlers.

Where to

eat :

Bandanna-wearing chefs jam out in the open kitchen at Nomiya, a narrow, brightly colored restaurant serving savory bowls of ramen you can top with a 7-minute soy egg.

Where to drink :

Bouligny Tavern, a wine and cocktail bar from Lilette chef John Harris, isn’t cheap, but it’s a popular gathering spot for small groups of Uptowners. Stop by for one good drink and decamp to the area’s many dives.

Where to pick up crawfish: In spring, score a few pounds of hot boiled crawfish from the unpretentious Big Fisherman Seafood to take to Audubon Park or the pocket park behind Breaux Mart.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Magazine Street hosts several parades throughout the year, including some during Carnival and a raucous St. Patrick’s Day procession each spring.

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2017 – 2018

Oak S T REE T

PHOTO BY INFROGMATION NEW ORLEANS/CREATIVE COMMONS

OAK STREET IS AN ALTERNATELY SLEEPY AND SLAMMED THOROUGHFARE IN A NEIGHBORHOOD shared by university students, professors and longtime neighborhood residents.

There are vegan baked goods at Z’otz and a raft of artisanal breads and pastries at Breads on Oak. Eclectic shops include the comics store More Fun Comics. At night, the street comes alive with boisterous crowds at restaurants like Jacques-Imo’s and La Casita Taqueria. The Maple Leaf Bar rocks well past midnight with the Rebirth Brass Band every Tuesday and a regular diet of New Orleans jazz and funk.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

College students, music fans, aging hippies

Where to

eat :

DTB, chef Carl Schaubhut’s upscale take on rustic Louisiana food, inspires its acronym (“Down the Bayou”).

Where to drink :

Ale on Oak. Grab a pint of craft beer at this sleek bar sharing a wooden deck with neighboring Oak wine bar.

Where to watch the sun rise: Snake & Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge. You don’t have to go home, even when the sun rises. Enjoy a can of Schlitz.

Or several.

The Maple Leaf Bar’s patron saints, formerly honored with busts mounted on golf carts in the Krewe of OAK parade, include James Booker, aka The Bayou Maharajah.

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2017 – 2018

Oretha

CAS T LE H A LE Y

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

ONCE A THRIVING SHOPPING DISTRICT, ORETHA CASTLE HALEY BOULEVARD has gone through changes and redevelopment and now is home to the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, Southern Food & Beverage Museum and New Orleans Jazz Market. Cafe Reconcile serves classic New Orleans dishes while providing restaurant industry training to at-risk youth. Dryades Public Market strives to bring a range of fresh produce and prepared foods to an underserved neighborhood. The street’s new eclectic mix of businesses includes a boxing gym, alternative movie house, the Ashe Power House Theater a block away, restaurants and more.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

Foodie and cultural explorers at the museums, nonprofit and artsy types, Central City neighbors.

Where to

eat :

The restaurant incubator Roux Carre has a small, eclectic collection of food vendors and courtyard seating.

Where to drink :

Mexican restaurant Casa Borrega has a bar, funky folk art decor, live Latin music and a large back patio.

Where to go at night: Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center is a no-frills movie house with a free-expression mission and all types of foreign, independent and alternative films.

In 1989, the city renamed this eight-block stretch of Dryades Street for civil rights activist Oretha Castle Haley.

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2017 – 2018

Piety S T REE T

PHOTO BY K ANDACE POWER GRAVES

CLIMB THE INDUSTRIAL-LOOKING STAIRS BROODING ABOVE CRESCENT PARK AND BE REWARDED WITH A PICTURESQUE VIEW OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER at its bendiest on one side and dozens of rows of shotgun houses and downtown buildings on the other. Below, Piety Street Market offers local arts and crafts and vintage finds on the second Saturday of every month. Just off the street in this quiet stretch of Bywater are staples like Frady’s One Stop Food Store, Webb’s Bywater Music and Markey Park, home to the annual Mirton Festival.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

Record nerds, pizza deliverers, dog walkers

Where to

eat :

Wash down a New York-style slice from Pizza Delicious with a bratwurst from its neighboring biergarten Bratz Y’all.

Where to drink :

A former smoke-filled locals-only lounge, Bud Rip's has cleaned up but kept its dive vibe.

Where to discover the record you didn’t know you needed: Euclid Records stocks two floors with lovingly organized aisles for new releases in all genres as well as classic funk and R&B, jazz, country, punk, metal, and unclassifiable noise.

The recently closed Piety Street Recording studios housed sessions with artists from Elvis Costello and Tom Waits to the Cash Money Records roster and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

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2017 – 2018

Poland AV ENUE

PHOTO BY D. ERIC BOOKHARDT

BEFORE ST. CLAUDE AND CLAIBORNE AVENUES MEET their respective bridges, the upper 9th Ward’s last stop is a treelined strip anchored by a glimpse of old school New Orleans (inside the neon-lit dining room at seafood hub Jack Dempsey’s) as well as the new.

Local and national musicians moonlight as avant-garde performance artists at the Music Box Village on Rampart Street at the edge of the Industrial Canal, and technicolor dive Bar Redux hosts poetry readings, alternative artists and other fringefocused events.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

Barflies, service industry workers, people on dates.

Where to

eat :

You’ll smell the neighborhood’s venerable smokehouse The Joint on Mazant Street before you see it.

Where to drink :

The two-story, illuminated tiki courtyard at Bacchanal for wine and cheese or small (and big) plates, and Parleaux Beer Lab for small-batch microbrews and pop-up restaurateurs.

Where to get the blues: Cash-only dive BJ’s Lounge for people-watching, solitary bar hanging or catching blues guitarists, singer-songwriters and barroom rock ’n’ roll.

A vacant naval base looming over the foot of Poland Avenue and Chartres Street was built in 1919.

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2017 – 2018

St. Claude AV ENUE

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

BEFORE HURRICANE KATRINA AND THE LEVEE FAILURES, St. Claude was a gritty, workaday boulevard of furniture stores, knickknack shops and fastfood joints. It roared back big time with several music clubs, the New Orleans Healing Center complex and a fascinating patchwork of restaurants.

Where to hang out: The New Movement comedy theater has cheap (or free) stand-up, sketch and improv shows, and the back patio bar (Rosewood) has some of the best prices on St. Claude ($2 PBRs).

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

Musicians and artists on bikes; Airbnb tourists wheeling luggage; neighborhood folks just trying to get by.

Where to

eat :

Junction serves burgers and a few salads in a low-key New Orleans pub atmosphere (you must be 21 to enter), with 40 kinds of beer, a back patio and late-night dining till 1:30 a.m.

Where to drink :

Pull up a stool to the horseshoe-shaped bar at AllWays Lounge and you might see burlesque queens, drag queens, musicians and others on the cabaret stage — or bending an elbow next to you.

The surreal Saturn Bar has held down its 9th Ward corner of St. Claude for more than 50 years.

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2017 – 2018

Tulane AV ENUE

PHOTO BY NICOLE FRANZEN FOR DESIGN HOTELS

ONCE A STRETCH OF NO-TELL MOTELS AND BAIL BONDS SHOPS interrupted by the imposing Orleans Criminal District Court, this broad boulevard has been popping with new life in recent years and now is anchored by the new Veterans Administration hospital at its downtown point.

Where to swim: The Drifter Hotel (pictured) is a restored mid-century motel with a public pool scene (admission applies) that often includes DJs and food pop-ups.

YOU OUGHTA

KNOW

Who you’ll

see :

Lawyers and cops by day; not many people walking after dark.

Where to

eat :

Avery’s on Tulane is only five years old, but its innovative-but-not-gimmicky takes on sandwiches (Buffalo shrimp po-boy, red beans and rice veggie burger) has established its bona fides.

Where to drink :

Just off Tulane and across from the courthouse, SideBar attracts attorneys, cops and neighborhood folk with beer and craft cocktails. Bar snack tip: Try the “Cajun hummus.”

The terminus of Tulane Avenue was home to New Orleans’ Chinatown until the 1930s.

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2017 – 2018

T HE

OtherDIREC T ORY

RAISE A GLASS, A PINT OR A GROWLER at breweries

and taprooms in New Orleans.

Brieux Carre 2115 Decatur St., (504) 304-4242; www.brieuxcarre.com Broad Street Cider & Ale 2723 S. Broad Ave., (504) 405-1854; www.broadstreetcider.com Courtyard Brewery 1020 Erato St.; www.courtyardbrewing.com Crescent City Brewhouse 527 Decatur St., (504) 522-0571; www.crescentcitybrewhouse.com Gordon Biersch 200 Poydras St., (504) 552-2739; www.gordonbiersch.com/ locations/neworleans NOLA Brewing 3001 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 896-9996 www.nolabrewing.com Parleaux Beer Lab 634 Lesseps St., (504) 702-8433; www.parleauxbeerlab.com

Port Orleans Brewing Co. 4124 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 266-2332; www.portorleansbrewingco.com Royal Brewery New Orleans 7366 Townsend Place, Building B, (504) 415-8444; www.royalbrewerynola.com Second Line Brewing 433 N. Bernadotte St., (504) 248-8979; www.secondlinebrewing.com Urban South Brewery 1645 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 267-4852; www.urbansouthbrewery.com Wayward Owl Brewing Co. 3940 Thalia St., (504) 827-1646; www.waywardowl brewing.com

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