Cafe du Monde: Classic New Orleans

Everything you've heard is true. Cafe du Monde, nestled near the river in the French Quarter, is an essential item on your to-do list for a trip to New Orleans.

No other spot is quite like it. Besides milk and orange juice, it serves two signature items: the crispy, pillow-shaped pastries known as beignets, and a rich coffee and chicory blend. 

Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the cafe dates to 1862, and its retro French styling is part of its appeal. It's a bustling place, with wait staff veering among the closely set tables, but no one ever seems to drop a tray.

If you go on a nice day during the tourist season, expect to have to wait a few minutes for a table. But it's worth it. When your tray arrives, you'll have a pile of three square, piping-hot doughnuts covered in piles of powdered sugar. The chicory adds a strong, almost licorice flavor to the coffee. I liked it so much, I brought a can to take back home. It's good black, but I recommend the cafe au lait version.

A word to the wise: You're going to go through a lot of napkins with these beignets, and if you wear light-colored clothes, you'll thank me. At least a little of that powdered sugar is guaranteed to end up on them.

On my very first visit to New Orleans, I stopped by Cafe du Monde on an uncharacteristically cold, rainy day. That only made the hot, crisp beignets and strong coffee seem even more miraculously life-giving. As I walked back to my hotel, still eating them from a carry-out bag, I felt as if I had found America's best county fair food in the nation's most elegant old city.

Coffee: ★★★★ Chicory coffee is distinctive and rich.

Food: ★★★★ A plate of beignets, not an apple, is actually what Eve offered Adam. Again, totally worth it.

Ambience: ★★★ Like most of the French Quarter, it's alluring and seasoned, attractively worn around the edges.

Service: ★★★ Waiters are quick to deliver your order, but there isn't a lot of checking in once you've been served.