Napoleon House

Mayor Nicholas Girod built the house in 1794 as one of the city's finer private residences, then enlarged it in 1814. The local legend is this: Girod offered it as a refuge for Napoleon Bonaparte after the emperor's exile to St. Helena, part of a plot to bring him to Louisiana. Napoleon died in 1821 before the plan launched. The building still carries his name. Since 1914, the Impastato family has run it as a bar and restaurant. The three-story brick structure is stuccoed, with a dormered hip roof, cupola, and shallow ironwork balconies on the second floor — one of the city's finest examples of French-influenced architecture, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. The upper floors are apartments where some of the original interior decorative elements remain. The bar serves the Pimm's Cup — gin, lemonade, cucumber — widely considered the best version in the country. Classical music plays on the sound system, a tradition that goes back decades. The kitchen turns out muffaletta sandwiches, red beans and rice, gumbo, jambalaya. The plaster crumbles. The paint peels. Nothing is renovated because the decay is the aesthetic. It looks like New Orleans is supposed to look. Open daily for lunch and dinner at 500 Chartres Street. No reservations needed for the bar.