Scandinavian Festival

Unique local atmosphere, music, and homemade food — it’s certainly not the most exciting festival in town but it’s A-​OK and you kind of feel like you’re getting a glimpse into one of the many different worlds that exist within New Orleans and you’ll hear plenty of Norwegian spoken while you’re there. The crowd was largely older folks as well as families with children but for the 2013 festival Lars Edegran opened the festival on Friday morning and a nice jazz band including locals along with Jason Marsalis played on Saturday from 11:30 to 2:30. Stop by for lunch and enjoy good open-​faced sandwiches for $ 4 each and slices of excellent homemade cakes also for $ 4 each — it’s a fundraiser which may be a tad overpriced but any place where you can feed 2 people for $ 20 doesn’t seem too bad to me. It’s certainly worth a stop at the Norwegian Seaman’s Church for the annual Scandinavian Festival in the Fall.

This was a tiny little church festival at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church. There is a craft/​church bazaar sale, plus food and music. This was a pretty low-​key festival. Okay-​ish crafts (I got a couple of cute ornaments), and the food was a tad expensive. I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to it, but if you happen to be in the neighborhood, you might as well stop by for one of the salmon sandwiches (more like an open-​faced sandwich-​esque appetizer). Also, the waffles they make are awesome — tastes like they add cinnamon to the batter!

You might be thinking «Swedish Bikini Team in New Orleans! This is going to be an epic event!» but you would be very disappointed as this is a VERY sedate event. This is a very small church festival at the Norwegian Seaman’s Church that has a few trinkets, some music, and a few folks in traditional garb. The real disappointment at this festival is the very mediocre food comes in really small portions at really high prices. I wish they had more traditional Scandinavian dishes but you mostly just get sandwiches and desserts. This seems to be something small kids would enjoy much more than adults and I’ve never found it very entertaining.

Good luck reading the festival website… unless, of course, your Norwegian is up to snuff. This is a fun little church fair with Scandinavian flair. Lots of interesting food, people in traditional outfits, good music, and stuff to buy. It’s not very big and you may start to feel self-​conscious if you’re not a blue-​eyed blond, but everyone is really nice and friendly, as befits a church setting.
The festival usually occurs in early November.