Yakuza House opened in Metairie in spring 2020, specializing in sandos, hand rolls, and donburi bowls in an adorable and tiny building on Vets Boulevard, one that feels perfect for the intimate nature of the food. Hand rolls are made fresh at the six-seat sushi bar and delivered to customers immediately, along with nigiri and crudo, and on the non-raw side, Japanese sandos with fried chicken cutlet or egg salad and donburi rice bowls. Dishes and proteins will rotate, as chef Huy Pham wants to keep the small menu fresh for customers.

Seafood Sally’s is a hotly-anticipated second restaurant from Caitlin Carney and Marcus Jacobs of Marjie’s Grill, serving a menu of oysters, boiled, fried, blackened, and broiled seafood, hot fried chicken sandwiches, and all-you-can-eat crab feasts. Chef Joshua Blue leads the kitchen at the Oak Street space most recently home to La Casita, which now boasts a raw bar, semi-private back room, and outdoor seating.

Pythian Market food stall and former Central City restaurant 14 Parishes now has a restaurant serving Jamaican specialties on Oak Street, taking over the former location of pizza chain Mellow Mushroom. The new restaurant is two stories, with bars on both levels; the upstairs loungey area can be rented out for private events, and the bar on the ground floor is focused on rum cocktails. The opening menu includes salmon sliders, a smoked herring board, and traditional Jamaican patties to start; jerk chicken and ribs, a whole red snapper prepared two ways, and curry chicken.

Get ready for a trip at Mister Mao, Uptown’s brand new tropical roadhouse. Located in the former Dick & Jenny’s on Tchoupitoulas Street, owners Sophina Uong and William Greenwell have transformed the homey building into a bright, funky spot featuring roving carts of small plates, excellent cocktails from the back bar, and fresh, inventive takes on global cuisine. Don’t miss the pani puri, escargot Wellingtons, or octopus aguachile, but be sure to leave room to snag special small plates off the roving carts and to try, ideally, all of the incredible desserts.

Adding to a seemingly never-ending wave of taco joints to hit New Orleans, the long-awaited heavy metal and South American folklore-themed El Cucuy is now open on Tchoupitoulas. The trompo-style taqueria revolves around a large, shaded dining deck adjacent to the restaurant, and is also open for dine-in and takeout.

This downtown restaurant can be found in the new Virgin Hotel New Orleans, who tapped Alex Harrell for the food program, a well-known local chef who’s led the kitchen at Sylvain, Angeline, and most recently, at the Elysian Bar. The menu of contemporary Southern-American cuisine includes highlights like smoked potato croquettes with trout roe, a steamed corn flan topped with pickled watermelon rind and blue crab, and sourdough cavatelli.

This spot is the buzzy New Orleans expansion of Austin’s Elizabeth Street Cafe, a popular all-day cafe serving French-Vietnamese pastries for breakfast and Vietnamese specialties for lunch and early dinner, like ginger-chili oil dumplings, banh mi, and chicken laap. Two Austin hospitality veterans partnered with the Hotel Saint Vincent to replicate the cafe at the hotel, as well as to create its other restaurant, San Lorenzo. Elizabeth Street Cafe also serves cocktails and natural wine, coffee and tea, and desserts including strawberry guava jam or lychee raspberry jam beignets, a dark chocolate pot de creme with miso caramel, daily macarons, and a Nutella eclair.

Pluck is a new wine bar in the Warehouse District that, notably, serves food from the former chef at Mimi’s in the Marigny, a now-closed dive bar loved for its excellent late-night tapas menu. Heathcliffe Hailey is now cooking at Pluck, opened by sommelier Skye LaTorre. Hailey serves Spanish-inspired pintxo-like snacks and charcuterie, as well as small plates like fried frog legs, roasted quail, and shrimp pastis.

Peacock Room is the restaurant in the new Kimpton Hotel Fontenot downtown, the the restaurant snagged Chris Lusk, a longtime New Orleans chef who has cooked at Restaurant R’evolution, Cafe Adelaide, and the Caribbean Room, for a menu of dishes like fruits de mer pho made with cashew hoisin, grouper, shrimp ramen, and crab boulettes; chicken and eggplant fricasse with tomato and toasted farro; and black lentil vadouvan curry. The cocktail program is also a standout, curated with hard-to-come-by spirits and cocktails like the Primp and Preen, made with mezcal, white rum, orgeat, fresh citrus and blue curaçao; a Ruby Bridges made with gin, Cynar, citrus, strawberry, and basil; and the Sackcloth and Ashes, with Toki Japanese whisky and Amaro Montenegro (and mysteriously, “umami”).

August 2021 brought the debut of the Four Seasons New Orleans along with Miss River, Alon Shaya’s restaurant in the hotel. Miss River intends to offer the kind of special occasion, luxurious dining experience you might expect from a Four Seasons property, serving modern Louisiana fare like clay pot dirty rice topped with seared duck breast and duck egg yolk; a Louisiana oyster patty with puff pastry and caramelized mushrooms; salt-crusted red whole red snapper; and whole buttermilk fried chicken.

The husband and wife team behind Budsi’s Authentic Thai opened their much-anticipated restaurant of the same name in December 2020 after popping up at Pal’s for years. Chef Budsaba Mason offers a menu of familiar Thai food like drunken noodles and pad thai as well as Isan specialties like waterfall pork, beef and chicken larb, fermented fish, crab som tam, and mango sticky rice.