The Napoleon House is what people who’ve never been to New Orleans imagine the city might look like: vaguely continental, with peeling walls hung with faded portraits of Napoleon. This restaurant and bar is housed in a Creole-inflected building dating to 1814 that originally served as a grocery store prior to becoming a restaurant. Legend has it that its first owner, former Mayor Nicholas Girod, prepared an apartment for Napoleon during his exile from France, though the emperor never made it to America. The Impastato family bought the building in 1914, and have owned it ever since. Decades ago, the owner decreed that only classical would be played in the background, and so it has been ever since.
