Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon

Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd

Some restaurants are time machines. They show us what it was like to eat dine out in the days before everything was artisan this or that. When if you didn't live in the neighborhood, you wouldn't even know about the existence of that restaurant's neighborhood cafe, and they wouldn't know you. Where nearly all the customers are regulars. And--best of all--how the kitchen cooks the way it did before restaurants could buy everything pre-cut, pre-seasoned, and maybe even pre-cooked. Not to mention probably frozen. Fury's is a restaurant like that. Its customers remember all those time-machine qualities, because they themselves were around back in those days.

Uptown 1: Garden District & Environs

Delmonico is the best restaurant directly on a Mardi Gras parade route--even though it's closed on Fat Tuesday and Monday. The rest of the year, it's my kind of restaurant. Its menu is dominated by classic French-Creole dishes updated with current ingredients and kitchen techniques. They play the same game with the dining rooms, enclosed in a century-old building that nevertheless has a decidedly contemporary feel.