Where Locals Actually Eat Near Frenchmen Street: A Culinary Tour Guide’s 4 Favorite Spots Within 2 Miles

We love eating. That is far from an original thought in this city. We love talking about food, also not unique. We have whole blog posts about Cajun Seafood, Frady’s, Loretta’s, and St Roch Market. We have interviews with folks who have local food spots like 3 Muses and Shift. I have made my living for almost 2 decades telling stories about the origin and history of neighborhood food. Besides those there are plenty of other places, some talked about plenty and some hardly mentioned. Here’s a few that mean a little extra to me.

1. Vaucresson's Creole Sausage Company (7th Ward)

📍 1800 St. Bernard Ave, New Orleans, LA 70116

Google Street View of Vaucresson Sausage: Vacant in 2016 and rebuilt as a new neighborhood classic in 2025.

Before Hurricane Katrina, Vaucresson was a pure neighborhood butcher and sausage shop. The kind of historic place that barely exists anymore. You’d walk in, wait on a short line, buy a few pounds of fresh green onion sausage made right on the premises, bike home, and stew it down in a Creole sauce with fresh tomatoes.

After a long-awaited return, they transformed their 7th Ward space into a classic, sit-down plate lunch restaurant that most visitors completely miss, but regulars fill.

It is hard to think of a place that better represents how locals eat —or how we wish we ate at home than Vaucresson. Gumbo, fried seafood, or anything starring their famed hot and green onion sausages will leave you full, happy, and without an emptied wallet.

2. The Open Grills & Trucks Outside Kermit’s Mother-in-Law Lounge (Tremé)

📍 1500 N. Claiborne Ave, New Orleans, LA 70116

Ernie K-Doe’s legendary museum-to-himself has taken on a whole new life under Kermit Ruffins. I may miss Ernie’s wonderfully chaotic decor, when it was a museum he dedicated to his own memory, but the stretch beneath the Claiborne overpass is jumping on music nights now.

Street food out here is real street food. It is born straight out of Sunday Second Line culture, where folks would hitch a charcoal grill to a trailer behind their truck, set up at the parade stops, and grill all day long, rolling through the neighborhood with the brass bands.

These days, the setup outside the Mother-in-Law Lounge is the perfect modern evolution, the same the second lines have seen. You still get those classic street vibes, but with an incredible variety of creative cooks who make the food look as good as it tastes. Every grill and pop-up truck has its own specialty—you can stand outside slurping smoky charbroiled oysters while the music spills right out the front door.

To me, this is the ultimate New Orleans meal: eating outside, standing up, listening to live music, and making a glorious mess.

3. Paladar 511 (Marigny)

📍 511 Marigny St, New Orleans, LA 70117

On the fancier side, but it never feels pretentious thanks to the wood tables, high ceilings, and friendly neighborhood vibe.

Back when I was younger, the industrial warehouse it occupies was home to Plan B (our city’s community bike project) and an anarchist bookstore. When the space first reopened as an upscale dining spot run by people from San Francisco who just moved here, I was aghast. At the old Bike Project building?! I swore I’d never step foot inside.

Six years later, I finally went and thought to myself: “I was an absolute idiot for not coming here for six years.” To me, no food review can beat that. I used to stubbornly think of it as the Bike Project building, but the handmade pastas, wood-fired pizzas, and one of the few places I’ve happily ordered chicken, have been so good for over a decade that now it’s simply Paladar.

The Best Part: It sits right in the Marigny. You can enjoy a world-class meal, take a safe, easy three-block stroll right over to Frenchmen Street for live music, and have your perfect New Orleans night.

4. Hank's Bar (St. Claude)

📍 2943 St. Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117

Not to be confused with Hank’s the convenience store down on St Claude Ave.

Hank’s Bar is relaxed during their early and all day lunch, before it turns into more hectic and busy party during the night. If someone sitting a thousand miles away closed their eyes and tried to picture what a true, New Orleans neighborhood bar & grill feels like, this is exactly what they’d see. So I won’t spoil it—as Big Freedia famously told us: “You already know.”

They roll out a different menu of home-style specials every day of the week (findable on their Instagram), but honestly, there's no need to plan around the menu. Whatever day you walk through the door, you’ll leave happy. Heck, just let the cook pick your plate for you. They’ll be just as happy to feed you as you will be to eat it.

Explore New Orleans Food on Two Wheels

The best part about dining in New Orleans is that the most memorable meals aren't clustered around valet parking stands—they are tucked into historic neighborhood corners because people won’t serve food at their restaurants they wouldn’t serve at home.

If you want to taste the city’s culinary heritage and see how the neighborhoods connect without worrying about traffic or reservations, hop on a cruiser with us on our New Orleans Culinary Bike Tour.