Beachbum Berry's Latitude 29
Jeff Berry is the man usually credited with bringing tiki bars back, and this is the room where he pours.2 The Navy Grog runs Jamaican and Demerara rums with allspice, lime and grapefruit.1
Why go
The drink list reads like a bibliography. Trader Vic's 1944 Mai Tai is on it, built with aged Martinique and Jamaican rums, curacao, lime and a whisper of almond.
1 The kitchen is the surprise. Megan Braden-Perry names coco shrimp with coconut condensed milk and grilled pandan-marinated pork with fish sauce caramel, which is not what a tiki bar usually sends out.2 The bar has run seated service since 2014.1 From the street you would walk past it.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Navy Grog. The menu calls it
Frank Sinatra's favorite Tiki drink,
Jamaican and Demerara rumsperfumed with allspice and laced with lime and grapefruit.
1 - Order: the Pearl Diver or the Hawaii 504. Braden-Perry picks both, the first
buttery
and the secondhoney and ginger-spiced.
2 - Avoid: planning a long lazy dinner at a peak hour. The bar puts a 90-minute limit on seating
during periods of high demand.
1
What locals & experts say
- Megan Braden-Perry, The Infatuation, 17 January 2025:
The food is way more than your typical tiki bar stuff, too. We're talking about coco shrimp served with coconut condensed milk and cucumber salad, and grilled pandan-marinated pork with pickled chilies and fish sauce caramel.
2 - The bar on itself:
Seated service only since 2014.
1 - Local rec: Dave Wondrich, the drinks historian, told Jeff to come here and to use his name.
Good to know
- Timing: 21 and over, the whole room.1
- Booking: the bar takes walk-ins and says a reservation
is always a good idea.
You cannot reserve a bar seat, so ask for one in the booking notes.1 - Paying: no itemized split checks.1
- Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Rec via: Dave Wondrich. His line on Jeff's list: "Go to Latitude 29 and tell Jeff 'Beachbum' Berry or his wife Annene that I sent you. Have a rum drink. Chill."
- Note: Saved with no note of his own. The line on his list is Dave Wondrich's and is quoted above.
Verdict
should-visit — Megan Braden-Perry is the only bylined critic who has written about this room, and she liked the kitchen more than the format promises. She writes that the food is 'way more than your typical tiki bar stuff' and names pandan-marinated pork with fish sauce caramel to prove it. The rum program is Jeff Berry's own book collection poured out, and the bar has run seated service on the same corner since 2014. Against that, the evidence is thin for the rung above: one review, no award on file, and the drinks trade press I could reach served an interstitial instead of a page.