Friday 1st & Saturday 2nd March
New Orleans is famous as the birthplace of jazz and is a town that knows how to party—when Prohibition came the city paid less attention than any other in the country and just let the good times keep rolling. (Prohibition Agent Izzy Einstein used to judge the task ahead of him by seeing how long it took to get a drink when he arrived in a new city—in Chicago it had taken 21 minutes. In New Orleans it took 35 seconds.)
If New Orleanians are fun-loving most of the year, in the run-up to Mardi Gras they really let rip, with a wild festival of masks, costumes, parades, music and partying. Dozens of "Krewes" spend all year putting displays together and as they process through the city they fling trinkets, specially minted "doubloons" and strings of gold, purple and green beads from their floats into the crowd. The parades begin weeks ahead of Mardi Gras itself (5th March), and the action will be at its peak this weekend.
As a salute to one of the most vibrant cities of the Jazz Age, we’ll be celebrating Mardi Gras with menus of classic New Orleans cocktails and traditional Louisiana cuisine, plus live New Orleans jazz from the Candid Jug Orange Band, cabaret from our own King of the Carnival, Champagne Charlie, DJing from the Bee’s Knees, and fortune telling from our own Voodoo seers Lucius and Foxglove.
Parade floats in Canal Street, 1920s
“Baby Doll” parade, 1930s
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, 1921
