Walking down Royal Street in the French Quarter one morning, a poster in the window of the Le Jardin art gallery caught my eye. Titled “Peter’s Laws—The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive,” item number one of a 10-point list said this:

If Anything Can Go Wrong, Fix It!

Turning Murphy’s Law on its head, it sums up what is going on in New Orleans right now.

From the number of tourists doubling in 2007 over 2006 and museums opening
and expanding, to the return of the beloved St. Charles streetcar line and a record number of restaurants—like a boxer hitting the canvas and then struggling to his feet to punch his way back into contention—New Orleans is slowly recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

“The feedback I get is that visitors are astonished at how well the city is doing,” says  Frank Monteleone, co-owner of the grand dame of New Orleans hotels, the Hotel Monteleone. “There is a new spirit of hope.”

“An analogy I use is that it is as though there were neighborhoods in the boroughs of New York and Long Island having a flood but still you have Times Square and Manhattan. In New Orleans, there still is the heart and soul of why tourists come. That doesn’t always get out in the national media.”

Maybe it’s difficult for some to imagine that a city could rebound from 480 billion pounds of water soaking its streets for a month, as well as damage and destruction to 135,000 housing units and commercial properties. However, while the heart of the city—the French Quarter, Downtown and
the Warehouse and Garden districts—is still frayed around the edges, visitors still can count on a grand time in what remains one of America’s most distinctive cities.

I began my visit with a 6 a.m. walk around the French Quarter. Even Bourbon Street is asleep at this hour, but many gallery, boutique, bar and restaurant owners already were out hosing down the sidewalks. This is an early-morning tradition in the Quarter, and I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in the cleansing water washing away the crud of the previous day’s events.

The only way to start your day is on Decatur Street at Café Du Monde, with chicory coffee and beignets (pronounced “ben-yays” and akin to Italian zeppoles). They come three to an order and are addictive, but save room for a muffuleta— a lunchtime tradition consisting of a 12-inch-wide round loaf stuffed with Italian meats, cheeses and olive salad—from the Central Grocery, also on Decatur.

Walk off the muffuleta by touring—east to west—the French Quarter. Then head to Canal Street for the St. Charles streetcar, to tour the city’s Warehouse and Garden districts. Make the roundtrip, and if you’re lucky you’ll get a talkative motorman like Alex, who after 39 years on the St. Charles line has become a tour guide to the area’s best restaurants, the bars with the best happy hours—even the shop that makes the best sno-balls.

Easily accessible along the St. Charles route are the National World War II Museum, the original Emeril’s—a must-visit in a city full of exhilarating eateries—and Commander’s Palace, the granddaddy of New Orleans restaurants.

In New Orleans, they say that they live to eat, not eat to live. You can go strictly blue collar at Central Grocery and Johnny’s Po-Boys (I recommend the roast beef po’ boy); engage in an oyster frenzy at the Acme oyster bar; or indulge in sublime meals at institutions such as Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Brennan’s and Tujague’s (ask for the bonne femme chicken as soon as you sit down).

Though still in its infancy, a visit to the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, in the Riverwalk Marketplace, is required if you want to know more about the food that has made New Orleans a culinary con: pralines, chicory coffee, crawfish, gumbo, roux, jambalaya, hot sauce and red beans and rice. The Museum of the American Cocktail also is found here, and mixed drinks are celebrated at the annual Tales of the Cocktail festival at the Hotel Monteleone.

For live jazz and blues, visit the Market Café, next to Café Du Monde. Fewer buskers pepper the French Quarter than in recent years, and it’s the same with the number of artists who exhibit and sell their art at Jackson Square. Nevertheless, other arts are thriving, with more movies and TV shows being filmed in the city than ever before. Just this year, Brad Pitt, Selma Hayek, Jim Carrey, Forest Whitaker and Renée Zellweger have worked here.

A cabbie told me that since Katrina, “Everything is different.” Yes, but a spirit of tenacity has energized the city. Maybe no more so than in the rebuilding work being done by Habitat for Humanity and the Baptist Crossroads Project, in the devastated Upper Ninth Ward and the
neighborhood known as Musicians’ Village. Says David Crosby, pastor of the First Baptist Church, “Many of the foundations, crossbeams and even concrete peers have prayers written on them. It is a way to bless the house.”

Something went wrong in New Orleans. New Orleanians are fixing it.