Best-of list · City Guide
Our editors' picks for the best bars french quarter new orleans has to offer — cocktail bars, live music venues…. Cocktails, craft beer, hotel and dive
The short answer
10 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
No neighbourhood in America has a drinking culture as historically rich or as easily squandered on the wrong choices as the French Quarter of New Orleans. The best bars french quarter new orleans has produced have been serving serious drinks for over a century — and they sit within a block or two of some of the worst tourist traps in the country. We have sorted both. The list below covers the French Quarter bars worth your time, from the legendary to the recent arrivals that have already earned their place.
The French Quarter invented several of America's most important cocktails, and a handful of the bars where those drinks were first made are still serving them — with varying degrees of fidelity to the original. The ones below are the real thing.
How we picked
The French Quarter rewards visitors who engage with its history rather than trying to escape it. The cocktail bars above are serving drinks whose recipes were developed in these specific streets — that context makes the drink better, not worse. Start at Arnaud's French 75 Bar with a proper French 75, then work your way through the newer cocktail bars before finishing with a set at Preservation Hall.
Bourbon Street is unavoidable and not all bad — Fritzel's Jazz Pub makes the block worth it. The mistake is spending your entire evening there. The best French Quarter drinking moves between the historic bars, the courtyard spots, and the live music rooms — a circuit rather than a destination.
James has visited New Orleans more times than he can account for and has a running debate with himself about whether the Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt or Arnaud's French 75 Bar is the finest room in the city. Currently favouring Arnaud's.
Last reviewed 2026-05-17 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.