TRAVEL & LEISURE, April 2002

America's Next Great Neighborhoods

Faubourg Marigny, New Orleans
By Malia Boyd

Just downriver from the overexposed and over-the-top French Quarter, the Faubourg Marigny is its low-profile, edgier cousin. It was named for former resident Bernard de Marigny, and perhaps that set the tone: a dissolute playboy, he inherited $7 million from his father in the early 1800s and lost nearly all of it playing craps. His obituary remembered him as "the last of the Creole aristocracy, one who knows how to dispose of a great fortune with contemptuous indifference."

A decline in the 1950s left the Faubourg (a French term for "neighborhood") and its glorious Victorians and Creole cottages orphaned, until a few brave souls started to reclaim the area in the seventies. Lately, the Marigny has cleaned up its act. Frenchmen Street led the charge, with new restaurants, bars, and live music  clubs crowding its formerly seedy sidewalks. An evening out involves a natural progression: Start with cocktails, move on to a multi-course meal, finish by shaking it all night to some fabulous band. So beware—a visit to the Marigny usually results in a dawn-lit crawl home. And that's fine, since the one pursuit that comes up short is shopping—perhaps everyone's too busy sleeping it off to open boutiques.

RESTAURANTS

Marisol, 437 Esplanade Ave. (foot of Frenchmen St.); 504/943-1912; dinner for two $65. Peter Vazquez cooks up eclectic food worthy of his equally varied clientele: blue-haired ladies whose only kicks are culinary ones, out-of-towners who lucked into a hot tip. If the weather's nice, beg for a courtyard table.
Praline Connection, 542 Frenchmen St.; 504/943-3934; dinner for two $50. Rib-ticklin' fried chicken and greens make Praline a soul-food favorite.
Café Negril, 606 Frenchmen St.; 504/944-4744; dinner for two $40. Get your hand around a Red Stripe and feast on Jamaican jerk fish in this brightly painted, but dimly lit, newcomer.
Adolfo's, 611 Frenchmen St.; 504/948-3800; dinner for two $50.  In his darling, treehouse-like restaurant, Chef Adolfo applies some serious New Orleans flavors to his Italian cooking. He dabbles in a variety of veal, pasta and seafood dishes; the Snapper Ocean is lightly breaded and sauteed with jumbo shrimp, crawfish tails, crabmeat and capers.
Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, 626 Frenchmen St.; 504/949-0696; dinner for two $70.  The nightly live jazz of musicians like Charmaine Neville and Ellis Marsalis at Snug Harbor is a given, but here’s what you can expect for food: shrimp remoulade, fried calamari, grilled chicken salad, crawfish etouffee, blackened fish, burgers, grilled steaks, and pecan pie — all prepared to order with little fanfare.  The meals do not include the entertainment, which is upstairs and requires separate advance reservations.
Marigny Brasserie, 640 Frenchmen St.; 504/945-4491; dinner for two $60. Café Marigny 1913 Royal St.; 504/945-4472; breakfast for two $16. Sister Creoles around the corner from each other. The café proffers a boisterous breakfast and lunch, while the brasserie "kicks it up a notch" (as someone else would say) at dinner.
Santa Fe, 802 Frenchmen; 504/944-6854; dinner for two $75. White tablecloths and impeccable service make for an elegant setting in this two-story Marigny restaurant, but the atmosphere is surprisingly casual and the emphasis on good food.  Santa Fe's menu is built on a foundation of Southwestern cuisine, but adds local flavor with abundant seafood and stirs up the exotic with unusual peppers and cheeses.
Wasabi, 900 Frenchmen; 504/943-9433; dinner for two $50. Here chef Phat Nguy serves up noodle bowls, soups, and sushi until 2 a.m. on the weekends at his new 50-seater digs.  Fried shrimp stir-fried in honey-wasabi sauce is proving to be a signature dish.

AFTER DARK

Checkpoint Charlie, 501 Esplanade Ave.; 504/949-7012. This Marigny chameleon hosts different bands (punk, jazz, country) every night. Lots of hometown acts get their start here.
Café Brasil, 2100 Chartres St.; 504/949-0851. The bands that perform here—often Latin on on weekends—attract such a throng that the party inevitably ends up spilling out onto the street.
Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, 626 Frenchmen St.; 504/949-0696. This is where you go to hear the best live, straight-ahead jazz in the city (and fill up on massive burgers and loaded baked potatoes). Ellis Marsalis, patriarch of the famed family of trumpeters, often performs here.
dba, 618 Frenchmen St.; 504/942-3731. Jaded neighbors call it a yuppie bar, but the clientele—dreadlocked, tattooed, and pierced—and the sparse industrial interiors look a little rough around the edges for such a label.
Spotted Cat, 623 Frenchmen St.; 504/943-3887. Not as sleek as its feline name would suggest, this new cat on the block features jazzy and acoustic fare that the mellow set finds appealing.