THE SOUTH
These Are the Michelin-Worthy Restaurants in New Orleans
Mosquito Supper Club
By Eric Barton | April 2, 2025
The Michelin Guide has never expanded to New Orleans. What that means for those of us who rely on Michelin to point us to a city’s finer restaurants is that we have to look elsewhere when traveling to the Big Easy.
Which is why I set out to find the New Orleans restaurants worthy of a Michelin star. To be clear, these aren’t all of my favorite New Orleans restaurants at the moment, which you can find here. Instead, the restaurants below are a collection of places that would likely impress Michelin’s notoriously fastidious (picky?) inspectors, places with impeccable service, dishes made with the finest ingredients, and restaurants that generally capture the spirit of the city.
Here then are the New Orleans restaurants that ought to be in the Michelin Guide.
Acamaya
3070 Dauphine St | Website | Instagram
Chef Ana Castro, a 2025 James Beard semifinalist, makes Mexican mariscos in a way that feels quietly revolutionary. Her dining room is small, almost spartan, which means the grilled whole fish or scallop crudo has nothing to hide behind. Acamaya is less about flash and more about reverence—for the food, for her story, and for the people who come ready to listen.
Alma
301 N Carrollton Ave | Website | Instagram
There are brunch spots that serve eggs, and then there’s Alma, where chef Melissa Araujo serves her roots. This Honduran café in the Bywater turns out baleadas and espresso-rubbed short ribs in a space that feels sunny even when it’s not. Alma recently added happy hour and dinner service, meaning you can now experience Araujo’s take on local dishes all day. There’s heart in every dish, and Michelin tends to notice when a place this casual refuses to phone in a single thing.
Bayona
430 Dauphine St | Website | Instagram
It feels wrong to call Bayona old-school when chef Susan Spicer’s menu still refuses to age. In a French Quarter cottage, she’s been pairing smoked duck with pepper jelly glaze since 1990, and it’s still one of the most surprising bites in the city. Michelin would have to give her a star just for sustaining excellence across decades and zero gimmicks.
Commander’s Palace
1403 Washington Ave | Website | Instagram
Yes, it’s a tourist magnet. This century-plus-old spot is also the training ground for Emeril Lagasse and the recipient of about as many James Beard Awards as you can fit in a press release. The turtle soup is still perfect, the dining room still turquoise, and the jazz brunch still somehow civilized even when the trumpet player is three feet from your cocktail. Michelin seems to prize the kind of restaurants that make a meal feel like something very special, and few places do that better than Commander’s Palace. But maybe the best reason that it deserves Michelin’s attention? The chef at this teal mansion of a restaurant, Meg Bickford, is not only the first Commander’s Palace head chef but also is a New Orleanian with Cajun and Creole recipes running in her blood, and it shows in cooking that brings new excitement to the local classics.
Compère Lapin
535 Tchoupitoulas St | Website | Instagram
Nina Compton trained at the French Culinary Institute, won a James Beard Award, and still makes curried goat that tastes like it could comfort an entire nation. Compère Lapin is a Warehouse District favorite, Caribbean in influence but unmistakably New Orleans in attitude. It’s one of the few restaurants where a business dinner and a third date would both make sense.
Dakar NOLA
3814 Magazine St | Website | Instagram
Born in Harlem and raised in Senegal, Serigne Mbaye could’ve opened a fine-dining tasting menu anywhere, but he did it in New Orleans, and thank God. Dakar NOLA is part memoir, part dinner, and wholly unique, earning him the 2024 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. Expect jollof rice, expect okra, expect to cry a little during dessert and pretend it’s the wine. Michelin seems to favor restaurants that tell a chef’s story, and this tale is a true original.
Emeril’s
800 Tchoupitoulas St | Website | Instagram
The flagship of a man who once shouted “BAM!” enough to become a catchphrase, Emeril’s is quieter these days—but better for it. The current six-course tasting menu is elegant, sharp, and reminds you that Emeril Lagasse is, in fact, a seriously talented chef and, more so these days, a renowned restaurateur. If you remember this place from a corporate dinner in the '90s, go back. It has decidedly grown up.
Gautreau’s
1728 Soniat St | Website | Instagram
There’s no sign out front and the curtains are drawn, which makes sense for a restaurant that aims to surprise you. Walk inside Gautreau’s and it’s all elegance—dim lighting, vintage mirrors, and a menu that takes its time. The kitchen leans French-Creole, with delicate sauces and thought-out dishes that quietly win you over in a city where bold flavors often reign.
Herbsaint
701 St Charles Ave | Website | Instagram
Donald Link’s bistro on St. Charles Avenue walks the tightrope between French refinement and Southern indulgence. The housemade spaghetti with guanciale and a fried-poached egg should probably be registered with the city as an official comfort object. Herbsaint is the kind of place you bring your in-laws, even if you don’t like them, just so they’ll shut up about the food.
Lilette
3637 Magazine St | Website | Instagram
A corner spot Uptown with tile floors and pressed white napkins, Lilette makes a case for restraint. No foams, no tweezer plating, just pristine oysters, buttery veal cheeks, and a wine list that feels curated by someone who has definitely had a hangover in Burgundy. It’s the date-night spot for people who already like each other.
Maypop
611 O'Keefe Ave | Website | Instagram
Michael Gulotta once ran the kitchen at August, and here he’s decided to marry Southeast Asia with New Orleans. Somehow, it works: charred cabbage in crab fat curry, tasso-spiced lamb. It’s not fusion—it’s more like parallel evolution, two traditions that probably would’ve found each other eventually.
Mister Mao
4501 Tchoupitoulas St | Website | Instagram
Self-described as “unapologetically inauthentic,” Mister Mao is where chef Sophina Uong lets loose—in the best possible way. The dishes rotate frequently, but staples like tamarind-glazed pork ribs and Vietnamese crawfish étouffée show a deep understanding of bold flavors and unexpected pairings. The dining room has tropical wallpaper, mismatched chairs, and the kind of energy that makes you stay for dessert whether you meant to or not.
Mosquito Supper Club
3824 Dryades St | Website | Instagram
This is not a restaurant; it’s a story told in seven courses. Melissa Martin grew up in Chauvin, Louisiana, and decided to make her Cajun upbringing the centerpiece of dinner. There’s gumbo, of course, and shrimp boulettes, and maybe a poem if you’re lucky. She won a James Beard Award for this, and it’s still somehow underhyped.
N7
1117 Montegut St | Website | Instagram
Hidden behind an unmarked wooden gate in the Bywater, N7 still feels like a secret even though you can now book a table like a normal person. The menu leans French-Japanese, with house-made duck liver pate, frog legs with sambal aoili and the kind of careful plating that makes you pause before eating. It’s moody in the right ways—candles flickering in wine bottles, Edith Piaf murmuring overhead, a place that rewards diners who don’t need a waiter explaining the concept.
Palm&Pine
308 N Rampart St | Website | Instagram
Palm&Pine is the answer to what happens when New Orleans flavors hook up with everything south of here. You’ll find Gulf oysters dressed up in mezcal mignonette, jerk goat with rice, and desserts that arrive in neon hues. The place hums with the controlled chaos of chefs Amarys and Jordan Herndon doing exactly what they want—and doing it well enough to deserve a star.
Patois
6078 Laurel St | Website | Instagram
Chef Aaron Burgau makes French food that went to high school in Louisiana. That means chicken liver mousse and gnocchi with rabbit, plus a dining room that feels like the kind of place you can linger without anyone polishing the silver at you. It’s quietly confident, and that’s saying something in this city.
Peche
800 Magazine St | Website | Instagram
Peche is a seafood temple where the flames never go out. Chefs Donald Link and Ryan Prewitt won a James Beard Award for this place, and it shows in the grilled whole fish and wood-roasted oysters. The dining room is noisy, the plates come fast, and it all works like a well-tuned parade route.
Restaurant August
301 Tchoupitoulas St | Website | Instagram
There was a time when this was the fancy restaurant in town. And though others have stolen some of the spotlight, John Besh’s flagship still delivers foie gras three ways and crab-stuffed Gulf fish with surgical precision. August feels a little more buttoned-up than the rest of the city—but Michelin likes their shirts pressed.
Saint Germain
3054 St Claude Ave | Website | Instagram
A tasting menu served in someone’s house, basically, with wine pairings that might surprise you and dishes that occasionally involve tweezers. There are only a few tables, and the chefs bring the food out themselves, so you’ll feel weirdly invested by dessert. It’s not just intimate. It’s surgical. In the best way.
Saffron
4128 Magazine St | Website | Instagram
Saffron is what happens when Indian flavors meet Gulf Coast ingredients and decide to throw a party. Chefs Pardeep and Arvinder Vilkhu serve pork vindaloo and curried Gulf shrimp in a room that feels more like New York than New Orleans. Michelin doesn’t usually reward spice—but they might make an exception.
Zasu
127 N Carrollton Ave | Website | Instagram
Sue Zemanick has a James Beard Award and a gift for making halibut feel special. Zasu is the restaurant where she finally gets to show off what she does best: exacting, seasonal dishes that don’t whisper, they murmur. It’s quiet here, yes. But the food is a revelation.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who spits his time between Asheville and Miami. He had a serious culinary moment when he had his first roadside boudin in Chauvin, washing it down with a very large daiquiri. Email him here.
