The 12 Best New Orleans Podcasts (2026)

Mark Bologna is a New Orleans native who has spent more than a decade sharing the real city with listeners around the world. Beyond Bourbon Street goes past the tourist cliches to explore the food, music, people, places, and events that give New Orleans its one-of-a-kind character. Since launching in 2016, the show has built up a library of more than 240 episodes and earned a 4.9-star rating from nearly 900 listeners.

Each episode usually runs 30 to 60 minutes and features interviews with local experts, chefs, musicians, historians, and community figures. The range of subjects is vast: you will hear deep conversations about Mardi Gras traditions, the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East, cemetery architecture, civil rights landmarks, jazz history, and neighborhood-specific restaurant guides. Bologna approaches every topic with genuine curiosity and a clear affection for his hometown.

The show speaks to three audiences at once. Trip planners use it to build smarter itineraries. Current residents discover corners of the city they never knew existed. And people who simply love New Orleans from afar get a regular dose of the culture without boarding a plane. Reviewers consistently highlight Bologna's warm interview style, his willingness to cover lesser-known stories, and his knack for making history feel personal and immediate. Updated monthly, the podcast remains one of the most trusted guides to life in the Crescent City.

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 was produced by WWNO, the city's NPR station, in partnership with the Historic New Orleans Collection. Hosted by Laine Kaplan-Levenson, each episode focuses on a single story or subject from the city's deep, layered past. The series earned a 4.9-star rating from nearly 200 listeners who praised its careful research and accessible storytelling.

The show covers everything from pre-colonial Choctaw history and the indigenous name Bulbancha for the region to the European settlement, the complex legacy of slavery, the birth of jazz, and the modern cultural movements that keep reshaping the city. Kaplan-Levenson brings each story to life through interviews with historians, community members, and everyday New Orleanians who carry these histories in their families and neighborhoods.

Though the series wrapped its main run and released its final episodes by 2021, the 20-episode archive remains an essential listening resource for anyone who wants to understand how New Orleans became what it is. The production quality reflects WWNO's public radio standards, with clean audio, thoughtful pacing, and a narrative style that never talks down to its audience. For history buffs, visitors preparing for a trip, or locals looking to deepen their connection to the city, TriPod is a compact, rewarding collection that rewards repeated listens.

Poppy Tooker has been a tireless advocate for Louisiana's culinary heritage for years, and Louisiana Eats is where that passion comes through most clearly. Running since 2014, the show now has nearly 300 episodes and a loyal audience that keeps coming back for Tooker's infectious energy and deep knowledge of the state's food traditions.

The format is built around interviews. Tooker meets with the people who grow, catch, cook, and serve the food that defines Louisiana: farmers pulling crawfish from rice paddies, oyster shuckers working the Gulf Coast, pastry chefs perfecting king cake recipes during Carnival season, and home cooks preserving family gumbo traditions that go back generations. She visits kitchens, farms, markets, and waterways, giving listeners a sense of place that goes well beyond recipes.

What sets Louisiana Eats apart is Tooker's commitment to preservation. She does not just celebrate popular dishes. She tracks down endangered food traditions and the people fighting to keep them alive. The show connects food to broader themes of culture, immigration, ecology, and community identity in a way that feels natural, never forced. With a 4.7-star rating and episodes dropping roughly twice a month, Louisiana Eats is the go-to podcast for anyone who wants to understand why food in this part of the world matters so much.

Ian McNulty is one of New Orleans' most respected food writers, and Where Y'Eat brings his sharp, knowledgeable perspective to podcast form. Produced through WWNO, the city's public radio station, the show has been running since 2012 and has accumulated more than 200 episodes exploring the food culture of the Crescent City and surrounding south Louisiana.

Each episode is a focused exploration of a single food topic. McNulty covers seasonal traditions like crawfish boils and Carnival king cakes alongside deeper stories about how immigrant communities have reshaped the local dining scene. Recent episodes have highlighted Vietnamese cooking traditions at the Tet Festival, Gulf seafood sustainability, and the neighborhood restaurants that form the backbone of daily life in New Orleans. The episodes are concise and well-produced, making them easy to fit into a commute or a kitchen session.

McNulty writes with authority earned through decades of covering the New Orleans restaurant scene for The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate. He knows which po-boy shops have been open for three generations and which new spots are worth the drive across town. The show carries a 4.9-star rating and continues to publish biweekly, making it a reliable companion for anyone who considers eating well to be an essential part of living well in south Louisiana.

Peter Ricchiuti is a Tulane finance professor who has spent more than 15 years conducting business conversations New Orleans style: over lunch at The Columns hotel in Uptown. Out to Lunch, part of the It's New Orleans podcast network and also broadcast on WWNO 89.9 FM, has produced over 500 episodes and earned a 4.8-star rating from devoted listeners.

The format is deceptively simple. Ricchiuti sits down with entrepreneurs, executives, nonprofit leaders, artists, and civic figures over a meal and lets the conversation unfold naturally. What emerges is a portrait of the New Orleans business community that corporate podcasts rarely capture: personal, funny, occasionally messy, and deeply rooted in the culture of the city. Guests range from the founders of local vodka brands and textile companies to leaders at the Historic New Orleans Collection and innovators in healthcare education.

Ricchiuti brings an economist's analytical mind paired with a storyteller's instinct for the interesting detail. He asks the questions that reveal how business actually works in a city where relationships matter more than PowerPoint decks. The show updates biweekly with episodes that typically run about 30 minutes, making it a manageable listen that consistently delivers insight into the economic life of New Orleans and the people driving it forward.

Eric Asher covers New Orleans sports, politics, and culture with the kind of blunt commentary that has made his show one of the most-listened-to local podcasts in the city. Originally airing on 106.7 The Ticket from 4 to 6 PM, Inside New Orleans is also available on iHeart Radio, TuneIn, and all major podcast platforms, where it has racked up roughly 1,100 episodes since launching in 2020.

The show's strength is its range. Asher moves confidently between Saints analysis, LSU football breakdowns, Tulane athletics, Pelicans coverage, Louisiana political developments, and cultural commentary. He is not afraid to take positions that other local media figures avoid, and his willingness to engage directly with newsmakers and news breakers gives the show a sense of urgency and access that sets it apart from more cautious outlets.

Episodes typically run about two hours, which gives Asher room to go deep on stories rather than skimming the surface. He regularly features interviews with sports journalists, politicians, and local personalities who shape the conversation in New Orleans. The weekly update schedule keeps the content timely, and the podcast format means listeners can catch up on episodes they missed during the live broadcast. For anyone who wants to stay plugged into what is happening across New Orleans, this show covers a lot of ground.

New Orleans Magazine produces this focused exploration of Carnival, the sprawling tradition that defines the city's cultural calendar every year. Now in its seventh season, Mardi Gras Beyond The Beads has released 41 episodes that trace the history, traditions, and modern evolution of the Greatest Free Show on Earth. The show carries a 4.5-star rating and updates biweekly during Carnival season.

Historian Errol Laborde serves as the primary voice on the show, bringing decades of Carnival scholarship to each episode. The topics span thousands of years of history, from the ancient roots of pre-Lenten celebrations in Europe to the uniquely American forms that took shape in New Orleans. Recent episodes have examined how Carnival has evolved across the country, the origin stories behind king cake traditions, and interviews with cultural figures like artist Brandan BMike Odums.

The podcast goes well beyond float schedules and bead counts. It gets into the krewes, the social dynamics, the music, the food, the costumes, and the community organizations that keep Carnival alive and changing. Each episode runs about 30 minutes and benefits from Laborde's ability to connect historical detail to present-day practice. For anyone who has ever wondered why Mardi Gras means so much to New Orleans, or who wants to understand what happens behind the scenes of the parades, this is the podcast that answers those questions with real depth.

Southern Gothic Media created Haunted New Orleans as a curated spinoff from their chart-topping Southern Gothic podcast, focusing specifically on the haunted history and notorious locations of the Crescent City. The series features immersive storytelling paired with rich sound design that brings these dark stories to life in a way that text on a page simply cannot match.

The episodes cover some of the most infamous locations in the French Quarter and beyond. The LaLaurie Mansion episode runs a full 52 minutes, exploring the horrifying history of Madame LaLaurie in meticulous detail. Other episodes examine the spirits said to inhabit the St. Louis Cathedral, the vampire legends connected to the Old Ursuline Convent in the Vieux Carre, the eerie atmosphere of the Cities of the Dead cemeteries, and the haunted hotels that draw paranormal enthusiasts to the French Quarter.

With a 4.8-star rating from 31 reviewers, the production quality is consistently praised. The show works both as entertainment for horror and paranormal fans and as a legitimate history resource, since the best ghost stories in New Orleans are inseparable from the city's real past. The series currently has five episodes with the most recent from September 2024, making it a compact but high-quality binge for anyone planning a visit to New Orleans or simply fascinated by the darker side of the city's history.

Happy Hour captures something that is difficult to bottle: the spontaneous, unpredictable energy of a New Orleans bar. Hosted by Grant Morris with Andrew Duhon as sidekick, the show ran for more than 400 episodes from 2011 to 2020, building up a massive archive of cocktail-fueled conversations with New Orleanians from every walk of life.

The premise is straightforward. Morris gathers people who have nothing in common except that they happen to be in a bar in New Orleans, and the conversation goes wherever it wants to go. What made the show special was the live music. Extraordinary New Orleans musicians performed during each episode, giving listeners a front-row seat to the city's music scene in a setting that felt intimate and unrehearsed. The result was 60 minutes of genuine, unscripted interaction that captured the social texture of the city better than most scripted programs could.

Part of the It's New Orleans podcast network, the show earned a 4.9-star rating from 35 reviewers who consistently praised it as smart, funny, and endlessly replayable. Though new episodes stopped in 2020, the archive remains a rich document of New Orleans culture during a vibrant decade. Musicians, chefs, artists, bartenders, and random locals all had their turn at the mic, creating a mosaic of voices that adds up to a vivid portrait of the city and its people.

WWOZ 90.7 FM is the guardian of New Orleans' musical and cultural heritage, and Takin' It To The Streets is their podcast dedicated to the living traditions that fill the city's neighborhoods every week. The show focuses on social aid and pleasure clubs, second line parades, Black Masking Indians, Baby Dolls, and the brass band traditions that form the beating heart of New Orleans street culture.

Each episode typically centers on a specific parade or cultural event, providing detailed route descriptions alongside interviews with community leaders, club members, and musicians. The show documents traditions that have been passed down through generations in Black New Orleans communities but rarely receive mainstream media coverage. When you hear about an Undefeated Divas second line or a Unified Indian practice session at Little People's Place, you are hearing about cultural expressions that exist nowhere else on earth.

The podcast has been running since 2012 with the most recent episode from December 2025, and while its 10-episode catalog is modest in size, each installment carries real weight. WWOZ's deep roots in the New Orleans music community give the show an authenticity and access that outsider productions cannot replicate. For listeners who want to understand the grassroots cultural life of New Orleans beyond the tourist corridors, Takin' It To The Streets is an irreplaceable resource.

Leo Mixon has carved out a niche with this true crime podcast that examines organized crime history specifically through the lens of New Orleans. The show holds a perfect 5.0-star rating from 24 reviewers, with listeners consistently praising Mixon's thorough research and compelling delivery.

The episodes cover the mafia's deep and often overlooked presence in New Orleans, a city that played a pivotal role in the history of organized crime in America. Stories include the infamous murder at Mosca's restaurant, the conflict between the mafia and Louisiana politicians like Gil Dozier, and the power struggles that shaped the city's underworld for decades. Mixon also branches into related territory with his Morrison's Mustang Shorts series about Jim Morrison and The Doors, connecting the city's cultural history to broader American stories in unexpected ways.

With nine episodes released between 2021 and 2022, the catalog is compact but dense. Each episode reflects serious research, drawing on written accounts, historical records, and local knowledge that only someone familiar with the city's geography and social dynamics could assemble. Reviewers note that Mixon combines the rigor of a historian with the pacing of a natural storyteller. For true crime fans and history buffs who think they already know everything about the American mafia, the New Orleans angle offers a perspective that the big national shows tend to overlook entirely.

Geoff and Joel were two New Orleans natives who started this podcast in 2016 to share what they loved about the greatest city in the world. Over 100 episodes and six years, they built a devoted audience that came for the insider perspective on New Orleans culture and stayed for the genuine friendship between the two hosts.

The show covered current events, cultural commentary, Saints analysis, and features on the traditions that make New Orleans unlike anywhere else. Episodes about Jazz Fest, second line parades, Storyville history, and local music scene deep cuts gave listeners a non-tourist view of the city that felt like sitting in on a conversation between two friends who genuinely knew their stuff. The tone was warm, opinionated, and unapologetically local.

The podcast holds a 4.5-star rating and included both original episodes and rerun episodes honoring co-host Geoffrey Douville. The final episodes were released in early 2022. Though the show is no longer producing new content, the 100-episode archive remains a valuable time capsule of New Orleans life during a period that included the city's tricentennial celebration, multiple hurricane seasons, and the cultural upheaval of the pandemic years. For listeners looking for an authentic local voice that never tried to polish the city into something it was not, the archive rewards exploration.