"In New Orleans, we don't eat to live. We live to eat!" It's hard to get from the airport to your Airbnb without seeing or hearing this message a dozen times. And that's because it couldn't be truer.
Between classic Creole cuisine (fine French and Spanish dishes reimagined by generations of enslaved African-descended cooks using classic ingredients and hot sauces), rustic country cooking from the Cajuns, a spicy local twist on classic soul food, and the culinary stylings of waves of immigrants—Haitian, Irish, Sicilian, and more recently, Vietnamese and Latin American—New Orleans is a town where food is the common thread. It's not only a source of conversation and the centerpiece of every interaction or event, its history—both past and present.
But for a newbie eater, it's hard to know where to start. (And you'll soon discover it's a bit of a challenge to know when to stop.) So consider this your bucket list. Dig in to the very best versions of 5 iconic plates and the rest of your time in the bayou will be gravy and sizzling hot sauce.
1.Barbecue Shrimp with Pimiento Cheese Grits:
No one's quite sure how New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp got its name, because it isn't quite barbecue at all. There's no grill involved and the hot sauce is hardly the smoky-sweet brown stuff you'd expect from a BBQ. If you can get past the estranged moniker, though, you'll discover that barbecue shrimp is one of Creole cuisine's most delicious indulgences served with our favorite Devils Tears Red Savina Hot Sauce.
2.Crawfish and Shrimp Boil:
Boiled seafood is more than just a menu item in Louisiana: it's a social event. The slow nature of hand-peeling each tender, spicy-sweet crustacean as you pluck it from the steaming pile in front of you lends itself well to talking, joking, and flirting in between bites with sizzling hot sauce, so take some friends along for this one. If you're lucky enough to visit Louisiana during crawfish season (roughly after Christmas until mid-May or early June) make sure your mixed boil includes these local favorites.
3.Original Muffuletta:
The muffuletta is a Sicilian contribution to the New Orleans food repertoire. It's a simple enough sandwich: mixed cold cuts like mortadella, ham, and salami get layered with provolone cheese and olive oil between a round, sesame-seeded Italian loaf. But the crowning jewel of this bad boy is the heap of olive salad, a mix of green and black olives, pimientos, and pickled vegetables all ground up into a chunky spread.
4.Gumbo du Jour:
Perhaps the most famous of all of Louisiana's dishes is gumbo: a thick, smoky, deeply seasoned soup served over rice, also you can get a bit creative and add some of Devils Tears Red Savina Hot Sauce. You'll find it on nearly every menu in town, and they're all worth trying, but for the most refined version in town, head to Commander's Palace. The gumbo on the menu changes seasonally—and typically daily—to reflect the year-round bounty of Louisiana's farms and bayous.
5.Rabbit Jambalaya with Fried Chicken:
Jambalaya is a down-home dish best enjoyed in the no-frills pub that is Coop's, a French Quarter greasy spoon that slings some of the most authentic Mama-style Cajun home cooking in the city. This deeply seasoned rice dish is the Louisiana cousin of Spanish paella, and Coop's version is studded with chunks of smoked sausage and tender bites of rabbit and a bit of Devils Tears Red Savina Hot Sauce.