Best of Guide: Crawfish
While hosting a crawfish boil on your driveway is something every New Orleanian looks forward to, sometimes it’s nice to just relax and let the restaurants do the heavy lifting. Some of these crawfish dishes are available year-round but boiled crawfish is seasonal so you have to get it while the gettin’ is good. Next to under your own carport or your neighbor’s backyard, pound for pound these are the best places to have your crustacean celebration in New Orleans. Get ready to pinch the tails and suck the heads!
Read: When is Crawfish Season?
French Market Restaurant & Bar
Follow that unmistakable crawfish boil smell to Decatur Street where you can watch a crawfish boil from the street through the front window at French Market Restaurant and Bar! They sell crawfish by the “boat” (in little handmade Cajun canoes) rather than by the pound. Mixed boats include sausage, potatoes, and corn. If you’re not feeling like peeling, order their from scratch Crawfish Bisque. We’ve never had better.
Deanie's Seafood
Along with great boiled crawfish, this popular seafood restaurant is home to several crawfish dishes including the Crawfish Quartet where you can taste New Orleans’ favorite crustacean four ways (crawfish étouffée, crawfish bisque, fried crawfish tails and crawfish balls.) Don’t miss Pinch-a-Palooza, their yearly crawfish festival.
Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar
Need another reason to come to New Orleans this spring? How about Fried Oyster Du Jour with Cream Sauce from Felix’s in the French Quarter? So fresh! So fabulous!
New Orleans School of Cooking
The New Orleans School of Cooking offers Company Crawfish Boils in their Riverview Room, overlooking the French Quarter on the Decatur Street Terrace. Boil packages include three pounds of crawfish per person with all the fixings (potatoes, sausage, mushrooms and garlic). For a few bucks more, you can add potato salad, watermelon salad or strawberry shortcake – and did we mention ice cold beer? It doesn’t get any better.
Crescent City Brewhouse
Etouffée means “smothered” and this dish smothers crawfish in love. Cut the spice with a swig or two of handcrafted beer. Heaven.
Oceana Grill
This French Quarter restaurant is a must for crawfish lovers. For breakfast, they feature a fantastic Crawfish Omelet – and their Blackened Redfish LaFourche is why you have to come back for lunch or dinner. By the way, you can get king cake at Oceana year round. If you missed it at Mardi Gras, now’s your chance to celebrate.
Olde Nola Cookery
This restaurant proves time and time again that there’s more to Bourbon Street than beads and bars. Both their Redfish Cookery topped with a crawfish mushroom cream sauce and their Blackened Redfish Étouffée belong on your bucket list. TDF.
Bobby Hebert’s Cajun Cannon
This Metairie restaurant attracts both football lovers and crawfish lovers. Their Crawfish Fettuccini and Crawfish Étouffée are great ways to celebrate seafood season in Louisiana. If you’re staying in the French Quarter, make plans to stop on your way back to the airport. So good!
Acme
This beloved 100+ year-old oyster house has more than oysters. They offer boiled crawfish in season and their Crawpuppies and a Fried Crawfish Tail appetizers are TDF. They also make a mean Fried Crawfish po-boy.