Gulf oysters run through the DNA of New Orleans dining in a way that is hard to explain to people from landlocked places. The four bars below cover the spectrum from century-old Italian tile rooms to laid-back sports bars, but they share the same commitment to freshly shucked local shellfish eaten close to where they were harvested.
Casamento’s Restaurant
Joe Casamento emigrated from the small Sicilian island of Ustica and opened his restaurant on Magazine Street in 1919, covering it floor to ceiling in Italian tile that has stayed intact for over a century. The restaurant still closes every June, July, and August in observance of the old rule that oysters should only be eaten in months ending in the letter R, and reopens in September when the Gulf oysters are back in peak condition. That seasonal discipline is either an anachronism or a statement of principle depending on who you ask, and the regulars largely treat it as both.
The oyster bar sits just past the entrance on the left, where shuckers work through orders of raw oysters on the half shell while customers stand at the counter and eat them with a Dixie beer chaser. The oyster loaf, a fried oyster sandwich built on toasted bread rather than French bread, has been called the best in New Orleans by multiple publications across multiple decades. The charbroiled oysters, oyster stew, and fried soft-shell crab round out a menu that barely needs anything else.
Casamento’s is at 4330 Magazine Street, open Thursday and Friday from 11am to 2pm and 5:30pm to 9pm, Saturday from 11am to 2pm and 5:30pm to 9pm, and Sunday from 4:30pm to 8:30pm. Closed June through August. Call (504) 895-9761 for current seasonal status.
Pascal’s Manale
Frank Manale bought a corner grocery store at Napoleon Avenue and Dryades Street in 1913 and turned it into Manale’s Restaurant, which passed through four generations of the DeFelice family before joining the Dickie Brennan & Co. restaurant group in 2023. What makes Pascal’s Manale a point of civic pride rather than just a very old restaurant is that the BBQ shrimp was invented here in the 1950s, a dish in which whole shrimp are cooked in a pepper-butter sauce that has nothing to do with barbecue and everything to do with the Italian-Creole cooking tradition that defined this corner of Uptown.
The oyster bar inside the bar room handles raw, Rockefeller, and Bienville preparations alongside the combination pan roast of shrimp, crabmeat, and oysters that is the kind of dish you order when you cannot pick just one. The dining room carries the energy of a neighborhood restaurant where families have been coming for generations, table-hopping to greet friends at adjacent tables. Rex, the King of Carnival, has toasted the Rex Organization from in front of the building for over 150 consecutive years.
Pascal’s Manale is at 1838 Napoleon Avenue, open Monday from 4pm to 9pm, Tuesday through Friday from 11am to 9pm, Saturday from 3pm to 10pm, and Sunday from 3pm to 9pm. Call (504) 895-4877 or reserve at pascalsmanale.com.
Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar
Superior Seafood sits on the famous corner where Mardi Gras parades make their turn onto St. Charles Avenue, which means the building has been a front-row seat to the city’s public life since it opened. The dedicated oyster bar runs from noon to close daily, serving freshly shucked Gulf oysters on the half shell alongside chargrilled, Bienville, and Rockefeller preparations. Happy hour brings raw oysters down to $1.25 each, which has been known to result in two people eating three dozen without making a plan to do so.
The full menu runs deeper than the oyster bar, with a blackened catfish Napoleon, pecan-crusted Gulf fish, chargrilled shrimp, gumbo, and a Sunday brunch with live music from 12:30pm to 2:30pm. The climate-controlled patio and covered porch both face St. Charles Avenue and the streetcar line, making the building worth visiting purely for the vantage point even before the food arrives.
Superior Seafood is at 4338 St. Charles Avenue, open Monday through Thursday from 11am to 9:30pm, Friday and Saturday from 11am to 10pm, and Sunday from 10am to 9:30pm. Call (504) 293-3474 or reserve at superiorseafoodnola.com.
Cooter Brown’s Tavern
Cooter Brown’s has been on the corner of South Carrollton and St. Charles since 1977, a sports bar with an oyster counter that operates 365 days a year from 11am to at least 1am. The beer program is the most serious in the immediate neighborhood: over 400 bottled brands, 40 taps at the front bar, and 46 rotating craft taps in the back bar with an emphasis on lagers, IPAs, and stouts that changes by season. The oyster bar runs raw Louisiana wild oysters shucked to order alongside the main bar, with Tuesday half-price oysters from 3pm to midnight drawing the kind of crowd that treats an oyster and a cold beer as a complete evening plan.
The food runs pub-style with more care than the category usually implies. The po-boys come on Leidenheimer bread. The beer-battered fries have four distinct preparations worth ordering. The boiled crawfish arrive on weekends when in season, and the gumbo closes out more visits than any dessert does. The St. Charles streetcar terminates one block away, making Cooter Brown’s the natural last stop on any streetcar itinerary.
Cooter Brown’s is at 509 S. Carrollton Avenue at the Riverbend, open daily from 11am to late. Call (504) 866-9104 or check current tap selections at cooterbrowns.com.
