August is brutal. The hottest month in one of the country’s hottest cities forces many people to just up and leave. Shop hours become irregular in the dog days, as more than a few entrepreneurs decamp for a few weeks to get away from the sweltering heat. But inside the city’s finest restaurants, August is nice and cool. COOLinary New Orleans Restaurant Month brings the prices of some of the city’s most prized dishes down to more attainable levels, rewarding those of us who are willing to grin and bear the heat long enough to get through their front doors.

More than 100 restaurants across the city are taking part in the annual event, which runs from the August 1-31. The easy-to-navigate website makes it simple to focus your gastronomic excursions, cutting down on time not spent in the air-conditioning by allowing users to search using any number of filters.

Don’t want to leave your neighborhood? Pick it out of the drop-down menu and only see options within shuffling distance. If you’re of a mind for a very specific type of food, the restaurants are also searchable by cuisine and type of meal (brunch, lunch, dinner). All of the restaurant pages provide contact info and special menus for the event and some even allow you to make a reservation right from the site.

If you don’t want to come into Orleans proper, you should know that Coolinary is far from a NOLA-only affair. The promotion loops in restaurants on the Westbank and out in the ‘burbs.

Get to exploring over at Coolinary’s website (we don’t recommend doing it on an empty stomach) and re-discover the tastes of your city at a price we can all live with.