Food to try at French Quarter Fest 2024 in New Orleans | Where NOLA Eats

It’s French Quarter Fest weekend in New Orleans when the city’s oldest neighborhood and riverfront become a self-guided festival ground of music stages and food is everywhere from a diverse range of local restaurants, pop-ups, food trucks and more.

My colleague Chelsea Shannon and I spent the first day of French Quarter Fest barnstorming the food booths. We came away with a sampling of don’t-miss dishes to try share as the fest continues through Sunday.

We started at Jackson Square with a shrimp remoulade from Tujague’s, one of the oldest names in New Orleans dining. It was cool, piquant and classic.

For something totally different, we went across the square to try a brand new vendor Nori Guys. The bang bang shrimp taco is made on a fried nori strip with a briny crunch, and the wonton nachos are piled with raw tuna chunks and crabstick.

Working our way down river to the Jax Lot stage there was rocking zydeco in the air and soon some smoking good jerk turkey necks from the Caribbean/Creole fusion restaurant Afrodisiac.

Jax Lot is also where we found a sampling of Indian street food from LUFU, including keema rolls with a rich, spicy sauce, and the vegan aloo tiki chaat, with a tangy, creamy blend of chutneys and sauces over a fried potato cake.

In Woldenberg Riverfront Park, we picked up a bag of chicken cracklin’ with hunks of meat attached to crunchy bits of skin from Fatty’s Cracklin’, a vendor who used to be at Jazz Fest. They’re also serving spicy boudin balls rolled in crushed Cheetos.

Another new name at French Quarter Fest this year is Fritai, the Haitian restaurant in Treme. Here, chef Charly Pierre is making his festival debut with roasted corn ribs, a different way to do corn on the cob, drizzled with lime coconut cream, and the standout dish, shrimp pikliz, a blazing-hot slaw, with plantain chips to cool things off just a bit.

We were getting pretty full, but there’s just so much to try so we pressed ahead with more stop at the new music stage area by Spanish Plaza. Ethiopian restaurant Addis NOLA has become a festival time hit, and this time it has a combo plate called “I want it all.”

We did, and you will too. The collard green hand pie (or the ground beef version), the honey-kissed, sweet heat awaze wings and jollof rice (as they call it “the original jambalaya”) all combined for a hugely fulfilling plate.

This was all just Thursday’s sampling. Another stage area opens Friday for the rest of the weekend downriver at the Old US Mint. That’s where you’ll find boiled crawfish from NOLA Crawfish King and a lot more.

You can find more of our French Quarter Fest coverage here.