Alton Brown is Crowdsourcing NOLA Restaurant Recommendations

Alton Brown is asking for dining recs for his late April visit New Orleans while on tour for his Eat Your Science multimedia variety show. The show “features audience participation, food and science demonstrations and ... song,” reports Ann Maloney. Twelve hours before he rolls in, he’ll check his Facebook and Twitter accounts for the restaurant recommendations (hashtag: #ABRoadeats).

Unfortunately, dinner isn’t an option on this short trip. He’s considering “a coffee shop, have breakfast or a doughnut, and then, after his 2-1/2 hour show, he will want a late-night snack.” According to Maloney, Brown’s must-do restaurant on his New Orleans visits is Parkway Tavern, where he gravitates toward the shrimp poboy and also “the whole menu.”

His coffee shop, breakfast/doughnut, late night snack itinerary closely looks a lot like the way he ate on his 2014 trip to New Orleans. During that trip, his Instagram feed showed him at Cafe Beignet for that morning sugar surge. By lunch, he’d found room in his stomach for his beloved Parkway shrimp poboy. That year, he crowdsourced muffuletta suggestions and ended up trying both Cochon Butcher and Central Grocery. His “late-night eats” were doughnuts for the team from District Donuts.

Brown says he won’t eat anything in New Orleans that isn’t coming from those social media suggestions. Brown’s variety show will take place at Saenger Theatre, on April 26 at 8 pm.