There may no other American city that relishes the act of dining as much as New Orleans. It’s there in the iconic dishes of the city itself and its surrounding region of South Louisiana. The po’ boys, the gumbo, the crawfish boils, the ya-ka-mein, the sno balls. Restaurants are places to eat those dishes, sure. They’re also where you go to lose an hour or four, drink too much, eat to excess and sit with what matters in life: good people, good food and a grand time in a city where life and its troubles are always kept in crystalline perspective.

By Scott Hocker