Metairie Louisiana Restaurants: A Suburban Eating Guide

Metairie Louisiana restaurants feed the suburb that borders New Orleans to the west, a long strip of neighborhoods that many local families call home. Expect a mix of old family dining rooms, strip-mall kitchens with devoted regulars, seafood places near the lake and sweets stands when the weather is warm. It is where a lot of the metro area actually eats on a weeknight.

Jefferson Parish rewards a slow drive and an open mind, and the suburb is easy to read once you know what to look for.

What are Metairie Louisiana restaurants like?

Metairie is a suburb of long avenues, shopping centers and quiet residential streets. Its restaurants reflect that: big parking lots, rooms that seat families, menus that run to seafood, Italian-Creole dishes, po-boys, steaks and plate lunches. Veterans Memorial Boulevard, the main commercial road, holds a long run of them. Side streets hide older neighborhood favorites.

Drive a block off the main road before you decide. Some of the best kitchens are behind a church or a bank. Because the suburb was built for cars, a place can look plain from the road and still hold a packed room at noon. Notice the parking lot at lunch: a full lot on a Tuesday is the best review you will get. Ask the person at the counter which dish they would order again.

What is Old Metairie dining like?

Old Metairie is a leafy part of the suburb with a small village-like shopping street. Old Metairie dining tends toward smaller dining rooms, bakeries, a coffee stop or two and neighborhood spots that feel closer to Uptown New Orleans than to the highway. It suits a leisurely lunch or an early dinner, and the sidewalks are good for a stroll afterward.

Ask whether tables can be held by phone. On weekends, popular rooms fill by noon. A walk along the village street before or after a meal is part of the pleasure, with its bakery windows, shaded sidewalks and old oaks overhead. If you are traveling with a stroller or a wheelchair, the flat sidewalks make this one of the easier places to move around.

Where does a Metairie family dinner work best?

A Metairie family dinner is built for big tables: rooms with booths, round tables and menus with something for each age. Seafood platters, Italian-Creole pasta, fried chicken, burgers and sweets are common, and servers expect children. Arrive early on weeknights and Sundays, when after-church crowds fill the rooms.

Phone ahead for a party of eight or more. Each place sets its own rules for large tables. Birthday meals and after-church lunches are common, so ask whether the kitchen can split checks or bring dishes family-style. A shared platter of fried seafood, a pan of baked pasta and a pile of sides can feed a whole table, and the leftovers make tomorrow's lunch.

What does a Metairie lunch look like?

A Metairie lunch is often a working lunch: plate specials, sandwiches, salads and soups served fast to people with an hour. The strip malls along the main roads hold counters that fill by noon and clear by one-thirty. Go slightly before or after the peak. Ask what the cook made that morning, and order it.

Lunch is also a fine way to sample a place before you commit to dinner. Prices vary by room, so ask before you order.

Where do you find Metairie snoballs and sweets?

Metairie snoballs and sweets are part of warm-weather life. Stands open in the heat of the year and offer shaved ice with syrups and creams, while bakeries and candy counters sell king cake in season, pralines and cookies. Stands open and close with the weather, so check a stand's own page or phone line before you drive over.

For a full tour of shaved ice, read the snoballs guide. The praline list guide covers candy.

How is Metairie different from New Orleans?

New Orleans proper is dense, walkable and tied to the streetcar. Metairie is spread out, car-centered and quieter, with more parking and fewer crowds. The cooking is similar, but the rooms are bigger and the pace is slower. A visitor can combine the two in a day: a morning in the city and an evening in the suburb, or the reverse.

If you are staying near the airport or the lake, Metairie is often closer than the Quarter. Many locals who work downtown live here, so the weeknight crowd is full of people who know exactly what they want. A place with a steady line of regulars after work is worth trying, and a quiet one with a huge menu is not.

How do you rate and remember what you ate?

Rate the dish. In the Mosey app, add the place and stars, then name the dish and add tags such as Family Friendly, Group Dining or Good Portions. A line about the wait and the noise helps other families. A list called Metairie dinners keeps your finds together. Share it with a friend by invite link, and they can add theirs.

Tag the people you ate with, and they can add their own rating of the same meal.

Where do you go after Metairie?

Cross the canal to the lakeside in the West End seafood guide or head back into the city with the Italian food guide. Across the river, the Gretna guide covers the Westbank. The Louisiana hub lists the rest, and the US food guides cover other towns.

Open the Mosey app after your next Metairie dinner, rate each dish and keep the room on a list for the family.