Here's a funky, low-key neighborhood restaurant and hangout set around a classic New Orleans courtyard, which is where most folks drink -- unless they are hanging out with the piano player, a currently every-other-Friday performer, with the occasional guest hitting the keys on other nights. It's authentic in the right ways but is also more cheerful than some of the darker, hole-in-the-wall spots that deserve that adjective. Though it's a bit out-of-the-way in the Faubourg Marigny, everyone who goes there comes back raving about it.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's New Orleans 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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