we are back now after a wonderful long weekend in NOLA. Thank you everyone for your advice and comments. here's where we ended up eating:
Restaurant August - fantastic! meal and overall experience was on par with top restaurants in NYC and in the country. excellent meal, good service, unhurried, seated immediately at our reservation time. lovely overall!
the rest were more casual affairs -
Royal Oyster House - good etouffe and grilled oysters, service so-so, but fun to sit on the balcony for great peoplewatching
this weekend was the Oyster Fest in the park in front of FQ (don't remember the name of it). All the top restaurants had tents there and were selling small portions of 2-3 things off their menu. We went back over two days for several helpings of Drago's charbroiled oysters. thgey were fantastic! Also sampled RedFish Grill oyster tacos (great!), Borgne buffalo shrimp po-boy, and a few other things. this was our lunch both days.
Had beignets at Cafe du Monde - mneh. one and done. i can see how some love them - they were fresh, hot and doughy, but i'd just rather have a different type of desert (or a plain croissant for a bready-thing).
We stayed at W French Quarter and had breakfast there - it was surpringly good and reasonably priced. excellent omelets and yogurt/granola.