Emeril's

Emeril's sits in Warehouse District, and the room reads exactly the way the New Orleans dining establishment expects a modern creole kitchen at this address to read — considered, particular, and exact about the things it cares about. Two-Michelin-star — New Orleans's only two-star tasting room.

The cooking turns on signatures the New Orleans regulars order without looking at the menu: Gulf Crab Custard, Andouille Crusted Drum, and Banana Cream Pie. The kitchen runs at the $$$$ register, with a wine programme that is either deep where the room is loud and tight where the room is quiet, and a service floor that has clearly worked at this register before.

For a impress clients dinner in New Orleans, this is one of the addresses you should already know about. Reservations skew very hard; dress is cocktail. The averaged Food/Ambience/Value line sits at 9.2/10 — high enough to mean the room is doing more right than wrong, calibrated against the sharpest other tables in the city.

Two-Michelin-star — New Orleans's only two-star tasting room. For a deeper read on this occasion across other cities, the Impress Clients guide is the canonical reference.