2438 Royal St

"Royal Street is to antiques and fine art what Bourbon Street is to booze. This elegant urban thoroughfare is not only home to some of the best examples of the city's early-19th-century Creole town houses, but is also loaded with high-end antiques retailers. These feature mostly ornate 18th- and 19th-century European sculptures and paintings, early furniture, chandeliers, and dinnerware used by the upper crust. Most of the inventory has a decidedly Continental air to it. Among the better-known shops are Waldhorn and Adler ( 343 Royal St. ); Ida Manheim Antiques ( 409 Royal St. ), run by the same family since 1919; and haute-upscale M.S. Rau ( 630 Royal St. ), with its warren of hidden back rooms open only to serious customers."