Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon

Warehouse District & Center City

Cochon fills a niche that, in New Orleans, went begging for attention for decades. Inspired by the many small butcher shops found throughout in Cajun country (but rare in the New Orleans area), it cures and smokes its own meats and sausages. With that resource Cochon creates a unique menu. It's related to but different from barbecue. This is home-style Cajun cooking, but the kind made from smoky-cured meats. There are seafood dishes, but they're in the minority on the menu. The result is convincingly Cajun and distinctive, if not memorable.

River Parishes

Appropriate to its history in colonial times, Middendorf's marks the farthest outpost of NOMenu's restaurant-rating purview. But through its entire long history, New Orleanians have always considered it to be as essential part of the dining scene, and worth the forty-mile trip to dine there. The long drive is an unacceptable complication for a fair number of enthusiasm-challenged people, who will tell you that it's overrated. Ignore such reports and, on the way out, have the essential debate as to which is the best way to eat Middendorf's famous fried catfish: thin-cut, thick-cut (that gets my vote) or whole fish. Then work on your appetite with images of the great raw and broiled oysters, the stuffed crabs, and the soft-shell crabs in their season (warm months).