Antoine's Restaurant • 1840

In the gas-lit dawn of 1840, Antoine Alciatore opened the French Quarter institution that would birth Oysters Rockefeller and become America's oldest continuously family-run restaurant. Across five generations and nearly two centuries, Antoine's has served presidents and popes within its labyrinth of fifteen dining rooms, each thick with Mardi Gras history and the ghosts of ten thousand white-tablecloth nights. The 25,000-bottle wine cellar and those same butter-rich, landmark dishes still pull pilgrims to St. Louis Street.