Café Du Monde {New Orleans}featured

No visit to New Orleans is complete without a stop at Café Du Monde. Open 24/7, every day of the week (except Christmas), a sticky plate of Café Du Monde’s famous beignets and chicory-laced café au lait make the perfect breakfast, afternoon pick-me-up, dessert, late-night snack…ok, so really any time is a good time for a pit stop at Café Du Monde.

On break (Café Du Monde, New Orleans)

Now, let’s talk beignets — square-shaped pillows of fried dough bliss topped with an avalanche of powdered sugar. The texture of the beignet is crisp and crunchy on the outside, and chewy on the inside, with a bit more substance than fellow fried dough brethren, doughnuts and carnival zeppole. Although one order comes three to a plate, you’ll be surprised how quickly they disappear. Two bits of advice to keep in mind before inhaling a plateful of beignets:

1. Wear light clothing that will camouflage the mess of powdered sugar you are bound to make of yourself.
2. When you go in for the kill, whatever you do, don’t breathe in. You’ll end up choking on a lung full of sugar and make a big scene.

You’ve been forewarned.

Like coffee and doughnuts, you gotta have café au lait with beignets! (Or iced café au lait if the weather is swampy like it was when we were there.) Café Du Monde’s signature coffee and chicory blend is mixed with half-and-half and hot milk for a creamy, fragrant cup of café au lait. The hot chocolate is also a treat.

One of the coolest scenes I happened upon was the “back of the house” at Café Du Monde. A swarm of paper-hatted, bow-tied servers (mostly Vietnamese women) working lightning quick, setting up their orders on black cafeteria trays. I saw one woman pour a huge bag of powdered sugar into a machine, which I think sifted and aerated the sugar over a never ending stream of fresh beignets coming out of the fryer. The worker bees would line up at the machine, grab their orders, and then file out to another area where they dispensed all the beverages. Props to them. They work hard…while there is always a steady flow of customers, a plate of beignets is only about $2 so the tip margin per table can’t be much.

Cheers, Mom!

If you find yourself with a beignet addiction, have no fear, there are eight Café Du Monde outposts throughout the NOLA metropolitan area now. The original Cafe Du Monde Coffee Stand, established in 1862, in the New Orleans French Market is still the most popular though. It was just the place to rest our feet for a bit and jolt our blood sugar while we people watched.

ADDRESSCafé Du Monde
800 Decatur St
New Orleans, LA 70116
(504) 525-4544
Open 24 hours, 7 days a week

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