Five in Fifteen New Orleans, Louisiana 5 places to go within a 15-minute walk of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Welcome to The Big Easy
What do you do when there’s no breakout meeting or the panels are done for the day? Where do you go when you need a little time away from the hubbub of convention chaos? Exhibit City News’ 5-in-15 offers five places to go to eat, relax, or simply stay within a 15 minute walk from the convention center. In New Orleans that means the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOENMCC), the convention center of The Big Easy.
Let’s do a two-for-one to start our New Orleans 5-in-15, Cochon Butcher and Cochon Restaurant (930 Tchoupitoulas St.). Chefs Donald Link and Stryjewski side-by-side food venues offer a casual counter service deli, wine bar, and butcher shop at Butcher, and a formal restaurant with traditional Cajun Southern cuisine, within walking distance of NOENMCC. Try the Pork BLT or Lemon Chicken Sandwich at the former, or some fried alligator or rabbit and dumplings at the latter.
Right across the street from the convention center is Mulate’s (201 Julia St.). Known as the Original Cajun Restaurant, the venue celebrates Cajun culture through cuisine and live zydeco music. Chargrilled oysters, chicken and sausage jambalaya, gumbo du jour, and crawfish étouffée are waiting to be topped off with some key lime pie.
Also across the street from the convention center is the New Orleans Marriott Downtown/Convention Center (859 Convention Center Blvd.), close enough to hit with a swing of your Mardi Gras beads. Historic and modern, this ideal convention headquarters is a renovated cotton mill, ready with deluxe bedding, fitness center, pool, Creole restaurant (and bar), and nearly 25,000 square feet of event space if you want to schedule something really close to your room.
Just a five-minute walk from the center lies The Mercantile Hotel (727 South Peters St.), an all-suite stay in the Warehouse District. Free breakfast and Wi-Fi, concierge service, and a business center with internet access await you with highly rated boutique service.
While we can’t recommend Bourbon Street for entertainment (it’s 20–30 minutes away) and we’ve already mentioned Mulate’s for music, we can vouch for some great museum experiences less than 15 minutes from the center. There’s the famous National World War II Museum (945 Magazine St.), and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art (925 Camp St.) for both a national and Southern cultural experience.
This story originally appeared in the Q3 2026 issue of Exhibit City News, with the original magazine layout available here.
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