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

No shade to Cafe du Monde, but the beignet experience at Morning Call, located far from the tourist droves in bucolic City Park, is sublime. Rickety canisters of powdered sugar grace each table, for a choose-your-own sugar flurry adventure. There are dripping oaks all around, the beignets are hot and pillowy, and if you’re in need of sweet fortification, order yourself a frozen cafe au lait.

On paper, nothing about Maypop computes. A semi-fine-dining restaurant where Cajun meets Italian meets Chinese meets Indian meets Southeast Asian. Don’t think too hard. Just eat. The bibb salad with chaat-style seasoning pops with so much flavor, we know someone who ordered two of them, one after the other. Be sure to have pasta, which might be semolina fusilli with shrimp, coconut cream and tomato jam, or spicy lamian noodles with blue crab and sausage. During weekend days, there’s a dim sum–style menu with absurdly tasty dumplings and savory pancakes.

High Hat bills itself as a restaurant inspired by the Mississippi Delta. That would be a reference to the area in the northwest of the state of Mississippi where the blues were born. Hot tamales are a fixture in the region, and they’re on the menu at High Hat, pliant and porky and served with a side of drippings. The fried catfish is probably the finest in New Orleans city limits, and if you’ve been partying your way through the City That Care Forgot, get yourself a pimento cheese burger and a side of braised greens to steady yourself until your next adult beverage.