I moved to New Orleans in 2011, but I’ve been visiting and reviewing hotels in the city since 2001. Needless to say, I’ve seen the hospitality scene evolve over the past 25 years. The grand old hotels—some of the longest operating properties in the country, such as Hotel Monteleone, The Roosevelt, and Le Pavillon—reassuringly continue their legacies, much as they have done across three centuries. The downtown hubs of the historic French Quarter and Central Business District are traditionally where visitors stay, and most hotel options are still concentrated in these neighborhoods. A welcome development, though, has been the recent expansion of boutique hotels— many opening up in abandoned or neglected historic buildings—in uptown, the Marigny, the Lower Garden District, and now the residential enclaves of Mid and Central City.
What unites these New Orleans hotels is a sense of place, and an awareness of the culture that brought us here, whether that’s a portrait of Allen Toussaint in a room where he actually slept, or a loving twist on a local dish such as gumbo or beignets on a lunch menu. Wherever you stay in the Crescent City, you’re almost certain to find a tangible sense of civic pride. I know every city says that their welcome is the warmest, and they’re likely not wrong—the caveat is that it’s the warmest outside of the one you’ll get in New Orleans. Trust me, you’ll want to feel it for yourself. Read on for the best hotels in New Orleans.
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