New Orleans 40-Updated for 2025
An Updated List of NOLA's Best Bars.
The New Orleans 40
It’s that time of the year—hot, sweaty—when Tales of the Cocktail stages its annual, week-long cocktail hour. So next week we will be heading down to New Orleans. In the past few years, my trips to Tales have been relatively brief, but this time we’re there for the whole week, allowing for plenty of visits to the city’s great restaurants and bars—both old and new.
Perhaps you, dear reader, are also venturing down to the Crescent City with an eye toward some fine eating and drinking. To that mind, The Mix is here reprinting the New Orleans 40, our round-up of the city’s greatest bars. We were gratified last year to find that many readers took the list up and visited many of the bars here tallied.
The businesses listed below (in alphabetical order) are limited to cocktail bars, wine bars, hotel bars, dive bars and neighborhood bars. I purposely omitted restaurant bars. New Orleans has many restaurants that have top-notch bars attached to them, including those at Compere Lapin, Broussard’s, Clancy’s, Sylvain, Cochon, and Brennan’s. But, as good as those programs are, they are secondary to the kitchen, and the food coming out of the kitchen is the primary reason people visit these places.
The entries are slightly revised this year, and now include suggestions on what to order there. There are also a couple additions and one subtraction (Black Duck Bar has closed).
As with last year, we reached out to some of the New Orleans bar industry stalwarts, city residents and long time Big Easy enthusiasts for insight. Their quotes and recommendations are peppered throughout (including words from the late Pableaux Johnson). A few of these wise men and women came back with some new recommendations, ones we’re certain to be looking into when we’re down there.
Brett Moskowitz said, “I will once again advocate for Cosimo’s in the French Quarter. A beautiful old bar in a quiet part of the lower Quarter. A great spot to conduct an interview over a Sazerac in the afternoon or for a nitecap.
Barman Chris Hannah recommended D.B.A., and the music halls Blue Nile and Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street; Palm and Pine for restaurants with good bar programs; Tell Me Bar “for natural wine enthusiasts who want to escape the Tales madness for banter over a bottle of wine.”
Writer Jenny Adams also suggested Tell Me Bar, “wine bar; fairly new, very cute, really cool bottle selection”; Anna’s in the Marigny, “honestly, the best bar we have in town. It's a MUST”; Parleaux Beer Lab, “because there isn’t much beer focused on the list and this place is awesome.”
Neal Bodenheimer, owner of Cure and other bars, said, “the space in Old Absinthe House has finally opened after a lot of stops and starts. It’s called Tatlo and seems well received out of the gate. Also Double Club is worth a look. Cocktail dive by bartenders.” We have also heard nice things about The Will & the Way in The French Quarter.
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And, now, the list!