The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Get the party started! New Orleans puts on its dancing shoes again
As the parades return, Cara McGoogan recalls the last Mardi Gras before lockdown and reveals what makes it so special
Bacchus, the god of wine, might as well have answered my prayers. I am walking down St Charles Avenue in New Orleans looking out for signs that could mean drinks for sale. There are throngs of people crowded onto the tramlines that score the middle of the street (no trams will run today). They have gazebos, camping chairs and cool boxes filled with beer – but none for sale. There are mounds of Popeye’s fried chicken and colourful “king cakes” on every table; the scent of grilled meat hangs heavy in the air.
It is February 23 2020. I am in the middle of the Bacchus Parade, which runs on the Sunday before Mardi Gras, and this is possibly the last great street party held in America before Covid arrived and stopped parties for (almost) everyone. I also have an empty cup.
A man calls out: “Glass of wine?” I spin around; he is brandishing a box of white wine, and I can’t believe my good luck. “Welcome to the Box of Wine parade!” he says. And with that, I am surrounded by hundreds of people wearing fancy dress, carrying boxes of wine and platters of cheese. They stop intermittently to pour booze directly into spectators’ mouths – or into the cups of those of a more demure disposition.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans has been one of the biggest parties on earth since 1857, when a group of men donned costumes and paraded through the streets to celebrate Fat Tuesday. Before the pandemic, more than a million people took part and nearly £750 million was spent on the festivities annually, all helped by the city’s lax alcohol rules – it’s one of the only places in the US where you can drink in the street – and its balmy winter weather. After a year’s hiatus in 2021, the parades restarted in January and the “Krewe of Bacchus” will at last return to New Orleans tomorrow, with Mardi Gras itself on March 1. It’s a sign, perhaps, of a world tentatively returning to normal.
In retrospect, in those heady final days before the first lockdown hit, I was lucky to have made it out there with my friend Dani. Fuelled by ignorance and cheap wine, it was like the last days of Rome.
A lifetime of friendship had led us to that point – sparkly headwear, necks sagging under the weight of colourful beads, feeling parched. Mardi Gras was the first stop on our 30th-year bucket list of one new milestone per month. Infections might have been tearing through China, and there had already been three deaths in Italy, but the pandemic still felt like a faraway problem.
For our first meal in New Orleans, we had been to Atchafalaya, one of the best brunch spots in the US. Set in a Creole cottage in the Garden District – an area of colonial mansions and oak tree-lined boulevards – it had a make your own bloody mary station, complete with more than a dozen hot sauces. We shared duck hash, sweet and garlicinfused; chicken with biscuits (a Southern classic of crunchy buttermilk chicken with scone-like savoury dumplings); and shrimp and grits – fat barbecued prawns with creamy polenta. A wooden ceiling fan turned lazily overhead and jazz played in the background. On a nearby table, a baby had its parents’ phone numbers taped to its back – in case of loss. The scene seemed to sum up Mardi Gras: a family affair where things could also get a little crazy.
After lunch, we caught the political satire floats, which mocked everyone from Donald Trump in the “Mar-a-Lago Swamp” to Greta Thunberg on a battleship called “How dare you!” From each float, people in fancy dress threw presents for the crowd, including costume hats, plastic beaded necklaces, sunglasses and mini bottles of Fireball whisky. A local man accosted us and told us he was going to live in New Orleans “until it drowns”. Whether from wine or rising sea levels, I wasn’t sure.
We made our way past more floats and impromptu dance floors to the city’s beating heart: Bourbon Street, a mile-long row of colonial terraces and wrought-iron balconies. Beads flew overhead, sometimes clipping the heads of unsuspecting bystanders, alcohol was freely carried from bar to bar, live music poured out of sticky doorways, and Christian protesters brandished signs saying “Jesus or hellfire”.
“In some ways, this is the worst of humanity – and many people would hate it,” said Dani. “Take the sheer volume of plastic being thrown from the Greta Thunberg float, for example. Or people getting blind drunk. Women flashing their boobs for beads. It’s anti#MeToo, anti-environment, anti all of the things many of the people who go to it would say they support. But it also shows the best of people. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. It’s a massive party and celebration.”
Monday meant Lundi Gras, when Rex and Zulu, the kings of the carnival, arrived in the city. It’s normally a quieter day, with locals saving themselves for the 24-hour party on Tuesday. We opted to start with a lazy ride down the Mississippi on Steamboat Natchez. The 44-year-old riverboat chugged past St Louis Cathedral (the oldest in the US, founded in 1720) and the 110-year-old Domino Sugar factory. Live jazz played in the dining room, and a guide pointed out the Lower Ninth Ward, where the houses were flooded after Hurricane Katrina.
Dinner that evening was at Cochon, a Cajun restaurant lauded for its barbecued pork and farmhouse chic. We started with nutmeg cocktails and warm brioche loaves with whipped butter. The special was sumptuous pork belly with mustard and blood orange sauce. Paired with mac and cheese, charred on top, it was a naughty treat.
And then Tuesday: Mardi Gras, the main event. Resplendent with sequined accessories, we took pastries and coffee to the Zulu and Rex parades and then made our way up to a private balcony party at the Royal Sonesta hotel. (It’s traditional for the bars and hotels of Bourbon Street to open up their street-facing rooms to people who want to party with a view.)
Here, there was a bar mixing Hurricane cocktails, a New Orleans classic, and a buffet of mini-burgers and sushi. Make-up artist Jami painted our faces and told us how she was pulled back to New Orleans after 20 years living away. “Elsewhere, I always felt like the cops were on my back,” said Jami, brush in hand. “For jaywalking, drinking outside... No one knows how to party like New Orleans.” Her next canvas was the face of “Deuce” McAllister, a former American football star of the New Orleans Saints.
The three-day extravaganza wrapped up with a final throw of beads into expectant arms below, and we headed on to Frenchmen Street. Here, things have a classier, more authentic edge. Cocktails come in glass tumblers rather than takeaway plastic and the musicians play jazz. We hopped from the snug Spotted Cat Music Club to a street pop-up where people were dancing to a roving DJ as the evening’s festivities finally subsided.
Within weeks, Mardi Gras would be labelled a superspreader event and cases of the virus would spike in New Orleans. The events that followed meant our bucket list ended almost where it began. My 30th birthday was during a circuit-breaker lockdown and Dani had Covid for hers. This week, we can trust New Orleans to get the party started once again – despite the mask mandate in operation for indoor venues.
Will people get back into it properly? I hope so. If I were there again, I know I would.