Become a Local Champion in New Orleans

A Local Champion in New Orleans has rated five different New Orleans places, answered three Top 3 questions about the city and made a list with a New Orleans place on it in the Mosey app. The title is earned by activity, so the only thing you have to bring is an appetite and a willingness to say what you ate.

How do you become a Local Champion in New Orleans?

Rate five places, answer three Top 3 questions and make one list, all in the city. The card on Home tracks the three steps and shows Done or To do beside each, with a counter such as "1 of 5 rated". New Orleans is a city where one afternoon can hold a coffee, a sandwich and a pastry, so the first step can go quickly.

Only different places count, so five visits to the same counter earn one rating. Spread your five across a few parts of town and a few kinds of food.

What do gumbo and po'boys add to your ratings?

Gumbo is a staple of the city's tables and comes in many variations, so rating it by name says something useful to the next diner. A po'boy is a sandwich of sauced fillings on French bread, and the bread matters most. The muffuletta is another sandwich on the city's list of traditional foods, and the beignet, a sweet pastry served with powdered sugar and coffee, is the one visitors know best.

The po'boys and muffulettas guide tells the sandwich story in more depth. In the app you name the dish, add a tag if one fits and move on.

Which New Orleans neighborhoods suit your five?

The French Quarter is the best known, with its 18th-century architecture and history. The Garden District and Uptown add a different mood, and Uptown is described as a place where locals eat. Magazine Street ties food to art, culture and nightlife, and it even hosts a donut and beignet tour. The city's own tourism site mentions the river area beside the French Quarter as a dining district, and food tours on Magazine Street and in the Garden District show how many ways there are to approach the city. You do not need a tour to rate, only a place and a minute. Spread your ratings across at least two of these areas, mixing a famous stop with an everyday one, and you will have a real picture of the city rather than a postcard.

The Treme guide covers a neighborhood with its own deep food history, and it is a good place to rate a fourth or fifth stop.

What does a New Orleans weekend of ratings look like?

A visitor can fill the five in a weekend. Start with a morning beignet and coffee, move to a po'boy at lunch, wander Magazine Street in the afternoon, eat gumbo at supper and finish with a muffuletta sandwich the next day. Each stop is a different place, so five ratings arrive without any extra effort. A resident might instead spread the same five over a month of ordinary lunches in Uptown and the Garden District.

Either way, the order does not matter and neither does your verdict on the food. One rating of the dish, with or without words, is all the step needs.

What are the New Orleans Top 3 questions about?

Questions arrive singly, one per visit, with a four-hour minimum between visits, and they are about kinds of food and occasions such as brunch, breakfast, pastries, coffee and your favorite meal. New Orleans has an opinion about all of them. Where is the best brunch, which place has the crispest beignet, which table does a Sunday lunch properly? You name up to three places, ranked, and you need three different questions answered here.

Skipping does not break your streak, yet it earns no credit toward the title.

What belongs on a New Orleans list that counts?

Make a list of your own with a New Orleans place on it. "First weekend in town", "Lunch on Magazine Street" or "Sandwiches to settle an argument" are good ideas. Make it by hand, because the My Favorites list and the Top 3 list do not count.

Put a place on it, add a note and send it to a friend who is visiting. If they know a corner you missed, they can add it.

Why name the dish, and who else can join in?

Here the dish is the point. A rating that says "gumbo, dark roux, worth the wait" teaches the next diner more than a single star. Add tags, tag the friend who came along and follow people whose taste you trust, and their ratings turn up on Home. The title never reads any of it, which is why a shrug counts as much as a rave. The earned, not bought guide explains the thinking.

What does the title look like once it is yours?

You get a thank-you card, a line on your profile and the same words beside your name on ratings of places in the city, plus a share button that draws a picture from three plain numbers. Nothing else comes with it, and the how-to guide lists the rules. The Local Champion page shows the screens.

Mosey is free for a place to list, with no hidden fees and affordable tools. Supporting local in this city begins with telling people where you really ate, and the US food guides have more towns. The Chicago page shows how a different city does the same three steps.

Get the Mosey app, rate your next po'boy by the dish and begin the list that makes you a Local Champion.