Anyone who is remotely familiar with New Orleans knows the resilience of its citizenry in the wake of tragedy is second to none. Thus while mourning the recent deadly terror attack on Bourbon Street, nothing will prevent the populace from celebrating its favorite time of year—namely Carnival season, which on Jan. 6 kicks off the run up to Mardi Gras. And what better way to celebrate than at the city’s most iconic bar?
Hotel Monteleone, the Beaux-Arts-style bastion of civilized debauchery in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter, has been a cherished landmark on Royal Street since 1886. Back when it was the go-to hostelry of the thirsty set of somewhat well-mannered authors—William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams, to name a few. One of the only historic hotels in the U.S. that remains under single family-ownership, it’s home to said watering hole, the Carousel Bar.
Since 1949 the bar has been slowly spinning in circles while bartenders dole out classic NOLA cocktails like the Vieux Carré and Ramos Gin Fizz. The latter is a frothy concoction that tastes like a Satsuma Creamcicle but packs a punch. Merry go-rounds, indeed. The 25-seat bar turns on steel rollers at a rate of one revolution every 15 minutes. Many stop in for a tipple before moving over to the hotel’s adjacent Criollo restaurant for its sumptuously traditional Southern cuisine.
The beacon to the landmark’s 570 rooms and suites is its equally iconic rooftop sign, blazing in neon red upon its 14-story rooftop. You can see it all the way from Esplanade Avenue. Once the doorman opens its portals, listen for the chimes of the original grandfather clock in the lobby that never seems to stop bustling with arrivals, departures, and those making a beeline for the bar. It is a scene like the Algonquin in its Round Table heyday, or something out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story.
Like many grand old hotels of yore, such as New York’s Plaza, the suites and guest rooms skew toward classic-traditional with muted hues. The higher floors at the Monteleone boast incredible views of the bustling French Quarter. The clopping of the mule-drawn carriages, the street buskers, and jazz music permeates the air and provides a constant soundtrack that makes any occasion charmingly cinematic.
In the warmer months—which is to say eight months a year—the rooftop swimming pool is the place to be. Unlike many chain hotels surrounding it, the pool is big enough for serious laps to work off that embarrassment of riches below. There’s something magical about perching poolside high above the French Quarter in a scene that could be straight out of the Mediterranean. And of course the pool has it’s own bar.
Within steps of the hotel’s entrance, iconic restaurants abound including the dress-code fabulous scene that is Galatoire’s, the operatic Napoleon House (with its traditional foccacia-wrapped muffeletta and Pimm’s Cup), Tujaques, and Brennan’s. But below, the Monteleone’s own Criollo excels in the local French Creole cuisine, morning until night.
Begin with a Bloody Mary or café au lait over eggs Sardou and lobster Benedict with a basket of homemade biscuits. At dinner, listening in on the power plays transpiring at the adjoining Carousel, start with a stellar vegetable gratinée, and shrimp, blue crab and avocado salad. Dinner is a medley of choice meat and seafood entrees, including blackened diver scallops, Muscovy duck-and-mushroom risotto, speckled trout picatta, and a perfect black angus beef tenderloin.
Walk it off on Rue Royal, a street that has countless antique shops and art galleries. Though blocks from boisterous Bourbon Street it still holds that essence of the Vieux Carré neighborhood of the past. The architecture alone stuns. Besides the Plaza and the Algonquin in New York, the Monteleone is the only hotel to have been designated an official literary landmark by the Friends of the Library Association. The Quarter may be known for its bars and strip clubs, but it holds terrific book shops such as Crescent City on the locally-driven Chartres Street.
Within the doors of the Monteleone, an inordinate amount of books have been started or even written between procrastination cocktails. Tennessee Williams nods to the Carousel Bar in The Rose Tattoo and Orpheus Descending. It is also a setting of Eudora Welty’s “A Curtain of Green,” Richard Ford’s A Piece of My Heart, Ernest Hemingway’s “Night Before Battle,” and much later, John Grisham’s The Reckoning. Truman Capote once claimed he was born there; he wasn’t, but his mother did live there while pregnant with the future literary lion. Anne Rice also loved the hotel and frequented it.
Suites are named after some of the famous authors to this day. According to the Monteleone’s backstory, “Antonio Monteleone arrived in New Orleans from Sicily in 1880. A cobbler by trade, he set up shop on Royal Street, then a center of commerce and banking. In 1886, Monteleone purchased a small hotel on the corner of Royal and Iberville streets. When the nearby Commercial Hotel became available for purchase, Monteleone took the opportunity to expand.”
Since then the hotel has experienced five major expansions. Thirty rooms were added in 1903. Then, in 1908, 300 more rooms were added and the hotel’s name was changed from the Commercial Hotel to Hotel Monteleone. In 1913, Antonio Monteleone died, and the business passed to his son Frank, who in 1928 added 200 more rooms, a year before the stock market crash that came before the Great Depression. However it’s iconic status was already well established by then, and the hotel thrived through subsequent booms and busts, never losing its mystique and allure.
These days it is associated with the Preferred Hotels & Resorts portfolio, which represents independent luxury hotels, resorts and residences across 85 countries. Call it a curated selection of the world’s best independently-owned hospitality brands, each one a gem in its own setting such as the Monteleone.
