Picture a grocery stocked specifically for outdoor happy hours and picnics. Now fuse that with a wine shop and an espresso bar and plant it by a restaurant row of food trucks on a grassy lawn with a sweeping view of the Mississippi River.
This is the scene that’s been drawing me back to The Batture this spring, and not just on the weekends, when this outdoor spread on the Uptown riverfront is hopping with romping families. I’ve been returning on quieter weekdays, too, for what I’ve come to regard as a dinner and a show combo.
On a recent Tuesday, dinner was a market-fresh spread of Colombian cooking from the pop-up Waska. The show was the river itself, coursing past in currents of opal gray and rose gold as the sun made its slow descent over the West Bank.
Formations of fat ducks swooped by the riverbank. Tugboats pushed strings of barges and giant oceangoing tankers filled the horizon, capturing the attention like parade floats. Some tooted boat horns, which we toasted with plastic wine cups.
It’s been a year since the Batture first materialized just over the levee, transforming a once-invisible maritime industrial yard into an enchanting place for New Orleans to relax, play, have some tasty food and drink, and even getting some shopping done…