Favorite haunts
Warehouse & CBD
Coffee
Food
Peche
Sit at the bar and order too many oysters. And, shrimp cocktail. And, hushpuppies. Peche is the pure play for seafood - the best way to taste this city’s coastal bounty. One of my favorites for sure.
Cochon + Cochon Butcher
Donald Link makes the city’s best sandwiches at Butcher. At Cochon, he showcases his Southern Cajun roots. And they make the meats. And they bake the bread. And … it's good.
Drinks
Loa
If the room is the heart of a great boutique hotel, the bar is its soul. New Orleans’ most magnetic hotel bar, a local watering hole where, after a few sips and conversations with regulars and like-minded guests, a visitor stops feeling like a tourist and begins to navigate the city’s ways - to the delight of the locals, who in that same conversation renew our wonderment of this place we love and call home. Bourdain used to drink here. Tasting Table and Travel & Leisure- say, “ The bartender is a Faulkner-esque Southern mystic, his cocktails a far more beguiling guide to New Orleans than Fodor’s.”
Keife & Co
Creatively curated by a terrific guy - John Keife - it’s the best wine shop in town!
Shop
Rubbenstein Bros
New Orleans has been a special city for me. You’re only from one PLACE. The mix of architecture, food, music, col-orful characters, joyful culture and semi-tropical climate is unlike any other city in America. Ritual and passion everywhere. European, Caribbean and African influences. The welcoming warmth of local people. It’s good. In response to the hot climate, New Orleans' only fashion statement was born. Joe Haspel in-vented seersucker 112 years ago, and today, his suits - still made with puck-ered, lightweight cotton - have their own National Seersucker Day (June 13, 2021). Locals wear HASPEL seersucker from Easter to Labor Day, and I’ve en-joyed watching the seasonal parade of politicians, bankers, lawyers and fash-ionista doctors proudly sporting their suits. Buy one. Ask for Kenny Rubenstein.
Shoppes at Canal Place
If you must go to Saks, well, like … if you must go to Saks.
Others