At Galatoire's, the grand dame of New Orleans cuisine, the word is tradition. This DiRoNa award-winning, Gourmet magazine-top-25 restaurant continues to serve outstanding French Creole food under the direction of the restaurant's fourth-generation family-members. Presented in opulent dining rooms with beautiful table settings, the food itself is simple and elegant, authentic New Orleans fare. Patrons will be happy to know that the restaurant's previously unwavering policy of "no reservations" (not even for presidents) has been slightly altered. They now allow reservations for the second-floor dining room. To sit in the original main dining room downstairs, though, you'll have to wait in line like everyone else, but it's well-worth your while for the shrimp remoulade and poisson meunière amandine. Full bar. Jacket required for dinner and all day Sun. Serving lunch and dinner Tue–Sun. Closed Mon.
Where the Locals Eat Rating
Best Cajun/Creole, French Quarter
Top 100 Restaurant, New Orleans
"The grand dame of New Orleans' old-line restaurants, Galatoire's has remained committed to culinary excellence for more than a century. Under the guidance of the fourth generation of family ownership, it is her time-honored customs that still bind this renowned restaurant. Above all others, her rich tradition of serving authentic French Creole cuisine at a level that raises consistency to an art form. It is often said that the beauty of Galatoire's is that things never change."
–Galatoire's website
"Still the finest practitioner of traditional French-Creole cooking anywhere. And still America's rowdiest blazer-required restaurant."
–Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune
". . . some of the Best French-Creole cuisine in the city."
–Gambit Weekly
"This is the kind of restaurant where locals go to see and be seen."
–Offbeat Magazine
"Galatoire's first-floor dining room oozes old-world gentility with tiled floors, lace curtains, and mirrored walls (the better to people-watch, my dear)."
–Condé Nast Traveler
"Don't miss out on the terrific creamed spinach and the puffy potatoes with béarnaise sauce, which will make you swear off regular french fries forever."
–Frommer's
How Others Rate Galatoire's
Zagat 2009
27 Food Quality (extraordinary to perfection)
The Times-Picayune
Top 10 Restaurant, 2008
The New Orleans Menu by Tom Fitzmorris
**** (excellent and ambitious)
New Orleans magazine
Best Place for Creole Food, 2009 readers' poll
James Beard Foundation
Outstanding Restaurant 2005