Jazz Brunch at Court of Two Sisters

The jazz brunch is New Orleans' great civilised invention — the argument that Sunday morning deserves a soundtrack and a second cocktail — and the Court of Two Sisters is where it runs at the largest scale in the French Quarter: a daily (not just Sunday) jazz brunch buffet in the Quarter's biggest courtyard, under a 200-year-old wisteria canopy strung with lights, where a live jazz trio strolls the tables playing standards while the buffet line negotiates between made-to-order omelettes and the turtle soup. The name remembers Emma and Bertha Camors, Creole sisters who ran a notions shop here in the 1880s; the courtyard remembers everything else — the property's deeds run back to the 1720s and a French royal governor.

The formula is the charm: seatings run from 9 AM to early afternoon, the courtyard tables are the ones worth requesting (inside rooms exist for weather; the courtyard is the experience), and the buffet plays the Creole hits — shrimp and grits, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée in season, the omelette and waffle stations, bananas Foster territory for dessert — at a quality level built for volume but seasoned like it matters. The trio's repertoire leans trad — "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" will happen, and the mimosa makes it land — and the pace is unhurried by design; ninety minutes is the natural sitting, and no one is rushed.

Craft: book ahead (the mimosa-inclusive products lock both the table and the bubbly; walk-ins queue on weekends), aim for the earlier seatings when the courtyard is coolest and the fountain audible under the music, and dress "nice casual" — this is the Quarter's version of Sunday best, worn daily. Royal Street's galleries and the cathedral are two blocks in either direction, which makes the brunch the perfect hinge of a Quarter morning: square and cathedral first, brunch as the long midday exhale, then Royal Street's antiques with the trio's setlist still playing in your head. It is tourist-beloved and locals will tease you — while conceding, when pressed, that the courtyard is the prettiest brunch room in the city.