The Spotted Cat Music Club

The Spotted Cat is a tiny Frenchmen Street music club that embodies everything New Orleans jazz is supposed to be — intimate, sweaty, acoustic, and played by musicians who are so good that their refusal to pursue fame in a bigger city feels like an act of civic loyalty. The club holds maybe 100 people, there's no stage (the band plays on the floor at the front of the room), and on a busy night the crowd spills onto the sidewalk where you can hear the music through the open doors without paying cover.

The programming leans toward traditional jazz, swing, and gypsy jazz, and the club's unofficial house bands — including the New Orleans Jazz Vipers and the Panorama Jazz Band — play with a joy and precision that makes you realise why this music survived for a century while countless other genres came and went. The swing dancing that breaks out on the tiny dance floor during the faster numbers is uncoordinated, enthusiastic, and entirely in keeping with a venue where pretension goes to die.

The drinks are simple (beer and well drinks — this is not a cocktail bar), the décor is nothing (mismatched chairs, walls covered in flyers and stickers), and the cover charge is usually zero or a few dollars. The Spotted Cat's philosophy is that the music is the product, everything else is packaging, and the packaging doesn't matter. On a hot night with the doors open, a trombone solo cutting through the Frenchmen Street noise, and a crowd of locals and visitors sharing a space the size of a living room, the Spotted Cat is the best bar in New Orleans.