Canal Street is the widest street in New Orleans and the natural dividing line between the French Quarter and the CBD. At its foot, the Mississippi bends sharply south before curving back north, creating the crescent that named the city. The hotels below sit at different points along that stretch and give you the best vertical perspective on the bend.
Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans – 2 Canal St., CBD
The building was completed in 1968 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of New Orleans’ founding. Designed by modernist architect Edward Durell Stone, it was originally the World Trade Center and International Trade Mart. For decades, New Orleanians gathered at its 33rd-floor revolving lounge for cocktails and city-wide fireworks views. The building sat dark after closing in 2011 until developers Carpenter & Company undertook a $530 million restoration, and the Four Seasons opened in July 2021. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The hotel holds 341 rooms and 92 private residences across 34 floors, with a crescent-shaped fifth-floor rooftop pool cantilevered over the Mississippi. Two James Beard Award-winning chefs anchor the dining: Alon Shaya at Miss River and Donald Link at Chemin à la Mer. The top floors house Vue Orleans, an independently operated 360-degree observation deck and interactive cultural experience offering the highest publicly accessible view in the city. Admission runs about $20 and is sold separately from the hotel. Book at fourseasons.com/neworleans.
The Westin New Orleans – 300 Canal St., CBD
The 437-room, 29-story hotel was built in 1984 and first opened under Britain’s Trusthouse Forte hotel chain before converting to a Westin in the late 1980s. Its defining architectural feature is structural: the hotel sits atop the Canal Place shopping complex, so the lobby starts on the 11th floor and rooms ascend above that, giving every guest spectacular views of the Mississippi River and the surrounding city with very little exterior noise.
Two-story arched lobby windows overlook the French Quarter, and guest rooms tower over the great bend in the Mississippi River. The circular Observatory Eleven bar spans 2,300 square feet on the 11th floor with floor-to-ceiling glass facing the river, and Bistro at the Bend serves breakfast and Cajun lunch alongside the same views. River-view rooms book fast on weekends. Guests can access the Shops at Canal Place directly from the hotel lobby. Book via marriott.com.
Sheraton New Orleans Hotel – 500 Canal St., CBD
The Sheraton is a 49-story, 490-foot hotel at 500 Canal Street, the sixth-tallest building in New Orleans. It is the biggest of the three properties on this list by room count, with 1,110 guestrooms including 53 suites, and club rooms and suites occupying the top eight floors with views of the Mississippi River, historic Canal Street, and the French Quarter. The Concierge Lounge sits on the 42nd floor and is open to Club-level guests and eligible Marriott Bonvoy members for complimentary breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres with full river views.
The Sheraton has an art program worth calling out. The lobby holds an extensive collection of George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog series, including a tri-sided sculptural installation visible from Canal Street and a working Blue Dog motorcycle. The hotel also displays 24 large-format photographs by Jack Robinson, a 1950s street photographer who captured Canal Street workers, shop girls, nuns, and businessmen in the years before the civil rights movement, giving the hotel’s public spaces unexpected archival depth. Live jazz runs Friday and Saturday nights in the Rodrigue Gallery. The Pelican Bar off the lobby is modeled on a French Quarter courtyard with ironwork and a fountain. Book via marriott.com.
