Mardi Gras Day Food in New Orleans: A Parade Day Plan

Mardi Gras day food in New Orleans is food you can carry and share: a pot of gumbo from a neighborhood kitchen, a po-boy for the curb, king cake for dessert and plenty of water. Eat a real breakfast, pack snacks for the route and book nothing you cannot walk to between parades.

What is Mardi Gras day food in New Orleans?

On Fat Tuesday the city eats outdoors. Families set up chairs and coolers along the parade routes, and the food is built for standing, passing and eating with one hand. Po-boys, muffulettas and fried chicken travel well, gumbo travels if it is in a good container, and sweets such as king cake and pralines are the currency of the day.

Local chefs and creatives quoted by the city's tourism office on a Mardi Gras tips page say the same thing in different words: pack snacks and water, share with the people next to you and plan one proper meal.

Where can you find Mardi Gras route gumbo?

A cup of gumbo is the obvious route food, and the tourism office's tips page sends readers to the Treme neighborhood kitchens for a good one. Some of those kitchens also take booths at Jazz Fest, so they are clearly active in the festival season. Call ahead for Carnival-day plans, because neighborhood kitchens often change hours around parades, and ask whether it sells gumbo by the cup or the quart, since a small lidded cup is easier to manage in a crowd.

Gumbo is a stew you eat with a spoon, which makes it hard to eat on a curb. If you want it on parade day, ask for a lidded container and plan to eat it before the next float rolls by.

Which places make a good parade-day po-boy?

The same tips page recommends po-boys from the Bayou St. John sandwich shops, some of which run charity po-boy fundraisers at Thanksgiving. Po-boys are the easiest Mardi Gras food to carry: wrapped in paper, they hold for an hour or two and feed one hungry person or two modest ones.

Order before the crowds, and ask for the sandwich cut in half so it fits a paper bag, and take extra napkins. If you wait until the morning of a parade, lines at popular counters can be long, and a sandwich eaten cold is still a good sandwich. The po-boys and muffulettas guide explains the bread and the dressings.

What is Lundi Gras food?

Lundi Gras is the Monday before Mardi Gras, a day with its own events and its own appetite. Think of it as the warm-up: eat the big, slow meal on Monday, such as a long lunch of red beans or a pot of gumbo, so Tuesday can be light and portable. Parades and routes differ from year to year, so check the official schedule before you decide where to be. A late Monday dinner near the river or in Mid-City also keeps you out of the thickest crowds, and an early night means a fresh start on Tuesday morning.

What is good Mardi Gras family food?

Families usually pick a spot along St. Charles Avenue, where the crowd is calmer, and treat the day as a picnic. Pack juice boxes, fruit, sandwiches and wipes. If you want someone else to do the cooking, some hotel restaurants have offered a family-style Carnival lunch of gumbo, jambalaya and shrimp po-boys, plus to-go totes for the route. Those were seasonal offers, so ask what is on this year, book early and agree a meeting point with the group before the parade crowds build, because phone signal along the route can be patchy and a plan made in advance saves a long search for your party.

For dessert, the tips page names a Vietnamese bakery in New Orleans East for king cake, one of several bakeries that make the cake in many flavors. The king cake season guide compares more bakeries.

How do you tag the people you ate with?

A parade day is a group day, so use it. After you eat, rate the dish, add a tag such as Group Dining or Family Friendly and use "Who were you with?" to tag the people you follow. They can add their own rating of the same meal, so you end up with several views of the same po-boy.

Keep a list for next year, with the places that worked and a note about when to arrive. Following friends also lets you see what they rated and saved in the weeks before Carnival, which is a useful way to collect ideas.

Where next in the city?

For a neighborhood where gumbo and history meet, the Treme food guide is a good start. For a quieter after-parade dinner, the Magazine Street guide lists places to sit down, and the dog-friendly patios guide helps if a four-legged friend comes along. The New Orleans hub lists every page for the city, and the US food guides cover the rest.

Take the Mosey app to the parade route, rate the gumbo and po-boy by the dish and keep your favorites on a list for next Carnival.