9 Best Restaurants in The Everglades, Florida

This family-owned enterprise has been a magnet for affordable Italian-American classics since 1958. Eat pasta, crunchy-crust pizza, steak, prime rib, and a multitude of locally inspired desserts amid redbrick walls in the classic Capri dining room. Specialty martinis and cocktails complement an extensive wine list. The outdoor patio is pet-friendly.

Gems from the sea are delivered fresh from the owners' boats to this rustic haven. Enjoy breakfast, lunch, or an early dinner outdoors to watch pelicans, gulls, tarpon, manatees, and the occasional gator play off the dock on the Barron River. Even better, you can chow down on sustainable stone crabs—medium, large, jumbo, and colossal, based on weight—with a clear conscience. After they remove the meaty claws, crabs are returned to the water so they can grow new ones. Brought a cooler with you? City Seafood wraps for the road (and ships, too). Gator and shark-tooth necklaces and cutesy crabby-style tanks, boxers, and tees await in the gift shop.

Make a pit stop at Coopertown Restaurant for local flavor and delicacies sourced straight from the swamp. This eatery opened in the early 1960s as a sandwich stand, and it has long been a favorite among the famous and the humbly hungry. In addition to catfish and shrimp, house specialties include frogs' legs and alligator tail breaded in cornmeal and deep-fried. Sandwich options include burgers, hot dogs, and grilled cheese. Restrooms are outside. The restaurant is part of Coopertown's The Original Air Boat Tour business that dates back to 1945.

Cuban and Caribbean specialties are a welcome alternative to the typical seafood houses in the Everglades City area. This cheery eatery—3 miles south of Everglades City on Chokoloskee Island—has a dozen or so tables inside and more seating on the porch amid plenty of greenery. Jump-start your day with café con leche and a pressed-egg sandwich, or try a Havana omelet. For lunch, you'll find Cuban sandwiches, burgers, shrimp, grouper, and steak and pork plates. Take some Carlos's HavAnnA Cafe Hot Sauce home with you.

West of the nation's tiniest post office, you'll find this red barn of a place dishing out catfish, frog legs, gator, grouper, burgers, salads, and (no surprise here) an abundance of soft-shell crabs and crab cakes. Entrées are reasonably priced, and peanut butter pie makes for a solid finish. Order an icy beer or wine by the glass, and eat out front or on the back patio—just keep an eye out for neighborhood gators. Joanie's schedule changes depending on the season, so call for hours of operation.

For fresh and light Asian fare near the Everglades, you can find Thai and Japanese favorites—from pad Thai and curries to traditional raw and cooked sushi rolls—at Suvi Thai & Sushi. If you want to go big here, try the sautéed Royal Thai Lobster or keep it simple with the Homestead Spicy Roll. The decor is calming, and there's a section where you can sit on cushions if you wish, as well as a separate hibachi room.

This old-fashioned roadside eatery on the Tamiami Trail near Krome Avenue was opened in 1965 by the late Tommy Little, who wanted to provide easy access to cold drinks and rib-sticking fare for folks heading to and from the Everglades. Now spiffed up, the backwoods heritage vision remains a popular, affordable family option for lunch and dinner. Specialties include barbecued chicken and ribs with a tangy basting sauce, fries, coleslaw, and biscuits, plus burgers, fish sandwiches, and wings. The whopping double-decker beef or pork sandwich with slaw requires multiple napkins. Latin specialties include deep-fried pork and fried green plantains. Beer is by the bottle or pitcher. Chow down inside or outdoors.

Along the Barron River, seafood houses, fishing boats, and crab traps populate one shoreline, while mangroves line the other. Some seafood houses added picnic tables and eventually grew into restaurants, like the family-owned Triad Seafood Market & Café. It's nothing fancy, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better grouper sandwich. The fried green tomatoes are tasty, too. An all-you-can-eat fresh stone crab feast (when available from October 15 to May 15) is worth your time, especially for the jumbos. As a bonus, you can have your picture posted on Triad's Glutton Board. This casual spot has a screened dining area and additional outdoor seating under a breezeway and on a deck (heated in winter). Here you can savor fresh seafood at its finest or have it shipped to your home.

Although the antiques shop within White Lion Cafe's cottage is now history, this comfort-food haven, with outdoor seating, remains embellished with reminders of the past. From a 1950s-era wooden wall phone to a metal icebox and a Coca-Cola machine, you'll also find a mounted jackalope watching over a wide list of specials (Homestead crab cakes, burgers, fried chicken, and meat loaf). They do a fish of the day and specialties like Romanian tenderloin (skirt steak cooked to order). Vegetarians go for grilled veggies over angel-hair pasta. Best of all, fare includes potatoes that are mashed, salt-crusted, and baked and then stuffed with sour cream and cheddar. Layer cakes, pies, and cobblers offer a sweet finish. Dine inside or at picnic tables under a covered patio, but don't count on separate checks.