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Hot summer nights are about to get hotter. From sexy rooftop pool parties to epic outdoor music festivals to picnics by moonlight with live jazz or fireworks, Night+Day’s Best Summer Nights highlight primo nocturnal events for the beautiful, balmy evenings ahead.
The Draw: A rotating list of the city’s top chefs cook Sunday dinner in the wine shop’s backyard. The Scene: Summer in New Orleans is like winter in Alaska. It traps you inside, although down here we’re hiding from the heat instead of the snow. When the sun sets, everyone is itchy to get outside. At Bacchanal’s “Chef Sundays” series, you can take a seat out back for a dinner that any other night would be served in a restaurant. Daily 11am–midnight. Hot Tip: The Bywater wine shop serves a menu of sandwiches the other six nights of the week.
The Draw: A hidden patio offers a cool oasis, in all senses of the word, on a hot night. The Scene: New Orleans follows the southern European architectural style of placing a patio at the center of a building. Often a plain façade hides a lush garden. Cure updates that tradition with a vine-covered patio that was once the stables of the old firehouse that houses the bar. Every one of the bartenders here could match the best mixologists in New York or Chicago. Tell them what you desire and follow their suggestions. Daily 5pm–close. Hot Tip: If you’re looking for a radical, yet thirst-quenching, drink, order a Gunshop Fizz. It uses Peychaud bitters—normally added to drinks in drips and dashes—as the main ingredient.
Napoleon House 500 Chartres St., French Quarter, 504-524-9752 napoleonhouse.com
The Draw: Escape the modern world in this ancient corner bar that opened in 1797. The Scene: You can drink with the ghosts at Napoleon House. When the sun sets and the streets outside are quiet, you can almost here the clinking glasses of parched men who sought refuge and a cocktail long before Louisiana became a state. That is, you could hear these specters if the bar wasn’t so often crowded with tourists. In the summer, though, when the crowds are thin, you can grab a bar stool and sip in silence and peace. Mon 11am–5:30 pm, Tue–Thr 11am–10pm, Fri–Sat 11am–11pm. Hot Tip: Despite the bar’s longstanding allegiance to the French, the signature drink is the refreshing Pimm’s Cup, an English invention. What would Napoleon think?
