25 June 2025
Eater editors recently visited New Orleans and ate through a long list of restaurants. We hit the classics, taking full advantage of the 25-cent martinis and turtle soup at Commander’s Palace, coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde, and French 75s at Arnaud’s. And then we hit the new cool kids in town, like Acamaya, Lagniappe Bakehouse, and the Kingsway, among plenty of others. Some dishes left us feeling wowed, while others sent us gasping for air (finishing a muffaletta from Central Grocery is not for beginners). In our first roundup of several more, here are the best dishes we ate around New Orleans in June, 2025.
Royal Reds Shrimp at Peche
Seafood spot Peche has served the New Orleans community since 2013, and it’s thankfully been able to avoid the usual patina of an early aughts restaurant — it still feels fresh today with intriguing specials featuring local seafood and produce. On a visit in June, I couldn’t resist a Royal Reds special since these crustaceans rarely make it up to the Carolinas.
The dish was a departure from the fried shrimp I’d been eating the rest of the week (not that there’s anything wrong with several po’boys on a trip to NOLA).
Chef de cuisine Nicole Mills, a native of the Philippines, often incorporates Southeast Asian flavors into her dishes. The special featured Royal Reds poached to an enviable tenderness that I could never recreate at home, ripe mango, thinly-sliced radish, a hit of jalapeño, red onions, mint, peanuts, a fish sauce dressing similar to nuoc cham, fried shallots, and crispy dried shrimp from Kho Market. Imagine crushing through the first layer of tiny crunchy shrimp to reach the succulent Royal Reds, and then plunging into fresh produce, a citrus tang, and more crunch from the nuts. It’s a most satisfying bite.
I could have stopped there, but I went on to the crab rice and catfish in a chili broth. Basically, you can’t go wrong with seafood here. — Erin Perkins, Eater editor, South.
Pan-fried rabbit and pickle jar at La Petite Grocery
I learned a lot about the local fare in New Orleans and the proteins that are so ingrained in the city: turtle soup, delicious boudin, and best of all, rabbit. La Petite Grocery serves an excellent paneed rabbit for lunch with spaetzle, wilted greens, and turnip puree for $38. It is a hearty meal enough to split among two people. The rabbit is crispy, and sings doused with a good zip of acid from capers and lemon (grenobloise sauce). It sits on a creamy turnip puree, which makes the dish luxurious without feeling too heavy. La Petite has an excellent wine list — you can’t go wrong with lunch bubbles in Collet Champagne or 2020 Lucien Albrecht cremant d’Alsace rosé with this dish. But here’s what sets this lunch apart. You can order a jar of pickles for $10 to accompany the whole meal. Pickled okra, carrots, and cauliflower cut right through that fatty rabbit. It’s a jar of joy. — Henna Bakshi, Eater regional editor, South.
Panzanella with crab from Mosquito Supper Club
Crab is my favorite food, so you know a dish is something special when the stuffed crab served on the side isn’t the part of the dish I’m most excited about. The dishes at New Orleans’ tasting menu-centric Mosquito Supper Club change frequently, so odds are that you may not get the opportunity to experience its stuffed crabs with summer panzanella. But if you can sneak there soon before tomato’s fleeting season ends, you’ll get the chance to try the most vivid version of the summer bread salad that I’ve ever had. Brightly acidic tomatoes, crisp cucumber, and crunchy croutons are paired with less-expected additions like butter beans, a hefty scattering of dill, and sesame seeds. A charred scallion vinaigrette, puckery with white balsamic, brings it all together. And yes, there’s also stuffed crab on the side, its filling tucked under bright-red blue crab bodies arranged artfully on a platter nearby. Participants at Mosquito Supper Club’s communal table share everything family-style — remember to be generous, or you’ll be tempted to snag a larger-than-fair portion of that salad for yourself. — Missy Frederick, Eater cities director.
All the restaurants with the best dishes Eater editors ate are listed in the Eater app.