Few places are so striking they inspire a TV show. Many series are shot on location; some even construct their plots to take in lots of landmarks. But, The Prisoner aside, they seldom exist because of the area itself.

Treme (pronounced Tremay) is different. The new venture from David Simon, creator of The Wire (beginning in the UK on Sky in April), is a deep-rooted ensemble drama, a bluesy, boozy tribute to the remarkable district of New Orleans that gives it its name – part hoot, part clarion call. The show charts and fuels the regeneration effort, lifting Treme from the slump it succumbed to in the 1960s – when the Interstate was slapped over its centre – and fell back into after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. That the show is set just six months after the disaster is evidence of how slow the real-life clear-up has been.

Treme is a small neighbourhood, nine blocks wide and 16 deep, cheek-by-jowl with the tourist-tastic French Quarter. The oldest black district in the US, it dates from 1812, when it was home to Creole people (of mixed French, Spanish and African heritage) and free people of colour. The architecture reflects this diversity: antebellum mansions stretch up Esplanade Avenue, oak trees buckling the pavement between them, while the cross-streets are a jumble of 18th-century cottages and multicoloured chalets.

A live band in Treme. Photograph: Alamy

The size of the properties – often just one storey, on stilts – lends a sense of light and space rare in inner cities. Some buildings, however, are still just a frontage, the skeletal rooms under reconstruction behind, and the scars of Katrina can be seen everywhere. Spray-painted codes on exterior walls, originally to indicate to rescuers whether there were still residents within, are now both a badge of solidarity, and proof that this is still a relatively poor district.

Treme is best experienced by day and on foot – travel light. You may be able to stay at one of handful of new cheap boutique hotels. I spent a happy Saturday wandering round alone, hassled only by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Begin at St Louis No 1, a short hop from the French Quarter, and one of the oldest of New Orleans's numerous cemeteries. Dennis Hopper shot the LSD prostitute rape scene in Easy Rider here (without permission from the – understandably miffed – authorities), and 19th-century voodoo queen Marie Laveau is buried within.

Backstreet Cultural Museum. Photograph: Alamy

You can read about her over the road at Basin Street station (basinststation.com), an art deco railway terminus converted into offices, visitor centre and small museum. Further along the street, Louis Armstrong Park is often shut for reconstruction, but well worth a tour for its statues and to see Congo Square, a hub for dancing and drumming in the 19th century. From there, head up Ursuline Avenue to the Backstreet Cultural Museum, a ramshackle, lo-fi tribute to Treme life, with one room displaying Native American Mardi Gras costumes and another full of curiously moving homemade tributes to dead musicians.

Opposite is St Augustine's (staugustinecatholicchurch-neworleans. org) serving the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the US. Built in 1842, it's vast, but with the perfect proportions of a dolls' house, iced-white pilasters reaching up to its eaves. In front, a rusting crucifix made of chains and shackles lies on its side, anchor-style. This is the Tomb of the Unknown Slave, erected in 2004. A bronze plaque commemorates "the nameless, faceless, turfless Africans ... who either met with fatal treachery, and were therefore buried quickly and secretly, or were buried hastily and at random because of yellow fever and other plagues".

Walk on up Governor Nicholls Street and, if you're hungry, turn right to Lil Dizzy's, a laid-back diner, much used in the TV show, for fried catfish and grits. Double back a block to the New Orleans African-American Museum (thenoaam.org) for its old Creole artefacts and local modern art. Three storeys high, it has a beautiful annex in the garden. Now you're at the intersection of Treme's two major roads: Bayou Road, the oldest in the city, and Interstate 10, which provides a de facto roof to Claiborne Avenue. At night it's a bit of a meeting spot, as customers from watering holes on Basin Street – Chez Fabulous, Bertha's Lounge, Jo-Ros cafe and BJ's Seafood and Daiquiri Shop – spill out to soak up the roar. Imagine the Hammersmith flyover, but hot, jazzy and smothered in street art.

The upper grid of Treme doesn't have so many official attractions, but the atmosphere is better, and the houses astonishing – this one in hot pink, that one covered in parrots, bearing a proud sign that its restoration is funded by the people of Qatar. Round the corner on Dumaine Street is a pristine Banksy of a little girl standing on a stool, looking at a rat.

Best yet, carry on up Orleans Avenue and at 2301 you'll find Dooky Chase (dookychaserestaurant.com), the soul food restaurant Barack Obama ate at on his four-hour trip to the city in 2008. (Ray Charles namechecks it in Early in the Morning.) Next year is its 70th anniversary, and the 70th year of rustling up gumbo for head chef Leah, 87. (Her first words to the future president were: "You're too frail, baby – I have to fatten you up.")

If that's not open, head to Willie Mae's Scotch House at 2401 Saint Ann Street, less smart but no less of a institution, with a similarly venerable chef (94-year-old Willie Mae Seaton, though she retired from full-time service in 2005).

Ernie K-Doe's Mother-In-Law Lounge. Photograph: Alamy

If you're still going, and it's Wednesday, head back towards Louis Armstrong Park and the Candle Light Lounge at 925 North Robertson, where you'll find the Treme Brass Band. Failing that, Ernie K Doe's Mother-In-Law Lounge (k-doe.com/lounge.shtml) at 1500 North Claiborne Avenue is open seven days a week, despite the death of its soul singer founder in 2001 (he's sadly best known in Britain as the composer of Here Come the Girls, from the Boots ad). It keeps erratic hours, and customers are frequently invited to pour their own drinks and bring their own crawfish from the shack across the street. A museum showcases Ernie's hits, with a life-size waxwork of the man himself. It's unique, almost halluncinatory, yet if one thing captures the soul of Treme as perfectly as Simon's show, it's this place.

• Flights to New Orleans cost from around £438 return from Heathrow through kayak.com. The House on Bayou Road (2275 Bayou Road; +1 504 945 0992, houseonbayouroad.com; doubles from $135 B&B) is a former plantation house dating from the 18th century. Artist Edgar Degas stayed at 2306 Esplanade Ave in the 1870s – it is now Degas House (+1 504 821 5009, degashouse.com; doubles from $149 B&B)