There are certain times of year when New Orleans seems especially suited to the season. Mardi Gras is the obvious example. Spring brings festival season, crawfish boils, and some of the best weather of the year. Christmas transforms the French Quarter with lights and Reveillon dinners. But after years of visiting New Orleans and eventually calling the city home, October has quietly become one of my favorite times to experience it.

One of the things I have mentioned repeatedly throughout my New Orleans food blogs is just how difficult it is to have a bad meal in this city. New Orleans has spent generations developing one of the strongest culinary identities in the country, with everything from century-old Creole restaurants and neighborhood po-boy shops to modern restaurants that continue finding new ways to reinterpret Louisiana cooking.