Entry No. 94 — the New Orleans file — filed under: antiques
Lucullus Antiques
Patrick Dunne has run Lucullus for about four decades on a single editorial rule: an object gets in only if it has something to do with cooking, eating or drinking. The trade calls them objets culinaires, and the result is three centuries jammed together without much deference to period — a Georgian satin-mahogany tea caddy with its original lock and key sitting near a French carved wine caddy shaped like a shoe, Gorham sterling tea strainers, Belle Époque porcelain mazagrans, sets of 19th-century French crystal flutes. Dunne still does the buying and the authentication himself. The shop used to be a French Quarter fixture and had a Magazine Street outpost that didn't survive Katrina; it now works out of a big room at 915 Kentucky Street in the Bywater, which is why nobody stumbles in by accident. Prices run from $145 for a silver strainer to four figures for a set of glass, so a slow lap costs nothing.
→ Three more vintage, record & maker shops in New Orleans — never the same twice
The story
Patrick Dunne started Lucullus forty years ago, by the shop's own count, on a single editorial rule: an object gets in only if it has something to do with cooking, eating or drinking. The trade calls them objets culinaires. Dunne still leads the purchasing, describing and authenticating himself, and the stock is still sorted by what a thing does rather than when it was made — Setting the Sensational Table, Scullery Made, A Stylish Sip, Enchanting the Garden. Lucullus was a French Quarter address for decades, with a second branch on Magazine Street that Katrina closed; displaced, Dunne opened a Lucullus in Breaux Bridge, 130 miles west, and bought Serenity, an early-1800s French Creole house on Bayou Carron with bousillage packed into its timber walls. He took the dishwasher out on principle.
The current room is 915 Kentucky Street, which the shop calls its old Bywater warehouse and studio — a residential block nobody reaches by accident. Three centuries share the floor without much deference to chronology, and everything is coded and priced rather than negotiated in the dark: a Gorham sterling tea strainer, circa 1880–1900, at $145; a 19th-century Belgian porcelain teapot with the impressed Baudour mark at $225; sets of eight to twelve 19th-century French crystal champagne flutes from $795 to $1,200, depending on whether the stems are ballon, tulipe or triple-knopped. There is no checkout button — each piece carries a reference number and an instruction to get in touch.
The staff explain the place better than the inventory does. Michele Bray runs research and sourcing; Jerry Teel, the master cabinetmaker handling conservation and restoration, is also the man behind the underground rock band Chicken Snake; Lambert Gonzales, an eight-generation New Orleanian, does the metal work and still practises wipe-tinning on copper cookware.
What it's like
You pull up on a quiet Bywater street, park at the kerb without drama, and walk into one large room rather than a shop with a window display. There is no admission and no pressure; a slow lap takes twenty minutes or two hours depending on how much you ask. Things are priced on cards with reference codes, and staff will tell you what a mark means, where a piece came from and why a wine caddy is shaped like a shoe, if you give them the opening. Handle with the same care you'd want applied to your own grandmother's crystal, and ask first on anything with a lid. Buying is a conversation — they pack and ship. Doors shut firmly at 5pm, and a one-person-deep shop occasionally closes for a buying trip, so phone ahead if you're crossing town for it.
The move: Drive or bike down to Kentucky Street before 5pm and give yourselves a game: each pick the one object you'd actually put on a table you own, then defend it. Ask about the absinthe and barware — that's where the shop gets strange fastest. Then walk it off to Bacchanal for wine in the back yard, ten minutes away.
📍 Before you go Monday–Saturday 9am–5pm; closed Sunday. Phone (504) 528-9620. Not by appointment, but it's a working antiques room in a residential stretch of the Bywater — call ahead if you're coming a long way, since a one-person shop occasionally shuts for a buying trip. It's about 15 minutes from the Quarter by car; parking is street parking and easy. Older listings still put Lucullus on Chartres Street in the French Quarter — that location is gone.
- 📍 New Orleans
- 💸 $
- ⚡ Low-key
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 915 Kentucky St, New Orleans, LA 70117
Hours: Added 2026-08-26 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Euclid Records New Orleans — A ten-minute walk up to 3301 Chartres puts you in the other Bywater room where obsessives price their obsession in public — original New Orleans 45s instead of 19th-century crystal.
- Bar Redux — Lucullus locks up at 5pm and Bar Redux is a few blocks downriver at the end of Poland Avenue, with a hundred-year-old bar to sit at and a 9pm show to stay for.
- The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History — Same collecting instinct, opposite taste: a personal cabinet of taxidermy and creepy dolls over in the Marigny, where nothing is for sale and nothing has a provenance card.
More weird in New Orleans
Good to know
How do I get there, and can I walk it from the Quarter?
No. 915 Kentucky Street is deep Bywater, roughly 15 minutes by car from the French Quarter, and it sits past the usual Bywater strip on a residential block. Drive, bike or rideshare; street parking is genuinely easy, which is not a sentence you get to write often in New Orleans.
Isn't Lucullus in the French Quarter?
It was, for decades, and plenty of listings still say Chartres Street. That shop is gone, as is the Magazine Street branch, which closed after Katrina. Kentucky Street is the only Lucullus in New Orleans now.
What does it cost to look, and what does anything actually cost?
Looking is free. The published stock spans a $145 Gorham sterling tea strainer, a $225 Baudour porcelain teapot, a $625 early-19th-century English bat-printed tea set and sets of 19th-century French crystal flutes at $795–$1,200, so you can leave with a real object for under $200 or spend four figures on glassware.
Do I need an appointment, and can I buy online?
No appointment: Monday through Saturday, 9am to 5pm, closed Sunday, phone (504) 528-9620. Online is a catalogue rather than a cart — every listing carries a reference number (SS69, SS129) and asks you to email [email protected] to purchase.
What should I ask about if I only have half an hour?
Ask for A Stylish Sip — the drinking side. That's where the corkscrews, barware, mazagrans and champagne flutes live, and it's the part of the collection where the explanations get longest and strangest.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · gardenandgun.com
last checked: 2026-08-26