Weekend Cheat Sheet: Celebrating the New Year
Make resolutions in the New Year to explore the city you know and love.
Friday
Lunch at: Opened in the space that used to house Amici on Magazine Street, Warbucks is a brand new restaurant launched by BRG Hospitality and helmed by Chef Todd Pulsinelli. With decor inspired by rap music and skateboarding (two of the chef’s favorite interests), Warbucks offers a menu of unique diner items from shrimp rings with finger lime cocktail sauce and corndog elote to an all-beef frank with crab fat coleslaw and This Burger with Swiss cheese and red wine foie gras butter. 3218 Magazine St., (504) 309-5260, warbucksnola.com
Pick up something whimsical at: Though the location has changed, the campy shop Plum remains the same with funky gifts that are hard to resist. It’s a shop filled with an eclectic array of fun from vinyl album-covered journals and notebooks and edible-themed earrings from Glitterlimes to Molly McNamara pewter king cake charms and Edgar Allan Poe-ka Dotted men’s socks. Why not treat yourself or someone else to a smile? You just made it through another year after all. 1914 Magazine St., (504)897-3388, plumneworleans.com
Sip at: Enjoy craft cocktails, creative cuisine and live local music at Three Muses on Frenchmen Street. Owned and operated by Daniel Esses and Sophie Lee, this hip restaurant and music venue offers drinks like The Wildflower, a whiskey sour made with Tullamore Dew and a touch of elder flower and orange blossom. Dishes include blue cheese-stuffed dates and lobster lemongrass rangoons and there’s great, local musicians performing nightly from jazz pianist Tom McDermott and singer Gal Holiday to the Hot Club of New Orleans. 536 Frenchmen St., (504) 252-4801, 3musesnola.com
Saturday
Revive at: Enjoy a hot cuppa joe and a sweet pastry at Haydel’s Bake Shop on Magazine Street. An Uptown extension of the 60-year-old Haydel’s Bakery on Jefferson Highway, the new bake shop offers specialty coffee drinks brewed from French Market Coffee beans along with Haydel’s signature pastries and sweets New Orleanians have long known and loved. Sip on a hot mocha and munch on cinnamon scones, almond croissants, petit fours or a decadent turtle or two. (Tip: You might also want to pick up a king cake if it’s after Jan. 6.) 3117 Magazine St., (504) 267-3165, haydelbakery.com
Celebrate young talent at: On Jan. 12, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra will present Sheku Kanneh-Mason, a 19-year-old British cellist and BBC Young Musician Award-winner who will be bringing his talents to Louisiana and the Orpheum Theater for the first time. Called “technically superb and eloquent in his expressivity,” Kanneh-Mason’s performance will include Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor. 129 Roosevelt Way, (504) 274-4870, orpheumnola.com
Dine at: Opened late last year, Couvant features classic French cuisine crafted by Executive Chef Brad McDonald. Guests are free to sidle up to the long, oak bar for cocktails and small bites, grab one of the few seats at the quartz-topped oyster bar or reserve a table for a full breakfast, lunch or dinner either in the dining room or out in the fountained brick courtyard. Touting “brasserie fare that’s relevant yet faithful to tradition,” Couvant’s menu features dishes like verrine of chicken liver mousse, steak tartare, foie gras au torchon, moules frites and pistachio crème brûlée with fresh-from-the-oven madeleine. 317 Magazine St., (504) 324-5400, couvant.com
Sunday
Brunch at: Opened more than a decade ago by Chef Aaron Burgau and partners Leon and Pierre Touzet, Patois has quickly become a beloved classic. Emanating the aura of a cozy, French bistro with a little New Orleans flair, this neighborhood restaurant is helmed by Executive Chef Jonathan Lomonaco who offers a seasonal Sunday brunch menu of dishes like potato gnocchi with English peas and bacon, grilled lamb ribs with green tomato relish, fried Mississippi rabbit atop a buttermilk biscuit draped in white gravy and Ponchatoula strawberry pancakes. 6708 Laurel St., (504) 895-9441, patoisnola.com
Kick off carnival at: Don your kirtle and bonnet for a Twelfth Night and birthday celebration at the Joan of Arc parade! Known as The Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc became New Orleans’ own official saint with her first parade in 2008. Bring king cake to share and follow the krewe as they roll to toasts from the Historic New Orleans Collection, a sword blessing at St. Louis Cathedral and the crowning of a king at Washington Artillery Park. joanofarcparade.org
’Til the weekend’s over: Perched grandly on the corner of St. Anne and Chartres streets in the heart of the historic French Quarter, Muriel’s Jackson Square offers contemporary Creole cuisine from Executive Chef Erik Veney, veteran of some of the city’s finest restaurants. Enjoy dishes like pecan-encrusted drum, duck breast jambalaya, turtle soup with sherry and flourless chocolate cake in a lovingly restored, century and a half-old mansion in the heart of the French Quarter. You may even spot the resident ghost, Monsieur Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, who was first to restore the home after the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788. 801 Chartres St., (504)568-1885, muriels.com