I tagged along on my husband’s recent work trip to New Orleans and it was our first airplane trip in over two years. New Orleans had just done away with its vaccination requirement for restaurants and I am still wary of eating indoors so my food list for New Orleans centered on places that had outdoor or takeout options, places that had high ceilings and that looked spacious/airy and places that had other things nearby I also wanted to visit just in case I peeked in and wanted to go somewhere else right away. I knew I wanted to try Willa Mae’s for sure in New Orleans (their chicken is highly recommended) so when I found one in a food hall called Pythian Market, that was exactly the type of place I wanted to go to right away.
Is Pythian Market the only New Orleans Food Hall?
There were three New Orleans food halls I was interested in when I did my research. The first one was St Roch Market which also has indoor and outdoor seating but we didn’t make it there this time so I’ll have to wonder about it until we go on our next NOLA trip. The second was Auction House Market but there were signs on the doors of this one saying it was closing in a few days from when we went. It’s so sad to see a place like this close down but maybe something new and fabulous will be pop up in its place or maybe it might still be around (the website looks like it’s still open). It was still dreamy to look at so I thought I’d include a picture.
Pythian Market was about a twenty minute walk from the Loews New Orleans hotel which was our home on this trip. This was the conference hotel so I didn’t look up anywhere else we might stay except we had drinks one night at Batture in the One11 hotel, the newest hotel built in the French Quarter and it had an elegant boutique feel so maybe we’ll stay there next time. The Loews New Orleans is comfortable, fairly quiet, a bit dated and located just on the edge of the French Quarter but it also felt like a pretty good place to stay. Our room was spacious and light-filled. There was even an interesting window behind our mirror in the bathroom that looked out to the city. From our room I could see the Mothers restaurant lined up on two mornings so I had to try this place out too (I did takeout but I think eating in would be a better experience and I really enjoyed the bread pudding here-I was torn and almost chose the sweet potato pie.)
And the Pythian Market had no line at Willa Mae’s.
There was no line for the delicious chicken at Willa Mae’s when we went. And there were also plenty of places to sit both inside and outside the food hall. And this food hall had other retailers, but I didn’t look at them because I just really wanted to try the fried chicken and I was completely stuffed from everything else we ate in New Orleans (this is definitely an eating and drinking city). Willa Mae’s is the one of the only places I found with vegetarian (actually vegan) beans and rice as well as fried okra and a few other vegetarian sides as well. And I’m so glad we made this stop a part of our New Orleans trip.
Do you look for Food Halls around the World too?
We come from Seattle where Pike Place Market feels like one giant food market with so many restaurants we can never visit them all. So we love big food markets everywhere we travel. One really awesome one we found was in Amsterdam ages ago too. Is this the kind of thing you look for when you travel too?
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)