5 Best Restaurants in New Orleans, Louisiana

If the Gilded Age is long past, someone forgot to tell the folks at August, where the main dining room shimmers with masses of chandelier prisms, thick brocade fabrics, and glossy woods. Service is anything but stuffy, however, and the food showcases the chefs' modern techniques. Nothing is mundane on the seasonally changing menu, which might include handmade gnocchi with blue crab and winter truffle or rabbit cassoulet with andouille sausage. Expect the unexpected—like pecan-smoked Two Run Farm's beef—and a truly remarkable vegetarian menu can be prepared upon request. The sommelier is happy to counsel you on the surprisingly affordable wine list.

"New World" is the label Louisiana native Susan Spicer applies to her cooking style, the delicious hallmarks of which include goat cheese croutons with mushrooms in madeira cream, a Bayona specialty, and delightfully flavorful vegetable soups, like Caribbean pumpkin or cream of garlic. The imaginative dishes on the constantly changing menu are served in an early-19th-century Creole cottage that glows with flower arrangements, elegant photographs, and trompe-l'oeil murals of Mediterranean landscapes. A legendary favorite at lunch is the sandwich of smoked duck, cashew butter, and pepper jelly. Don't skip the sweets—a changing menu of homemade ice cream, panna cotta, and pastries.

This vine-covered neighborhood bistro doesn't have a sign, but that hasn't stopped the national food media from finding it. Lauded chefs cook with elegant confidence in a classic French style, but with surprising bursts of understated creativity, which can be seen in dishes like seared scallops with parsnip purée and pickled chanterelles. At Gautreau's, even the simple roasted chicken satisfies, and everyone should indulge in the caramelized banana split at least once. An older crowd of well-dressed regulars monopolize most of the tables in this dark, quiet space that once housed a pharmacy, but if you can get a reservation, you'll feel like you've gained admittance to an elite club.

Proprietor-chef John Harris uses French and Italian culinary traditions as springboards for Lilette's inspired dishes. Look for Italian wedding soup, roasted Muscovy duck breast, and fresh crudos. A slightly syndicated lunch menu is equally satisfying. The wine list has been thoughtfully chosen. Framed mirrors hang along the maroon walls of the intimate front dining-room-cum-bar, and there are also a few tables filling out a second room and a heated patio.

The joke used to be that New Orleans had a thousand restaurants with only one menu. But today you'll find a dizzying array of culinary creativity, and nowhere pushes the boundaries further than Root. They serve, for lack of a better word, "molecular gastronomy" cuisine, the kind of food created by chefs who grew up admiring Mr. Science as much as Julia Child in a fittingly on-trend dining room accented with bright pops of color. The menu changes frequently but expect to find dishes like hot and sour lemonfish with horseradish "snow," sweet tea fried chicken wings, and scallops perfumed with actual Cohiba cigar smoke. A menu with plates of various sizes helps keep the cost in check. Does it always work? No. Is Root always an adventure? Yes.