Hotels near Cafe du Monde and the French Market

Cafe du Monde has been selling beignets and chicory coffee at the corner of Decatur and St Ann since 1862, and the original stand stays open 24 hours a day except Christmas. The menu runs to four items. Three beignets arrive under an unreasonable quantity of icing sugar for around USD 4, and the cafe au lait is cut with chicory root - a wartime substitute from the 1860s that simply never went away.

The French Market runs from Cafe du Monde down Decatur Street for five blocks, a part-covered arcade of produce stalls, hot sauce vendors, praline sellers and craft stands. It traces its origins to a Choctaw trading post on the same riverbank, which makes it one of the oldest public markets in the country. The flea market section at the Esplanade end is the least polished and the most interesting.

Pro Tip: Ignore the queue for the seated section and use the takeaway window on St Ann Street. Go at 7am or after 11pm and you will wait for nothing at all. Do not wear black - the sugar goes everywhere and there is no technique that prevents it.