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.
Address: 941 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70117
Three Muses on Frenchmen pairs a small-plates kitchen with a low-volume music room, where Linnzi Zaorski and the Sam Doores rotate through the corner stage from early evening.
Tip: Reserve a table via the venue site; the bar walks in. Music starts around 19:00 with no cover, the room enforces quiet listening.
Bacchanal Wine in Bywater runs an outdoor backyard with nightly live jazz, a wine and cheese deli inside the cottage and Mediterranean small plates plated from the kitchen upstairs.
Tip: Music seven days a week. Pick a bottle from the shop, take it to the back patio. Weekend brunch sets start around 12:00.
Three Muses on Frenchmen pairs a small-plates kitchen with a low-volume music room, where Linnzi Zaorski and the Sam Doores rotate through the corner stage from early evening.
Tip: Reserve a table via the venue site; the bar walks in. Music starts around 19:00 with no cover, the room enforces quiet listening.
Compère Lapin's bar, inside the Old No. 77 Hotel, is Nina Compton's Caribbean-French cocktail room, with an exposed brick warehouse wall, mosaic floor and a long zinc-topped bar.
Tip: Walk in for the bar, Resy for tables. Order the goat curry with sweet potato gnocchi; the dirty rice arancini are the house snack.
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at Bourbon and St Philip is the candlelit 1772 cottage commonly cited as the oldest standing structure used as a bar in the United States, with no electric lighting.
Tip: Open until 03:00 most nights. Order the purple Voodoo Daiquiri; cash and card both work but the line in the back is faster.
Erin Rose on Conti, half a block off Bourbon, is the locals' Irish pub with frozen Irish coffees out front and Killer PoBoys serving sandwiches from the back kitchen until late.
Tip: Open 21 hours a day. The frozen Irish coffee is the order; cash bar runs faster than card on Saturday nights.
Molly's at the Market on Decatur is the journalist and bartender pub at the river end of the Quarter, open 10:00 to 03:00 with a frozen Irish coffee built almost as well as Erin Rose's.
Tip: The bar runs until 03:00 every night. Order the frozen Irish coffee at the counter; the front window seats people-watch the Decatur foot traffic.