Beignets of New Orleans
Every country has a form of fried dough that it’s famous for and while for most of America, doughnuts reign supreme, when you’re in the Big Easy there is only one way to have your fried dough: beignets.
To kick off my beignet experience, I thought it would be best to start at one of the oldest and best-known café’s, Café du Monde. If the name sound familiar it is because Kim Kardashian notoriously flew into New Orleans to have their fried goodness when she had pregnancy cravings for beignets.
As expected, the line at the café was super long when I got there but it moved quite quickly as it’s a self-seating café with indoor and outdoor space. Despite the full house, within seconds of sitting down a lovely older lady came up to take our order and less than 10 minutes later she placed a steaming hot plate of beignets in front of me piled high with pure white sugar and apologized for the delay (what delay?!).
My favorite part of the whole experience was that the food and drinks are perfectly priced so that the bill comes up to a whole dollar amount after tax- this is absolute genius as I despise messing around with change and it allows for a smoother customer experience. It keeps people moving, nothing is worse than ending a good meal then waiting forever for change.
The beignets were divine although I was a little shocked about the lack of sugar within the pastry itself. It had an airy doughy interior and a slightly crunchy exterior. I am definitely looking forwards to coming back to Café du Monde soon. I would caution against ordering a plate of beignets per person as each plate has 3 beignets and they can be quite filling.
Having been bit by the beignet bug and knowing that I only had a couple of days in Louisiana, I grabbed a beignet from New Orleans Coffee & Beignet Company for an afternoon snack the next day. I was ecstatic to find out when I opened by doggy bag that they were generous with the powdered sugar.
I tried their chocolate and original beignets and I hands down preferred the original flavor. This is clearly more of a commercial beignet as the dough itself contained sugar. If you don’t have the time to wait in line at Café du Monde, this is a great alternative.
I had my last beignet at Brick & Spoon in the Garden District and although they weren’t quite as generous with the powdered sugar and their portions were a little smaller, I would go back because the space is amazingly decorated and the staff were just the best. I asked for hot chocolate and even though they didn’t have any, the young man at the bar made me a delicious cup using what he had. He was also super friendly and charming so my casual breakfast turned into a full on experience. I would definitely stop in here for a meal again.
As I am planning my next trip to NOLA, I can’t wait to go back to all of these place and more. Next week I will cover other things to do in New Orleans (just in case you want to do more than eat beignets).
