Siberia: a guide to St. Claude's loud little refuge

Closed, renamed and reclaimed, the St. Claude Avenue club is back to doing what it always did best: local bands, loud nights and a small cover.

On St. Claude Avenue, past the point where the Marigny starts to shade into St. Roch, there is a plain front with a name that makes no sense in New Orleans heat. That is the joke, and it has been for years. Siberia is where a lot of this city's louder music goes to be heard, and with 13 shows on the books over the next four weeks, it is busy again.

The basics. Siberia is at 2227 St. Claude Ave., New Orleans 70117. It is a bar and live music room, small enough that the band is never far away; we list it at about 200. Most nights there is a local band or three for a small cover, and for bigger bookings the venue sells presale tickets through its own site. Buy ahead for anything with a buzz on it. The room fills fast.

Getting there. St. Claude is a straight shot from the French Quarter and the Marigny, and Siberia sits in the middle of a stretch of bars and clubs that makes it easy to start somewhere else and end up here. Rideshare is the simple answer on a late night. If you are walking from Frenchmen, it is a short trip, but go with friends.

The room. Siberia's reputation was built on punk, metal and indie, and that is still the heart of it. It is not a polished room, and nobody wants it to be. The appeal is proximity: you are close enough to the stage to feel the kick drum, and the crowd tends to be people who came for the band, not for a drink with a soundtrack.

The story. The club closed in 2019, and the space was converted into Carnaval Lounge, a bar, restaurant and music venue with Brazilian-themed offerings. That did not last. As OffBeat reported, Siberia came back about three years later under partly new ownership, reacquiring the space, with the pandemic the main reason the Carnaval run ended. The return looked cosmetically a little different, but it felt like a reunion, and the bookings picked up where they left off.

Longtime regulars will also remember the kitchen. For years the back of Siberia served Slavic soul food, pierogi, kielbasa and borscht among it, under the name Kukhnya. We could not confirm whether food is being served there today, so check before you count on dinner.

What it books. Expect local and touring punk, metal and indie bills, the kind of nights where the opener is somebody's new project and the headliner played here when they were the opener. Siberia is a working room for the scene on this side of town, and that is what makes it worth knowing.

Before you go. Check the calendar on the venue's site, bring cash for the cover just in case, and plan to stay late. Shows on St. Claude rarely run to the posted schedule, and the best set of the night is often the one you almost skipped.

Siberia has been gone once already. Go while it is here.

Sources: Siberia New Orleans (official site) (siberianola.com); OffBeat: A Frozen Refuge — Storied music venue Siberia returns to Saint Claude Avenue (offbeat.com); OffBeat: Siberia becomes Carnaval Lounge (offbeat.com); The Infatuation: Siberia (theinfatuation.com); WWNO: Where Yeat Eats along St. Claude Avenue (wwno.org)