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New York Times
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
We Just Updated Our New Orleans Dining Guide
Not long after moving to New Orleans to become restaurant critic at The Times-Picayune, a prominent local called me at the office — cellphones were still niche in those days — to inform me that he couldn't take my opinions about local dining seriously until I 'put down roots.' Twenty-five years later — nearly two decades of those spent in the job that brought me here — I feel qualified to make two declarations to anyone who finds themselves in New Orleans this summer: You will be hot, and you will have difficult decisions to make about where to eat. Our list of the 25 best restaurants in New Orleans, updated this week, can help with the second thing. You'll find classics of various generations, from Commander's Palace, Dooky Chase's and Tan Dinh to Compère Lapin, Dakar Nola and Pêche. The Kingsway and Saint Claire, which both opened last month, are too new to appear on the list. But they're worth looking out for, as they are offshoots of two of my favorite local restaurants: Saffron Nola, an Indian-New Orleans bistro, and Mosquito Supper Club, a Cajun seafood restaurant that feels like a dinner party. Here is a quick preview of the two new entries on our list: Coquette opened in the waning days of the second Bush administration. All these years later, I honestly still think about a dish from an early menu: tempura fried Gulf shrimp smeared with sambal, resting against juicy slices of grapefruit. I don't recall if that dish was served beyond 2008, but having eaten at Coquette for going on 17 years, I do know Michael Stoltzfus, the restaurant's chef and owner, hasn't stopped pushing himself to find harmony in uncommon pairings. Inside the 19th century brick-and-wood dining room, his intelligent, creative food still tastes like something new. 2800 Magazine Street, Garden District Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Jazz It Out — or Get the Axe': Inside the Story of a Serial Killer and a Chilling Ultimatum
The letter-writer called themselves a devil. The city called them the Axeman. And for one night in 1919, New Orleans danced not out of joy — but to stay alive. That night, March 19, came after the Times-Picayune published a chilling letter allegedly from the Axeman. The writer promised to spare any home playing jazz at 12:15 a.m. 'If everyone has a jazz band going,' the writer wrote, 'so much the better... those who do not jazz it out... will get the axe.' The city responded with music. Homes, bars, and dance halls pulsed with sound in a discordant, desperate attempt to stave off death. Between 1918 and 1919, at least four people were killed — many of them Italian grocers — and up to 17 attacked. Victims were often bludgeoned in their sleep with their own axes. Entry was usually gained by removing a small door panel, suggesting a physically slight intruder. No clear motive emerged. No arrest stuck. The attacks were brutal. Joseph Maggio's throat was slashed and skull fractured; his wife, Catherine, choked on her own blood. On March 9, 1919, a 2-year-old girl was killed and her parents were injured in another attack. Some believe the Axeman's letter was genuine. Others think it was a prank — or a publicity stunt. 'It's deliberately theatrical and fully aware of the city's superstitions,' says local historian Bond Ruggles, who runs Hottest Hell Tours, a company that offers macabre walking tours of New Orleans' haunted past. Ruggles tells PEOPLE the letter, whether authentic or not, reflected deeper tensions — it came just after the city shut down Storyville, New Orleans' red-light district and a hub for jazz, at a time when Black musicians were being criminalized for performing. 'If the letter wasn't from the killer,' Ruggles says, 'maybe it was a ploy to get the city to embrace jazz again — and by extension, the people who created it.' The Axeman remains one of New Orleans' most enduring legends, inspiring books, jazz ballads and even an appearance in American Horror Story, the FX series. 'For all the mythologizing, real people were attacked,' Ruggles says. 'Real families were destroyed. And we still don't know who did it.'She's spent years studying the case — and now believes the Axeman may not have been a man at all. 'I don't know that I believe anymore there was an Axeman,' she says. 'I think a woman outsmarted everyone.' Her theory points to the survivors — many struck repeatedly but left alive. 'If a man had done it, they'd be dead,' she says. She also cites the small entry points cut into doors: 'That tells you something about size and strength.' A 1921 article in the Los Angeles Times reported that Esther Albano — widow of Mike Pepitone, believed to be the Axeman's final victim — shot a man named Joseph Manfre in California. She claimed he had confessed to her husband's murder. Manfre, also known by the names Mumfre or Monfre, had a criminal record and was once suspected in similar crimes. Some true crime authors believe he was the Axeman. But the evidence is speculative. Ruggles proposes a twist: What if Esther and Manfre had been lovers? 'She runs off with him, and then when it's convenient, says, 'It was him,'' Ruggles says. 'And that's the end of the story.' In her view, Esther may have killed her husband and framed Manfre to avoid scandal — and inherit everything. 'It was a smart move,' Ruggles says. 'If you were a widow in Louisiana, you kept everything.' Her theory is not widely accepted. But, she says, that's part of the point. 'A woman like that — with motive and opportunity — would've been overlooked because of her gender,' she says. 'We were all looking for a man.' Read the original article on People
