If you have searched for Elizabeth Street Café in New Orleans and half-assumed you were confusing it with the one in Austin, you were not.
There are two. The original has been in Austin since 2011. The second has been at 1507 Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District since 2021, and it sits inside a hotel that used to be an orphanage.
The building, which is the story
Hotel Saint Vincent occupies an 1861 building that was originally Saint Vincent’s Infant Asylum.
It was restored and reopened as a seventy-five room hotel on 22 June 2021. Elizabeth Street Café opened with it, as one of the hotel’s original food and drink rooms, alongside San Lorenzo, the Paradise Lounge and a members’ bar called the Chapel Club.
The hotel was developed by Larry McGuire, Tom Moorman and Liz Lambert of MML Hospitality with the New Orleans partners Jayson Seidman and Zach Kupperman. Interiors were by Lambert McGuire Design.
So the café is not a franchise or a licensing deal. It is the same company, in a building they restored themselves.
What it serves
The same French-Vietnamese idea as Austin, stated on its own header as noodles, bánh mì and boulangerie.
From the New Orleans menu and listings: ginger chilli oil dumplings, spring rolls, bánh mì including a tofu version, phở, chicken laap, and beignets with jam, which is a genuinely good joke to make in New Orleans.
Two dishes singled out in the coverage when the hotel opened: redfish marinated in turmeric and coconut, served with fresh dill and vermicelli, and broiled escargots in Thai basil curry butter with baguette. The escargots are on both menus, and they are the dish that explains the whole concept fastest.
The drinks side is substantial. Coffee and tea, a dirty matcha that comes up in every listing, specialty cocktails, non-alcoholic cocktails and a wine fridge. A matcha latte runs about seven dollars, a cappuccino six, a cortado five.
Happy hour is daily, 3 to 5pm, with half-price appetisers and three dollars off cocktails.
How it differs from Austin
Three things, if you know the original.
The first is the hours. Austin is a lunch-and-dinner restaurant with weekend brunch. New Orleans runs all day from the morning, which makes it function more as a café than the Austin room does.
The second is the setting. Austin is a converted bungalow on a residential corner. New Orleans is a hotel restaurant with a patio, in a nineteenth-century institutional building. Same food, very different room.
The third is the menu document itself. They are not identical. If you have read about a dish in Austin, check it is on the New Orleans list before you travel for it.
Hours, and an honest warning about them
The published hours disagree with each other, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The restaurant’s own site says daily, 7:30am to 8pm. Google lists Sunday to Wednesday 7:30am to 6pm and Thursday to Saturday 8am to 8pm. Tripadvisor says 8am to 8pm with a later close on Thursday.
Use the restaurant’s own page, and ring if you are making a special trip. There is also an online ordering page that sometimes shows as not accepting orders, which reads as out of hours rather than closed.
Is it any good
Google has it at 4.5 from more than two hundred reviews. DoorDash has it at 4.4. Tripadvisor has it at 3.5 but from only two reviews, which is not a sample worth quoting.
It is listed by the Michelin Guide as the French-Vietnamese option at Hotel Saint Vincent, and by the city’s own tourism board.
The fair summary is that it is well liked and not controversial, which is the opposite of its Austin parent, where the room is adored and the food divides people.
The other Elizabeth in New Orleans
Worth clearing up, since it causes genuine confusion.
Elizabeth’s, at 601 Gallier Street in the Bywater, is a completely separate restaurant. It was started in 1996 by Heidi Elizabeth Trull, has been sold on since, and is now run by Chef Bryon Peck. It is rustic Creole and Southern, famous for praline bacon, and its slogan is real food done real good.
Two different places, two different neighbourhoods, two different cuisines. If somebody has recommended the praline bacon, they mean Elizabeth’s in the Bywater, not Elizabeth Street Café on Magazine.
There is also no notable Elizabeth Street in New Orleans itself. The name here comes from the Austin original, which does stand on one.
If you got here looking for an actual Elizabeth Street rather than a restaurant, there are several worth knowing about and they are not in Louisiana.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an Elizabeth Street Café in New Orleans?
Yes, at 1507 Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District, inside Hotel Saint Vincent. It is a second location of the Austin original and opened with the hotel in June 2021.
What is on the Elizabeth Street Café New Orleans menu?
French-Vietnamese: phở, bánh mì, ginger chilli oil dumplings, spring rolls, chicken laap, broiled escargots, plus a bakery counter and beignets with jam.
Who owns Elizabeth Street Café?
MML Hospitality, founded by Larry McGuire and Tom Moorman and joined by Liz Lambert in 2021. The same company developed Hotel Saint Vincent.
Is Elizabeth Street Café the same as Elizabeth’s?
No. Elizabeth’s is a separate Creole restaurant in the Bywater, founded in 1996 and known for praline bacon.
A last thought
A Vietnamese café named after a street in Texas, serving beignets with house jam, in a New Orleans building that spent its first century as a home for infants.
Nothing about that should work. It has been open five years.
