COOLinary and Museum Month: Pairing Culture & Cuisine
Inside the 520 Royal Street complex at The Historic New Orleans Collection. photo by Ellis Anderson
Happily, Museum Month and COOLinary restaurant specials coincide in August, so like cultural sommeliers, we've paired several of our French Quarter favorites.
-By Kim Ranjbar
New Orleanians can always manage to find cause for celebration – even in August, despite sweltering temperatures. For the past 19 years, eateries across the city have joined together in August for “COOLinary,” a culinary “extravaganza” created by New Orleans & Co., the city's marketing and tourism group.
Participating restaurants offer luxurious – and affordable – prix fixe menus all month long, engaging in friendly competition to see who can serve up the most delicious deal in town. This year, diners will be able to choose from special menus at 104 different restaurants.
In 2014, New Orleans & Co. followed up on the wildly popular COOLinary by launching New Orleans Museum Month. Members of any participating museum receive free admission to 24 others, for all of August. Visitors can also unlock prizes by “checking in” with their phones during their museum visits.
While locals can indulge in these irresistible deals several times during the month, savvy travelers are also part of the August fan base now. Many drive in from across the region for day trips or weekend stays – and why not? The only time they have to beat the heat is navigating between air-conditioned locations.
We’ve made that easy by putting on our cultural sommelier hats and pairing some of our favorite French Quarter museums with nearby COOLinary restaurants we love. You’ll only have to walk a few blocks between the two – just choose the shady side of the street.
Note: Unless otherwise indicated, none of the COOLINARY menu prices below include beverages, tax or gratuities. Please review each museum’s visitor policy and visiting hours before arrival. Free entrance to participating museums during Museum Month is limited to 2 people per membership, regardless of membership type (including group or family memberships). Proof of a current museum membership is required.The Historic New Orleans Collection and Criollo
Criollo Restaurant - 214 Royal Street
For this particular pairing you’ll want to start with an early lunch at Criollo (M - F, 11:30am - 2pm). The restaurant is located in the classic Hotel Monteleone, which first opened its doors in 1886. For more than a century, the romantic Monteleone has been the darling of the American literary establishment and has hosted writers like Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty.
Criollo’s Chef Joseph Maynard has created a two-course COOLinary lunch menu reflecting the unique mix of Spanish, Italian, French, Caribbean, and African flavors found in New Orleans Creole cuisine, with dishes like dill rock shrimp with black bean mango salad, spinach and Gulf oysters with Cajun caviar, and baked eggplant lasagna.
After dining, your next stop is only three blocks away at The Historic New Orleans Collection. If it’s your first time in the Monteleone, on your way out you’ll want to take in the ornate lobby and peep in at the famous Carousel Bar. You can always return later for cocktail hour.
Criollo inside the Monteleone, image courtesy Criollo
The Big Cat seats at the Carousel Bar, FQJ file photo
The Historic New Orleans Collection - 520 Royal Street
The Historic New Orleans Collection complex at 520 Royal Street, courtesy THNOC
THNOC lives up to its name because it really is a collection rather than a single museum. Its French Quarter campus consists of 13 historic buildings in a two-block radius, right in the heart of the neighborhood. The buildings are home to an enormous amount of exhibition space, the publishing arm of the organization, and one of the most beloved research libraries in the Gulf South.
The original museum complex at 533 Royal includes the home of the founders, General Kemper and Leila Williams. That’s closed now while undergoing a multi-year restoration, but many of the exhibits have been moved across the street to the centerpiece at 520 Royal Street.
Because there’s plenty of room at 520. The complex opened in 2019 and encompasses 35,000 square feet. It includes a welcome center (pay special attention to the wall mosaic), exhibition spaces (including the jaw-dropping Aeolian organ room), arguably the most famous courtyard in New Orleans (since the building used to house the Arts and Crafts Club, the courtyard was the subject of an untold number of paintings and prints), an elegantly curated gift shop and the charming Café Cour.
In addition to guided and self-guided tours (download their French Quarter Tours app) and a fascinating permanent collection, THNOC features special exhibitions. Through October visitors can experience “American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith,” a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian examining the continuing evolution of America’s experiment in a government “of, by, and for the people.”
Finish out your afternoon with a treat and coffee from Café Cour, which offers counter service and tables spread across the fabled Brulator courtyard. A look at their menu will have you returning soon for more museum exploration and an al fresco lunch.
Visitor Dena Temple tries out the interactive map in the lobby of THNOC’s 520 complex, photo by Ellis Anderson
New Orleans Jazz Museum and Saint John
Courtesy New Orleans Jazz Museum
The New Orleans Jazz Museum - 400 Esplanade Avenue
What's more New Orleans than jazz? At the river end of Esplanade lies the old New Orleans Mint, a branch of the United States Mint from 1838 to 1909. The building now houses The New Orleans Jazz Museum, celebrating jazz in the city where it was born. The museum offers dynamic interactive exhibits, multigenerational educational programming, research facilities, and (of course) live musical performances. Several times a week, free one-hour concerts take place (with a special Piano Hour each Thursday), so you might want to arrange your visit to coincide with one.
Current exhibits include “Drumsville: Evolution of the New Orleans Beat” examining the history of percussion in New Orleans from improvised percussion in Congo Square to the development of the drum kit and beyond. On August 3, a new exhibit opens, “New Orleans Stomp: The Centennial of King Oliver’s Groundbreaking 1923 Recordings,” focusing on the legendary New Orleans trumpet and cornet player. The opening reception will take place 6pm-8pm on August 3 in the Esplanade Courtyard of the Jazz Museum. The event will feature a performance by an All-Star band led by Detroit Brooks with Gregg Stafford, Mitchell Player and Dr Michael White.
At the beginning of the month, Satchmo Summerfest takes place at the Jazz Museum on August 5 and 6, offering free performances by some of New Orleans’ finest musicians. See the whole performance line-up here.
Saint John - 1117 Decatur Street
Chef Erik Cook at Saint John, photo by Randy Schmidt
Located less than two blocks from The New Orleans Jazz Museum, Saint John is the second restaurant founded by locally-celebrated chef Eric Cook. A native New Orleanian and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Cook has honed his culinary skills in some of the finest kitchens our city has to offer, from Brennan's to Commander's Palace to his sister establishment, Gris-Gris on Magazine Street. The chef’s third restaurant, Julia Brown, will open later this year in the Bywater, in the new hotel ARRIVE.
Cook’s popular eatery on Decatur Street offers an upscale edge in an old-school atmosphere (a space that once held the much-beloved Maximo's Restaurant), serving “haute Creole cuisine.” Cook is offering two three-course COOLinary menus, brunch and dinner.
Among the brunch offerings (11am - 4pm) are a grilled watermelon salad with goat cheese and arugula; Pain Perdu (a.k.a. French toast) made with a brandy milk punch custard and served with a seasonal fruit compote; and a pecan hand-pie, a la mode. The three-course brunch is $35 and you can add a bottle of Mumm Napa Brut Prestige for only $25.
The COOLinary dinner menu is served from 4pm - close. Choices include gumbo du jour as an appetizer, brown butter scallops with cracked corn grits and broccoli rabe as a second course and white chocolate bourbon bread pudding for dessert. The cost is $50 and you can order wine pairings for each course for an additional $35.
Note: Saint John’s Happy Hour, from 3pm - 6pm daily now offers $9 bites like pimento cheese with hog cracklin’s, truffle Parmesan fries and deviled eggs with Cajun caviar. Libations range from select wines at $5 a glass to a WhoDat Old Fashioned for $7. See their Facebook page for the full Happy Hour menu.
One of Saint John’s COOLinary dinner offerings, Chicken Clemenceau – crispy skin-on chicken thigh, fresh peas, mushrooms, potatoes, tasso with chicken jus and blackened cornbread, photo courtesy Saint John
Hermann-Grima House and Jewel of the South
Image courtesy of the Hermann-Grima House
Hermann-Grima House - 820 St. Louis Street
Originally built nearly two centuries ago, the Hermann-Grima House is a National Historical Landmark and one of the most well-preserved examples of Georgian or Federal-style architecture in the neighborhood. Built by architect William Brand for Samuel Hermann, a German Jewish immigrant and commission banker in 1831, the home includes a rare, original (and still operating) open-hearth kitchen, slave quarters, courtyard and stables – the only stables that remain standing in the French Quarter.
Visitors are offered a guided Urban Enslavement tour of the house and grounds, completely furnished with period pieces. The tour has been rated as one of the best tours in the city by Conde Nast Traveler and you’ll learn about the house owners and the enslaved people who lived and worked on the property. Tours take place on the hour at 11am to 3pm. While normally they are booked online, during Museum Month it’s recommended that you call the museum directly to book: 504-274-0750.
Jewel of the South - 1026 St. Louis Street
Co-owner Chris Hannah serving up a Sazerac at Jewel of the South, photo by Ellis Anderson
Housed in a Creole cottage just down the street, Jewel of the South feels like a classic, French Quarter tavern with exposed brick walls and cozy furniture, but features contemporary, elevated cocktail and dining menus.
Living-legend and co-owner Chris Hannah (former bartender at Arnaud’s French 75) directs the award-winning cocktail program, and talented, London-born chef Philip Whitmarsh heads the kitchen. Jewel of the South's COOLinary four-course prix fixe features dishes not typically found in the French Quarter, but no less phenomenal, from the foie gras parfait to brisket with cheese whimsy and a dessert that we’re eager to try, a Pimms and cherry trifle.
1850 House Museum and Tableau
1850 House Museum - 523 St. Ann Street
Inside the 1850 House museum, a living room frozen in time, FQJ file photo
The bright red Pontalba buildings with their florid ironwork that flank Jackson Square are two of the most recognized landmarks in the city. They were designed and financed by the Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba, the daughter of a wealthy Spanish colonial landowner who helped finance the Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral, and The Presbytère. These distinctive row-houses served as both residences and retail establishments in the lower levels - and they still do today, although most of the upper living areas have been divided into apartments.
One exception is the 1850 House Museum, that has been left intact as a single-family home so visitors are able to see what upper-middle class life was like in the French Quarter more than 150 years ago. The museuem is replete with period furnishing, art, and décor including a set of John Slidell's china and New Orleans silver. You’ll enter through the 1850 House museum store located in the lower level, which helps support Louisiana State Museums through sales of daily tours and merchandise. You’ll find books on New Orleans-centric topics, as well as handmade art, jewelry, and crafts from local artists.
Tableau - 616 St. Peter Street
Tableau is a colorful cornerstone overlooking Jackson Square, photo by Ellis Anderson
Just on the other side of Jackson Square, kitty-corner from the 1850 House museum, is Tableau. After the renovation and reinvigoration of the Le Petite Theatre's buildings, Dickie Brennan opened Tableau in 2013, within the historic theater. It’s one of four French Quarter restaurants owned by this member of the famous Brennan’s family (including Palace Café, Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse and Bourbon House).
Highlighting local ingredients, Tableau offers both lunch and dinner COOLinary menus. The lunch one is available 11am - 3pm, Thursday - Sunday through August 31, for $25. The first course is a kale Caesar salad, with Grana Padano, white anchovy and Creole pecans. The second course is Pan Bagnat – a Nice-style sandwich with grilled Gulf fish.
On the COOLinary dinner menu (3pm to close), the second-course offerings are Chicken Paillard with whipped potatoes or blackened Gulf fish with popcorn rice pilaf and grilled asparagus. You’ll finish with a delightful profiterole with almond filling.
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