Rich seafood gumbo, crispy onion rings, overstuffed shrimp po’boys and a rotating menu of Creole Italian specialties dominate the menu at this classic New Orleans seafood and chop house. Occupying a white, converted double shotgun house, Dempsey’s is a throwback to a different era of New Orleans, when neighborhood restaurants dominated the landscape. Everything from the hours to the menu harkens to an era of local cuisine that has become increasingly harder to find – but here it remains.

When longtime locals discuss contenders for New Orleans’s best po’boys, R&O’s is an integral part of the conversation. Among dedicated fans, the beef po’boy is the stuff of legend – the chunky, deeply flavored gravy is somehow beefier than a fine T-bone, in a way that suits a working-class sandwich. A literal stone’s throw from Lake Pontchartrain, the restaurant has been a fixture of the far-flung neighborhood of Bucktown since 1980.

In the minds of some, New Orleans is the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean. And while Jamaican food would seem like a natural fit here (and it is), it is not nearly as commonplace as it should be. Enter Richard Rose, Jackie Diaz and their Jamaican Jerk House. For dine or take out, your boxes will be piled high with jerked chicken and beef ribs, fried plantains, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, and rice and peas – reminiscent of both an island escape and a New Orleans church fish fry.

In the South, storefront churches are not uncommon, and Beignets & More is an ascetic temple. Tucked into a strip mall in the Chalmette suburb is this family-run gem of Vietnamese cuisine. The name is a cloaking device of sorts: The fresh beignets – a French doughnut – are almost an afterthought on a menu studded with delicious pho, vermicelli bowls, banh mi and other Vietnamese delicacies. And the large, airy beignets are beautifully accompanied by Vietnamese iced coffee.

In New Orleans, issues of climate change become deeply integrated into the region’s food culture, and nowhere more notably than in the work of chef Melissa Martin and her neighborhood restaurant the Mosquito Supper Club. A native of Chauvin in coastal Terrebonne Parish, Martin celebrates the elemental, seafood culture of her home – fried stuffed crabs, shrimp and okra gumbo, fresh strawberry pies – in a communal-table setting in the Uptown neighborhood.

There is fried chicken, and then there is Li’l Dizzy’s Café’s fried chicken, which is about as good as it gets. The restaurant, founded by legendary New Orleans restaurateur Wayne Bacquet, is a love letter to the Tremé neighborhood and its Creole cuisine. And while the gumbo and bread pudding are renowned for good reason, it is the fried chicken – light breading, crispy skin, a snappy bite and tender meat – that brings us back again and again. All it needs is a splash of Crystal hot sauce.

Despite the ongoing global uncertainties, New Orleans’s neighborhood stalwarts always rally to feed the faithful, and for po’ boy people, this is one reliable classic with many options. Is today’s call a seafood variation overstuffed with crispy fried Gulf shrimp (breaded and crunchy) or roast beef slow-cooked to near-liquid tenderness and dripping with savory brown gravy? Either way, you’ll need about nine napkins for propriety’s sake and a beer to wash it all down. Expect a quick-moving line.