Today, New Orleans local and Baldwin & Co. Coffee and Bookstore owner DJ Johnson joins Condé Nast Traveler to audit some of the internet’s most recommended destinations in NoLa—and weigh in on if there are other spots people should try instead. Where can you get the best Po’Boy? What’s the best spot to immerse yourself in the essence of New Orleans jazz? Is the National WWII Museum really a must see?
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00:00TripAdvisor is going to tell you that the number one place that you should visit when you come to
00:04New Orleans is the World War II Museum. It can't be the number one thing. That can't be real.
00:08It is real. That's a real thing. I will show it to you. Did you just make that up? I didn't
00:11make it up. I'm not lying. This is why we're making this video.
00:19I'm DJ Johnson. I'm the owner of Baldwin & Co. Coffee & Bookstore, and I am a local New Orleans
00:24expert. Today, we are going to challenge what the internet says you should do in my city
00:29versus what I, as the local expert, say you should do. Come along with us, and let's explore the city.
00:43Day one, you have to have a beignet when you come to New Orleans.
00:47The internet says Café Du Mal, but if you really want the best flaky, buttery, authentic beignet,
00:56you have to come to Loretta's. This trumps any beignet I've ever had, and I've been eating beignets
01:06since I was a toddler. I love Café Du Mal. No shade, but this is a completely different experience.
01:14This here is the world's famous crab stuffed beignet. It's absolutely delicious. Lump crab meat
01:20and a Creole sauce stuffed inside of a beignet. Loretta's is the first place to ever stuff beignets
01:28with anything. When you look at this, and you look at the flakiness and the buttery inside of this,
01:36when you open up a beignet from Café Du Mal, you don't get that. It's just dense. It's just doughy.
01:42Still delicious. It's just a different experience. This one right here, you can see the butter,
01:46how layered it is, and it's just a testament to how amazing they do here. Well, I got to start
01:52off with the savory. So this sauce is the remoulade sauce that you also put on top,
01:57that it just adds an extra layer of excellence to these beignets. There's so much lump crab that
02:04it falls out of the beignet. They're not shy with the lump crab meat.
02:17Next is the praline one. You can see the thickness of the praline just oozing out of the beignets.
02:29Loretta's is the first Black person to ever own a praline shop in New Orleans. It was the
02:36enslaved Blacks who created this amazing staple item in New Orleans, and we've never really been
02:43able to capitalize off it. We've never been able to really get our just due and our just credit for
02:47it. So for Loretta, in 1983, to open up Loretta's Praline, it was iconic, a testament to our
02:54strength, our resilience, our creativity, and just an amazing palette for delicious cuisine.
03:02This is it. This is it right here.
03:06New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz. So when you listen to hip-hop, you listen to R&B, you listen to country,
03:18listen to blues, everything that you're listening to in terms of music is an offset of jazz. So when
03:25you come to New Orleans, you have to see a live music show. Reddit says that we should visit Preservation Hall.
03:35I like Preservation Hall, but if you really want to get your feet moving, then you have to visit
03:41Le Bon Temps Roulette on Magazine Street. It's where some of our greatest musicians like Kermit Ruffin,
03:48Soul Rebels, have all come and paid their dues before they went on to reach the stardom of
03:53being the great musicians that they are today. It is a stark contrast to Preservation Hall.
03:58Preservation Hall, while you're going to hear some of our greatest jazz musicians, it is a sit-down,
04:03very calm, traditional jazz spot. Le Bon Temps Roulette is the everything opposite of that.
04:12It is bump, jumping, brass, music, heart, pumping, feet moving, screaming, shouting. It is that
04:19and wrapped up in just pure energy around the sounds of trumpets, drums.
04:33When you're coming to New Orleans, another cuisine that you have to absolutely have is a po' boy.
04:50Let's take a look and see what does the internet suggest on where to go to find a great po' boy in
04:55New Orleans. According to Yelp and Reddit, it says that you should go to Parkway Tavern. While Parkway
05:00is delicious, if you want to eat like a local, then I wouldn't recommend necessarily going to a
05:06restaurant. See, growing up, we never actually went to restaurants to actually get a po' boy.
05:10The best authentic New Orleans experience is at a corner store. My favorite corner store to go
05:16get a po' boy is Verdie Mart. They got everything that they would have at a CVS, a Walmart,
05:21and Canal Villery all in one. Then you walk a little bit to the back and then that's where
05:25you find the sandwiches. It's not just any sandwich. It's not a snack. It is so fulfilling
05:31that you're probably only going to be able to get half of it down. The history of the po' boy
05:36is invented by the Martin brothers. When the strikers used to walk into the restaurants
05:42and ask for sandwiches, they would always yell, oh, here come one of those po' boys.
05:48That was a symbol to get the strikers a sandwich, but it was a sandwich made of just like fried
05:53potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, whole bunch of toppings on this sandwich. That's how we got
05:59the po' boy. My favorite order is the shrimp and oyster on French fully dressed extra ketchup,
06:07the sandwich of champions. Look at the size of the shrimp that they put on these.
06:15Nice jumbo shrimp, perfectly fried. This is exactly what you're looking for when you come
06:19to New Orleans.
06:30Mardi Gras is a week's long celebration of food, music, parades, bands, festivities. It is all to
06:39celebrate the indulgence that you are supposed to engage in before lunch. Let's see what the
06:44internet says or where you should go to enjoy the flavors and fun and history of Mardi Gras 24,
06:507, 365 days of the year. The internet says that you should go to Mardi Gras World. However,
06:56as your local expert, I'm going to take you to a much better place. I'm going to take you to
07:01Backstreet Cultural Museum. Mardi Gras World is all about the props. Backstreet Cultural Museum
07:07is all about the people. Let me show you some of the most photographed parts of Mardi Gras,
07:14and that is the Mardi Gras Indians. The craftsmanship that goes into it is so detailed.
07:20Yes, all of the suits are hand-beaded and we refer to them as suits, not costumes,
07:25because these are true artists. They have to actually draw it out, bead through it,
07:30regular needle and thread, and sometimes dental floss because it doesn't dry right as fast as
07:36regular thread does. So they take 365 days of the year, hand-beading this, and it starts with
07:42what we call a patch, and a patch can be done from cardboard or canvas. A lot of people come
07:47thinking it's just all about the show and tell and the colors in the suit, but the significance
07:52behind this is that they're paying homage to our ancestors. To the indigenous tribes that helped
07:58enslaved blacks during the days of slavery, the millions of people that are coming to New Orleans
08:04are paying homage to black culture.
08:19So whenever people come to New Orleans, everyone wants the authentic New Orleans cuisine.
08:23So let's see where the internet says we should go. Yelp says Zesty Creole,
08:30and TripAdvisor says Old Nola Cookery. I'm going to tell you where the locals eat,
08:37because I gotta be honest with you, I'm not sure how either one of those places made the list.
08:43The best restaurant to visit for authentic New Orleans cuisine is Neal's in Mid-City.
08:49It is absolutely delicious, mouth-watering, char-grilled oysters. This is the one place
08:54where you can go to where you're going to feel like you're sitting in grandmother's kitchen.
09:00You see the sizzling butter? That's the buttery sauce that this is grilled with over an open flame,
09:09and they just pour it on top as it's being grilled with garlic, herbs, and parmesan cheese
09:16that is just baked into each oyster. You can never go wrong with more butter.
09:21It's not what the document says.
09:23He not from New Orleans. Take a piece of the classic New Orleans French bread,
09:30take your fork, and you want to soak up the oyster, the butter sauce, the garlic,
09:35the cheese. You want to just indulge all of it in one delicious bite.
09:40The crab claws sautéed.
09:44Spreaded pork chops and red beans and rice. Potato salad.
09:48The traditional New Orleans Creole cuisine is that perfect blend of cuisines and spices taken from
09:54African descent, French, Spanish, and Creole. This is blue crab claws.
10:02It's absolutely delicious. All the flavors
10:06packed inside of this little bitty piece of meat on this crab claw.
10:12You want to make sure you try to get all the meat off it.
10:14And we're in luck because today is Monday, and Monday is the day that everyone eats red
10:19beans and rice in New Orleans. I remember my grandmother, my mom,
10:22they would always make red beans on Mondays, and it was more so known as the stretch dish
10:27and it was more so known as the stretch dish because you don't feel like cooking Monday,
10:32Tuesday, Wednesday. So what you're going to do is you're going to make this meal for Monday,
10:36and that gives you a little bit of relief because you know that no one cooks red beans in a small
10:41pot. So you got red beans for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays.
10:45This is probably the most staple dish to New Orleans.
10:49Well, there's museums all over New Orleans that you can soak up this culture.
10:53So let's see what the internet says on where you should go, which museum that you should
10:57visit when you come to New Orleans. Well, according to TripAdvisor, the number one
11:02thing you should do when you come to New Orleans is visit the World War II Museum.
11:07However, as your local expert, I'm going to give you a much better experience and place to go.
11:12You see, New Orleans is a place that's been around for a long time.
11:17You see, New Orleans is a living museum throughout the entire area of the Treme.
11:24And particularly within the Treme, I recommend the New Orleans African American Museum.
11:32Hello.
11:33Hey, my dear. So good to see you again.
11:35You as well.
11:36Historic Treme is actually a really small neighborhood. It's about six square blocks,
11:41but there's so much history here. But a lot of that history is unmarked.
11:46So unless you know someone or you know an institution that can take you to those key places,
11:50you might miss really important parts of New Orleans history.
11:54On the back of our property, we have a masonry structure that was the home of Marie Laveau.
11:59So the infamous voodoo queen lived right here in Treme with her daughters.
12:03Not in the first quarter.
12:04Not in the first quarter.
12:04In Treme.
12:05Just right across the street is the Petite Jazz Museum that was founded by Mr. Al Jackson.
12:11He does a phenomenal job of telling the history of jazz.
12:25We're in Armstrong Park and we're headed towards Congo Square.
12:29This is an important center point for us in that it really does parallel the French Quarter.
12:36This was a gathering place for people of African descent.
12:39So on Sundays, they could sell things, they could exchange things,
12:42they could even find relatives or try to connect with relatives.
12:46So this was a really important cultural hub for us.
12:48And of course, you know, there was always drumming and dance and exchange of food and culture.
12:54This is what a lot of people get wrong about the city of New Orleans.
12:57They think the history of New Orleans is rooted inside of the French Quarters.
13:01But a lot of the history is rooted and begins right here in the Treme area of New Orleans.
13:18So everyone knows that New Orleans is well known for its ball culture.
13:21So let's see what the internet says we should go for a drink.
13:24So according to Yelp, it says that the best place is Carousel Bar.
13:29Wouldn't be the place that I would select.
13:32As your local expert, I would take you to one of the best
13:36hidden secrets of our ball culture here in New Orleans.
13:39It is a nerd chic, sexy environment that as soon as you walk in,
13:45you feel like you're in the essence of the Harlem Renaissance.
13:54So I've taken you to some of my favorite spots.
14:05Food, music, museums, beignets.
14:08Let me know what you think about my suggestions when you visit New Orleans.