Manolito
Manolito takes its name from Manuel Carbajo Aguiar, who tended bar at El Floridita in Havana, and it pours daiquiris off a short Cuban list.1
Why go
Konrad Kantor built it with Nick Detrich and Chris Hannah.3 Axios names the same two among the people behind Jewel of the South, which took the James Beard Outstanding Bar award in 2024.2 The list starts on blended drinks and then runs into the Cuban classics, daiquiris and El Presidentes.3 The bar calls itself our little cradle of the daiquiri in the French Quarter.
1 Cocktails average $12.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: a daiquiri, the Floridita kind, which is the drink the whole room is organized around.1
- Order: an El Presidente, the other Cuban classic on the short list.3
- Avoid: turning up six-handed. 50 Best calls it a
tiny cocktail bar
and it is not built for a group.3
What locals & experts say
- 50 Best Discovery:
Everything about this tiny cocktail bar is decidedly Cuban, from the details of the decor to the food offering – and to the drinks, of course.
3 - The bar on its own aim:
we seek to honor the traditions of warmth and generosity that drove the life of Manuel 'Manolito' Carbajo Aguiar.
1 - Nobody has written about the daiquiris. No bylined review of this bar turned up anywhere, so the two lines above are the whole record.
Good to know
- Timing: 50 Best Discovery lists Thursday through Monday. The bar's own site publishes no hours, so check before you walk over.3
- Booking: walk in.
- Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.
Verdict
could-visit — What is verified is the aim and the people: the bar states in its own words that it is built on Manuel Carbajo Aguiar's Floridita hospitality, and 50 Best Discovery names Konrad Kantor, Nick Detrich and Chris Hannah behind it, the last two of whom also built a James Beard Outstanding Bar winner across the Quarter. That pedigree is real, and nobody has yet published a judgment of the daiquiris. I found no bylined review of this room, and $12 a cocktail is a directory field rather than a judgment, so the rung stays under should-visit until a critic has written about the drinks.