New Orleans Jazz Fest 2025 brings back food favorites and offers new bar options

For some festival goers, the food at Jazz Fest is as much of an attraction as the music. Many of us seize the opportunity to treat ourselves to all our favorite eats that we only get to indulge in this time of year. And this year, there’s a whole new range of beverage options to raise a glass, or canned beverage, to celebrate.

It’s always fun to try new vendors, and this year’s newbies include all-vegan vendor Sweet Soulfood Vegan Cuisine in Food Area 2 (facing the Cultural Exchange Pavilion). They will serve sweet potatoes, sweet-heat cauliflower, collard greens and cornbread (read more here). Meanwhile, in Food Area 1 (running between Economy Hall and the Jazz & Heritage Stage), Cafe Dauphine will have fried bell pepper bites stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp as well as crawfish and shrimp stuffed egg rolls.

The third new food vendor is oyster farmer and pop-up Lady Nellie Oysters, which will have oysters on the half-shell with a satsuma mignonette. While that’s your only option to get raw oysters at the fest, TCA Brocato’s sells fried oysters with barbecue or Buffalo sauce, and Vucinovich’s Restaurant will have fried oyster po-boys and a fried oyster spinach salad.

The Cultural Exhange Pavilion presents the music, art and culture of Mexico this year (read more here), and there is a food vendor next to the tent. The menu includes chicken mole, flautas filled with chicken or cheese and potatoes, Gulf shrimp tostadas and a vegetarian option, huitlacoche and vegetable tostadas. The Pavilion bar will have frozen blood orange Palomas, micheladas, margaritas and more.

As always, there are festival staples everybody needs to try at least once, like Big River Foods’ crawfish Monica, Walker BBQ’s cochon de lait po-boy, Ms. Linda’s yakamein, Caluda’s crawfish strudel and WWOZ’s mango freeze.

Patton’s Caterers will have its original Jazz Fest holy trinity of crawfish sacks, oyster patties and shrimp beignets. After skipping Jazz Fest in 2023, crawfish bread vendor Panaroma Foods returned last year. Not to worry, they’re back for 2025.

For those looking to branch out from the Southern classics, check out Congo Square, for Palmer’s Jamaican Cuisine, Gambian Foods and Bennachin’s mix of West and Central African dishes.

At the Food Heritage Stage, there will be daily food demonstrations between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., and that means the possibility of snagging free samples. There will be demos by local pop-ups, including Catawampus, Greta’s Sushi, Xanh Nola and Que Pasta Nola, as well as chefs Abigail Velazquez Azuara and Irma Cortés Ramírez from Veracruz, Mexico, who will do a full day of demos on Sunday, May 4.

Festival beer tents offer a range of options, from Miller Lite to Blue Moon Belgian White, Sol and Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, as well as seltzers.

Jazz Fest added more bars this year and expanded offerings at normal spots. A new Blues Bar near the Blues Tent will serve draft beer, canned cocktails and cocktails with Tito’s vodka and Casamigos tequila.

Tito’s and Casamigos both have their own tents with special cocktail menus. And their spirits will be available at many bars, including in the Grandstands and Rhythmpourium.

Wine stations now also offer canned cocktails from Jack Daniels and Sun Cruiser Vodka Iced Tea. The Rhythmpourium bar offers sparkling wine, mimosas and froze, and wine by the glass or carafe.

There are vendors with non-alcoholic drink options, including coffee, iced teas and strawberry lemonade, but there’s an option to add vodka to the latter. And a mocktails tent will have drinks from Tap Truck, and frozen drink stations have non-alcoholic Blue Raspberry.

Will Coviello contributed to this article.