The carousel canopy of the Carousel Bar, Hotel MonteleoneCarousel Bar, Hotel Monteleone
- Best time
- Mid-afternoon, when you can get a seat on the carousel
- Getting there
- In the hotel lobby, a block from Canal Street
Why it’s in the log
The Hotel Monteleone has been on Royal Street since 1886, and its bar is where Walter Bergeron, the hotel's bartender, created the Vieux Carré — rye, cognac, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine and Peychaud's bitters, named for the French Quarter. The International Bartenders Association lists it among its "unforgettables".
The carousel came later, in 1949: 25 seats around a bar that turns on 2,000 steel rollers. Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner all stayed at the hotel, and Williams put the bar into The Rose Tattoo. Truman Capote liked to claim he was born here; his mother lived at the hotel while she was pregnant, but made it to the hospital in time.
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