Located in a white clapboard building on a quiet stretch of highway on the Westbank, walking into Mosca’s feels like coming in from the cold. The lights glow soft yellow, the food comes out family-style, and New Orleans’ own Louis Prima croons from the jukebox. It opened in 1946 with real mafia ties (a New Orleans crime boss used to be the landlord) and today slings garlic heavy dishes like spaghetti Bordelaise, cooked perfectly al dente, chicken a la Grande, red gravy, and oysters Mosca (oysters mixed with Italian seasonings, topped with breadcrumbs, and baked).

Prudhomme’s prize pupil, Frank Brigtsen, opened this namesake charmer in a cozy and tidy Riverbend shotgun with his wife, Marna, in 1986. Since then Brigtsen has become one of the most respected chefs in New Orleans with his inventive Creole/Acadian cuisine. He serves his New Orleans style barbecue shrimp with shrimp calas, a once nearly extinct fried rice ball that street vendors used to sell near the French Market.

Tucked inside the charming Uptown neighborhood known for Creole cottages and air perfumed with night-blooming jasmine, you’ll find Perlis-clad Uptowners dining on Clancy’s decadent, fried, cold-smoked, crab-topped soft-shells over white tablecloth topped tables as waiters who still wear tuxedos keep the bourbon flowing. It’s as good a homage to the soft shell as there ever was. Reservations are a must.

This secluded Uptown gem first opened its doors in 1982. All these years later, this restaurant still feels like a discovery, but it’s under-the-radar by design: The restaurant doesn’t even have a sign. Housed in a century-old building that was once a pharmacy and camouflaged in a leafy residential neighborhood, the dining room buzzes with well-heeled locals enjoying rich and multilayered preparations of Gulf seafood, duck and lamb, and fresh pasta.

This 1930s-era, working class steakhouse in the Milan neighborhood has held onto its status as a New Orleans institution throughout the decades. Chef Aaron Burgau has only improved on the old-school service, churning out high-quality steaks and classic sides, with favorites like onion rings, creamed spinach, and potato gratin, in the simple, throwback space. 

Casamento’s oyster-shuckers have been holding court on Magazine Street since 1919, when this family-owned oyster classic opened. Per tradition, the restaurant closes during the summer as it has since it was difficult to keep oysters cold during hot months. What to order: raw oysters; an oyster loaf (like a fried oyster po’ boy, but on toasted, thick, white sandwich bread); and a Dixie beer. Casamento’s Creole style gumbo is the opposite of the dark and rich gumbos that have become so popular. Instead, it’s filled with tomatoes and okra, making it somewhat lighter.

A late 19th century corner store that became a sandwich-slinging pool hall and finally a come-as-you-are, neighborhood restaurant in 1932, Mandina’s serves comforting, old school Creole Italian seafood and other New Orleans classics (like po’ boys, gumbo, and red beans). Get the Wednesday special, daube spaghetti, or Thursday’s bruccialone (veal rolled and stuffed with spinach, egg, and seasonings) with shell pasta.

A neighborhood bakery dating back to 1911, which added the “poor boy” to the menu when it was invented in the 1920s. While the place closed in 1993, current owner Jay Nix resurrected the landmark Parkway Bakery & Tavern in the early aughts, serving some of the finest po’ boys in town.

It started as a neighborhood bar near the horse tracks in 1936. Sixty years later, James Lemarie and Billy Gruber bought Liuzza’s by the Track and turned it into the quintessential neighborhood corner joint and the unofficial gathering place for Jazz Fest. Order the garlic oyster po-boy and a cold beer, served in a large frosted goblet.

The wet-battered fried chicken at this Treme soul food institution (open since 1957) is the stuff of legend, which is why the line to get inside Willie Mae’s Scotch House usually wraps around the building. The best bet for getting in quickly is to come with a party of two. Do yourself a favor and get the mac and cheese too.

The legendary Dooky Chase’s turns out a mean gumbo and what some consider the best fried chicken in town, and is regarded for its place in the Civil Rights movement and its collection of African-American art. A lunch buffet isn’t a fair description of the spread of glorious dishes that feeds a steady lunch crowd: fried chicken, lima beans, and sausage, among others. One of the most beloved restaurant meals of the year is on Holy Thursday at Dooky Chase, when the restaurant serves its famous gumbo z’herbes.

To last more than a century means embracing tradition and change, something this huge restaurant with its labyrinth of dining rooms does well. A grande dame of French Quarter dining, Arnaud’s offers impeccable service and Creole dishes that are still on point. Arnaud’s is also home to the award-winning French 75 Bar. Whatever you do, have the souffle potatoes with drinks to start.

This 100-year old restaurant was scooped up by Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts, a huge local restaurant group that dusted it off and gave it a good polishing in a million dollar renovation in 2013. The restaurant is white tablecloth, but the dress code is casual, so diners in flip flops and shorts sip wine at tables next to those in ties and jackets. Have drinks at Broussard’s swanky bar and dine in the lush courtyard if the weather permits.

Inside Brennan’s iconic pink Royal Street building, breakfast is a hedonistic, multi-course affair complete with dessert, cocktails, and many more cocktails against a backdrop of jubilant and lavishly colorful dining rooms, many of which look out at the brick courtyard and turtle pond through huge plate glass windows. Brennan’s gets the credit for creating the bloody bull (a twist on the bloody Mary with the umame-rich saltiness of beef bouillion), bananas Foster (a flamed dessert of bananas, rum, cinnamon, and sugar over vanilla ice cream that is as good as legend says it is), and eggs Hussarde (English muffins, coffee-cured Canadian bacon, hollandaise, and marchand de vin sauce).

The oldest continuously operating restaurant in America, this sprawling French Quarter jewel box is a maze of elaborate, storied dining rooms run by waiters that may have been there 50 years. What to order: oysters Rockefeller, which originated at Antoine’s; cafe brulot, a devilish coffee and cognac drink flamed tableside (also created at Antoine’s); and ethereal souffle potatoes puffed up like pride contained in the a fragile shell.

Named for the famous Frenchman intended to live there after his exile from France, Napoleon House is a 200+ year old historical landmark. The speakers play classical music and there’s a lovely courtyard. Order a Pimm’s Cup and a muffuletta, served warm.

Ground zero for the muffuletta, a sandwich that packs Italian meats, cheese, and olive salad between slabs of sesame-topped Italian bread as big as a plate. The deli was once the go-to lunch spot for Sicilians working near the French Market at the turn of the century, who bought cheeses, meats, olives, and bread — and ate the food standing up or balanced in their laps. In 1906, Central Grocery’s Salvatore Lupo wanted to make things easier and this iconic sandwich was born (the name refers to the bread). Central Grocery serves its muffulettas room temp or cold, and they travel well. Eat standing up at the deli or at the nearby Mississippi River, but bring a friend to share.