Walking New Orleans' Irish Channel, church to brewery

The churches on Josephine and Constance

National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos & St. Mary's Assumption Church (Josephine Street) was built for German immigrants and anchors the old Redemptorist complex. The German Baroque front is red brick, and the square bell tower rises over the low shotgun roofs around it. Inside, a hand-carved and gilded Bavarian altarpiece fills the end of the room, F.X. Zettler stained glass lights the dark wood pews, and a bank of votive candles burns at the tomb of Blessed Seelos. No other interior in the neighbourhood comes close to it.

Entry is free. The doors open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and stay shut on Sundays. Groups of two to nine can walk in without reserving, while parties of 10 or more book ahead through the shrine's tour reservation form. Plan the morning around that window.

Across the street, St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center (2025 Constance Street) was the Irish parishioners' church, an 1855 Italianate shell in the same red brick, put up facing the Germans' St. Mary's. It is deconsecrated now, a National Historic Landmark saved by volunteers. The pews are gone and the floor is bare timber, with artwork hung between the columns under a vast barrel-vaulted ceiling painted with saints and clouds in trompe-l'oeil. Zettler glass runs down both flanks here too.

Open days are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., when the Friends of St. Alphonsus give informal tours for free and the donation box does the paying. Larger or out-of-hours visits are arranged in advance on 504-482-0008. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings are the only ones that get you into both churches.

Rousseau Street and the cemetery on Washington Avenue

Old Egyptian Courthouse (2219 Rousseau Street) went up in 1834 as the courthouse and jail of the independent City of Lafayette, and James Gallier reworked it in 1843. It is the best Egyptian Revival building in New Orleans. The stuccoed walls batter inward like a pylon, there are lotus-form capitals and the winged-sun disc above the doorway, and the squat block sits wedged between the welding shop and the shotgun houses on either side. You look at it from the pavement, and that is the whole visit: the interior is permanently closed and no staff work there.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (Washington Avenue) reopened on 1 October 2026 after seven years closed, with the Preservation Resource Center as sole tour operator and ghost tours banned. It stands four blocks away across Magazine Street, close enough to add to a Channel morning. Non-family visitors go in on a guided tour only, booked in advance. Tours are capped at 16 people, so a larger party has to split across departures.

Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for children aged 6 to 12, and under-sixes go free. Behind the wrought-iron gates on Washington Avenue, whitewashed above-ground tombs of brick and plaster run in rows along crushed-shell aisles, tall iron-railed society vaults stand between them, and live oaks and magnolias throw shade over the flaking plaster.

Corner bars on Constance and Sixth

Parasol's Bar & Restaurant (Constance and Third) has been the Irish Channel's bar since 1952. It came close to being lost in 2019 and runs under new owners now, with the gravy-drenched roast beef po-boy still arriving on butcher paper and the St Patrick's Day block party still on. The building is a wooden shotgun painted green and white under a neon Parasol's sign, and the worn wooden bar is cluttered with shamrocks and Irish flags. You walk in, because no bookings are taken.

Pete's Out in the Cold (701 Sixth Street) has been open since 1931 and keeps its curtains permanently drawn against the daylight. The Christmas lights stay up year-round and the jukebox works. Beer comes in cans, and a frozen Red Baron pizza goes into the oven behind the bar. This is the most purely local room in the neighbourhood, the kind where you end up talking to whoever is next to you. Bring cash, and come on any day but Tuesday, when it closes.

Two breweries, Sixth Street and Tchoupitoulas

Miel Brewery & Taproom (Sixth Street) brews small-batch European styles, an Italian pilsner, a Kölsch and a honey pilsner that explains the name. Half the site is an open-air gravel beer garden and half a corrugated-metal warehouse, with long picnic tables under string lights, a ping-pong table and dogs underfoot. The patio is at its best from October through April. On Sundays the taproom opens at 8 a.m. for Saints kickoffs and the TVs go on, and children and dogs are welcome all week. The whole space is bookable for private events and closes when one is running, so check before you walk over.

NOLA Brewing & Pizza Co. (Tchoupitoulas and Seventh) was founded in 2008 and started the city's craft scene. The bar carries 41 tap handles, the stainless fermenters sit behind glass, and the Louisiana sour programme is the serious part of the list. The pizza is New York style, made with reverse-engineered New York water, and it lands on steel trays by the slice. Seating runs upstairs and downstairs, with an outdoor deck looking over the river wharves. The brewery also plans and caters private events in house.

Creole plates on Magazine Street and Louisiana Avenue

Joey K's Restaurant & Bar (Seventh and Magazine) cooks the everyday Creole plates, fried catfish, lamb shank and red beans, in a century-old corner building with a striped awning and big sunny windows. Paper mats cover the tables, the bar is short, and the Trout Tchoupitoulas arrives on a plain white oval platter. The family who run it take no reservations, so get there before the lunch rush. It closes on Sundays.

Atchafalaya (Louisiana Avenue and Laurel Street) is the neighbourhood's best sit-down meal and the brunch worth setting an alarm for. The room is a corner Victorian in brick with white trim and tall shuttered windows, pressed tin overhead. At weekend brunch a build-your-own Bloody Mary bar is laid out on a side table with horseradish, pickled okra and hot sauces, and live music plays Saturdays and Sundays. The kitchen is small enough that you should book by phone in advance, and note that it closes Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Jerk tacos and sandwiches

The Rum House Caribbean Taqueria (Magazine Street) puts jerk spice on Gulf seafood and sends it out in tacos on tin plates. The back bar is shelved three deep with more than 200 rum bottles, which is where the flights and the tiki-style boat drinks come from. You can sit indoors or on the covered side patio, and dogs are fine. It serves until 10 p.m. most nights and closes Wednesdays. Larger tables are easier to get midweek.

Turkey and the Wolf (Jackson Avenue) is the sandwich shop that put this corner on the international map, sitting on the Irish Channel's Lower Garden edge, five minutes' walk from Magazine Street. The fried bologna and the collard-green melt are stacked absurdly tall and come out on mismatched thrift-store plates over patterned vintage tablecloths, under a cartoon wolf on the signage. You order at the counter, no reservations are taken, and the kitchen runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day but Tuesday.

A shave and vintage racks on Magazine Street

Aidan Gill for Men (2026 Magazine Street) is an Irish barber's shop in the Irish Channel, which makes it the living Irish connection here. The straight-razor shave comes with a stout, poured and set on the counter beside the chair while the hot towels steam. The room is dark wood panelling, antique barber chairs and glass cabinets of Victorian shaving mugs and razors. Chairs are limited, so book an appointment. It also sells shaving kit and gifts to walk-ins, and it closes Sundays and Mondays.

Funky Monkey (3102 Magazine Street) has been locally owned since 1997 and has moved across the street into a bigger space, so the aisles no longer jam. The racks hold vintage clothing from the 1920s through the 1990s, with a wall of wigs and sunglasses, trays of costume jewellery and full Mardi Gras costume gear under a monkey logo. Prices are firm and the staff do not haggle. Of the shops on this strip, it is the one where you leave with something you could not have bought at home.

Rooms on Magazine Street

Garden District Bed & Breakfast (2418 Magazine Street) is the guesthouse inside the Irish Channel itself, a restored late-1860s Victorian townhouse with a first-floor balcony, shuttered windows and a private walled courtyard patio at the back. Five suites are furnished individually, and several sleep up to four. Rooms start at $162 a night, and phone enquiries are taken from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Continental breakfast is self-service and ends at 11 a.m. For a walking visit this is the address you want.

Hotel Saint Vincent (Magazine and Race) holds a Michelin Key and occupies an 1861 red-brick former infant asylum with deep arched galleries and iron balconies. A courtyard swimming pool is ringed by striped umbrellas and palms, the Chapel Club bar is done in bold green and pink, and San Lorenzo and Elizabeth Street Café are downstairs. With 75 rooms, an event centre and several bars, it is a hotel a party can take over. It stands in the Lower Garden District, a 10-minute walk down Magazine from the Irish Channel proper.

Opening days and booking

Tuesday closes Pete's, Turkey and the Wolf and Atchafalaya, which is also shut Wednesdays alongside The Rum House, and Sunday closes the shrine, Joey K's and Aidan Gill. Book the cemetery tour in advance and reserve a barber's chair; the rest of this walk takes you as you arrive.

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