Cure on Freret Street, opened by Neal Bodenheimer in 2009, took the James Beard Outstanding Bar award in 2018. The room sits inside a restored 1905 firehouse with a copper-clad back bar.
Tip: Walk in for the bar, Resy for a back-room seat. The seasonal menu changes quarterly; the bartenders will riff if you give them a flavour to chase.
Address: 4905 Freret Street, New Orleans, LA 70115
Cane & Table on Decatur runs a rum-forward tropical cocktail menu inside a worn 1830s shopfront, with a courtyard out back and a small late-evening kitchen of Caribbean small plates.
Tip: Open 17:00 to 22:00 nightly. Sunday dinner is the easier walk-in; weekend nights book the back courtyard via Resy.
The Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone opened in 1949 as the city's first rotating bar. The merry-go-round counter turns once every fifteen minutes around a single barback well.
Tip: Stools at the carousel itself rarely free up; arrive at 16:00 if you want one. The Vieux Carre cocktail was invented here in 1937.
Café Lafitte in Exile at Bourbon and Dumaine has run continuously since 1933, the bar that opened after Café Lafitte was evicted from 941 Bourbon, claimed as America's oldest gay bar.
Tip: Open 24 hours. The Sunday Napoleon House drag brunch carries on across the bar; Tea Dance Sunday afternoons are the institutional draw.
Bourbon Pub & Parade at Bourbon and St Ann is the corner gay bar with the open-balcony downstairs pub and the upstairs Parade dance floor, drag and DJ shows running through Southern Decadence.
Tip: Downstairs open 12:00 onwards; the Parade dance floor opens at 21:00 weekends. Cover for some weekend nights, none for the pub.
Oz on Bourbon Street, opened in 1993 across from Bourbon Pub, runs the big-floor gay dance club with dancers on the platforms, a drag cast and a long balcony over the street.
Tip: Open seven nights, 12:00 to 04:00 Thursday to Sunday. Drag shows nightly; weekend cover charged at the door.
The Phoenix on Elysian Fields opened in 1983 as the leather, bear and Levi command bar of the Marigny, with the upstairs Eagle running its own dress-coded fetish nights Wednesday to Sunday.
Tip: Open 24 hours, no cover. Upstairs Eagle closed Mondays. The Levi-Leather Lords of Leather host regular fetish nights.