New Orleans is a city that makes up the tune as it goes along—taking whatever hand it’s dealt, good or bad, and playing it loose and honest. During our time on the ground, our team found a city in the middle of a shift, with chefs, bartenders, sommeliers, and bakers deciding for themselves what the next chapter of New Orleans hospitality looks like. They’re eager to make a meaningful impact and to shape the city’s future, and fate, on their own terms.

New concepts aren’t just about letting the good times roll. They are pushing on education and rallying the community in the process. Others are drawing inspiration from New Orleans’ lesser-told tales or refreshing the classics with modern techniques and hyper-local ingredients.

Through all of it, a new generation is building on the multigenerational restaurants that shaped the city’s culture, and still doing what New Orleans does best: throwing a party. This new wave of industry professionals reminded us that culture is not something stagnant, but rather a song that we create, and must continue to sing, together.

Check back here on November 23 at 11am CT for the announcement of our 2026 New Orleans Rising Stars.

Blended with water, walnuts turn into a viscous cream—a smooth, dairy-free base that can stand in for heavy cream, mayonnaise, or Greek yogurt. From November 4–18, six restaurants in New York and Los Angeles are putting it to work for our Discover California Walnuts Week, in partnership with California Walnuts.

Across both cities, walnuts are showing up in everything from a fall ice cream, a walnut-shaped petit gâteau, and an egg custard tart to a Sicilian vodka slice, a creamy miso dressing, and even a whipped foam for an iced latte. Toasted, candied, or blended, California walnuts can carry a dish from your morning coffee through to your late-night dessert, and nearly all of them are grown by multigenerational family farms in the Central Valley.

Visit the participating restaurants, order up the California walnut cream special, scan the QR code to share your feedback, and you might just take home a whopping $1,500 cash prize.