Big City Weekender: NOLA

There are cities you visit and cities you feel. New Orleans belongs squarely in the latter. It hums with music, mischief, patina, beauty, and culture — where live music spills out of doorways, textured historic structures with iron balconies bedazzle the streets, and the past never quite stays in the past. A weekend here is about surrendering to rhythm, ritual, decadence, and the pleasure of lingering a little longer than planned. No one knows this better than NOLA native and designer (one of our obsessions), Alexa Pulitzer. These selections are from her personal guide to New Orleans; she updates the guide regularly at alexapulitzer.com.

Where to Stay

Choosing where to stay in New Orleans is as much about the neighborhood as it is about the hotel itself. The French Quarter remains iconic, but for those seeking a local vibe, the Garden District offers historic mansions with easy access to the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, and the cooler Lower Garden District offers walkability to Magazine Street shopping and restaurants. Newer hotels like The Chloe, The Columns Hotel and Hotel Saint Vincent are worth your reservation.

Where to Eat & Drink

Food in New Orleans is not a trend, it’s a birthright. Mornings begin slowly, perhaps soak up your hangover at Cafe du Monde with chicory café au lait and beignets dusted generously in powdered sugar. Lunch at Pesch, Lilette, or La Petite Grocery are not to be missed. In NOLA, seafood is the anchor—shrimp, oysters, crawfish, soft shell crabs, and redfish—prepared with reverence and restraint. Try everything on the menu at The Hermes Bar inside Antoine’s: the oldest restaurant in the French Quarter.

Dinner brings choices that feel almost overwhelming, from white-tablecloth Creole institutions to neighborhood bistros where the wine flows freely and the menu changes with the mood of the chef. The common thread is soul: dishes built on family recipes, local ingredients, and time-honored technique. Try Zasu, Herbsaint, or Emeril’s for an impressive NOLA experience. 

What to Do

The French Quarter reveals itself best on foot—Royal Street’s antique shops and galleries by day, Bourbon Street’s electric chaos by night (FYI: locals never go on Bourbon Street). Duck into lush courtyards when you can; many are hidden in plain sight. The Garden District offers a different pace entirely, with 300-year-old oak lined streets, grand manses, carriages drawn by horse, and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1’s iconic above-ground tombs.

Music is non-negotiable. Whether it’s traditional jazz, funk, brass band, blues, or something entirely unexpected, live music is the city’s bloodstream. Preservation Hall never disappoints. Skip the big venues at least once and find a smaller club like the Bayou Bar, Snug Harbor or Tipitina’s where the room fills with sound and strangers become companions by the second song.

For culture beyond the obvious, spend time with New Orleans’ layered history—its literary legacy, its culinary evolution, its complicated, resilient spirit. Museums like The Historic New Orleans Collection, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the National WWII Museum are not to be missed. Galleries, and historic homes provide context, but the real education comes from conversation: with a shop owner, a musician, a bartender who’s seen it all. New Orleans doesn’t ask to be consumed quickly. It asks you to step back in time and feel a pulse entirely different from the rest of America. It’s not called the most northern city in the Caribbean for nothing.