Award-winning contemporary American cusine with a Louisiana twist

Popular plate: Try the veal sweetbreads with sherry mustard butter, or the smoked quail salad with pears and bourbon molasses.

Word to the wise: Avoid weekends, which get very busy, and the upstairs room, which gets very hot.

The work of celebrated chef Susan Spicer, Bayona has been justly showered with awards and praise but, twenty years on, it has not lost its easy, intimate charm and is still a hit with New Orleaneans hankering for a kings' feast.

Set in a romantic Creole cottage and courtyard in the heart of the French Quarter, Bayona's chefs look beyond the city's usual French- or Creole-inspired heritage and serve up truly delightful, imaginative food that blends flavors from the Mediterranean, North Africa, France, America, and the Far East. Additionally, the excellent wine list is as thick as a phone directory.