643 Best Restaurants in Florida, USA

Under the guidance of James Beard Award–winner and Top Chef master Tony Mantuano, Terralina brings sophistication and southern Italian cuisine to Disney Springs. Meticulously planned to look like a resort in Italy's Lake District, Terralina's open design and wood-fired grills provide a stylish atmosphere and some of the best recipes Mantuano can create, including wood-fired, hand-tossed pizzas along with salads and sandwiches. The antipasti tower is a starting course eye-opener, and steaks and seafood delight.

The mouthwatering photos on the menu don't do the real stuff justice. Locals and cruise-ship vacationers frequent this casual Thai/Japanese eatery within walking distance of cruise-port hotels. Seafood is an emphasis here, with specialties like lobster pad Thai and snapper with ginger and scallion. The Thai curries, noodles, and soups can be prepared "Thai hot," but "medium" packs a subtle punch, too. Decor is eclectic and relaxing, with brightly painted walls and low-hanging sconces. Don't fret if you see a crowd out front. The place does a brisk takeout business.

Traditional Greek cuisine with a modern twist is served family-style at this bright-white restaurant, where the fish is beyond fresh and the grape leaves are stuffed to the brim. The vibrant setting is made complete with great service and a reasonably priced wine list. Popular dishes include branzino, lamb shoulder, and a collection of dips and spreads. Complimentary valet is offered.

If Expedition Everest isn't for you—or if you need something to help you relax before boarding or calm down after riding—head here for specialty margaritas and unusual beers such as the Safari Amber or Tampa Bay Old Elephant Foot IPA. If you can get a seat at the bar, this is a great place to people-watch for a bit.

Rickety staircases and gaslit chandeliers set the tone for this counter-service restaurant, where you can feast on ample portions of shepherd's pie, fish-and-chips, turkey legs, and Cornish pasties. The Great Feast option includes salad, rotisserie smoked chicken, spareribs, corn on the cob, and roast potatoes for $72.99 for a party of four. The full English breakfast (from park opening until 10:30 am) features eggs, sausage links, black pudding, English bacon, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and potatoes. Look (and listen) for hidden Harry Potter Easter eggs, and ask your server for the facts.

Mexican street food is the specialty at this tiny, counter-service eatery in the downtown riverfront shopping district. The namesake tacos come with onion, cilantro, and lime, but for 50¢ more you can get an Americanized version with cheese. Fillings range from the familiar (chicken, steak, carnitas) to the less familiar (including beef tongue). Lines can get long during lunch hour, when surfers, college students, and the business crowd converge for fresh, tasty, and cheap eats. Indoor and outdoor seating is available, and a mariachi band performs every Friday night.

There's nothing "tiny" about the flavor at this chill, Caribbean-fusion spot across the street from the beach. Mouthwatering wraps, bowls, and sandwiches are served inside a brightly painted dining room or a big palapa out back. Sofrito bowls are among the more popular items, and the Ocean Wrap has black beans, guacamole, and roasted tomatillo sauce with a choice of shrimp or mahi on a pressed spinach tortilla. Heartier appetites love the Tripleta sandwich with pork, chicken, ham, jack cheese, and potato sticks on Puerto Rican bread. 

Celebrity chef Todd English designed the menu for this upscale seafood eatery, known perhaps more for style than substance. It resembles a sleek, modern, underwater dining hall, with blue walls and carpeting, aluminum fish along the wall behind the bar, and bubblelike lighting fixtures. The menu is pricey, with entrées like lobster bucatini at $43. 

Big portions of dripping barbecue are dispensed at this chill spot for eat-in or take-out. Dinners come with two sides from a list that includes baked beans, collards, and mac and cheese. For lunch, Tom's pork, beef, and catfish sandwiches are a shortcut to satisfaction. Leave room for sweet-potato pie or peach cobbler. Heading to a park or the beach? Tom Jenkins's family samplers have enough ribs, chicken, beef, and sides to feed six hungry people.

Here Naples takes a youthful curve—island music sounds on the umbrella-shaded courtyard at this, the prototype for the national chain inspired by the Tommy Bahama clothing label and furniture line. Indoors and out, everybody's munching sandwiches, salads, and grilled seafood and meat dishes made with a tropical flair.

Inspired by the animated classic Lady and the Tramp, Tony's offers everything from spaghetti with meatballs (meat and plant-based) to shrimp scampi with linguine. Wine and beer are available, including Italian lagers and an extensive selection of Italian wines. The most tempting dessert is the espresso-soaked tiramisu. If you can't get a table right away, you can watch Lady and the Tramp in the waiting area.

A steampunk decor of gizmos, gears, pulleys, belts, and smokestacks is the backdrop for this very popular restaurant, where chocolate and sweets rule. Desserts—ranging from artisanal milk shakes and sumptuous sundaes to chocolate brownie bark, bacon brittle, and salted caramel flan—are naturally big draws. But one cannot live on sweets alone, which explains the salads, soups, flatbreads, sandwiches, hamburgers, and pastas, as well as more extravagant entrées such as grilled teriyaki salmon, braised short ribs, filet mignon, and cocoa pork tenderloin.

This restaurant melds old and new, with the cozy decor of a traditional Italian home and a menu of Italian-American dishes refreshed for today's tastes. Share a pizza topped with prosciutto, sausage, and capicola, or indulge in wood-fired swordfish salmoriglio. Other entrées include veal osso buco, chicken parmigiana, and truffle gnocchi. All the wines are from Italy, and you can finish your meal with a tiramisu.

Overlooking a tranquil harbor, this is a family-friendly option with a dash of Italiano. The breakfast buffet features both omelets and other hot dishes as well as baked goods and fruit; dinner starters like shrimp polenta and caprese flatbread segue to entrées such as chicken Marsala, grilled beef tenderloin, and shrimp Alfredo.

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.

It's sometimes difficult to shake off the illusion that this is a restaurant in Venice or Rome; the service and food are that good. Offerings include calamari fritti, grilled salmon in herb sauce, and traditional spaghetti or fettuccine. Desserts include gelato and cannoli. Be sure to make reservations well in advance. Outdoor seating is available.  An adjacent cavernous wine cellar, Tutto Gusto, has a limited menu and 200 wine options, and is often a faster way to get fed. Since they do not accept reservations, it is a good place to try on a busy day.

Touting itself as a “Crafty Southern Pub,” Union Public House pairs fresh ingredients with creative ideas, like the Scotch egg starter or the grouper and shrimp corndog; they’ve even been known to put gold flakes on fried chicken. You can also make your own “meat and two” by choosing a meat, two Southern sides, and a sauce.

Although the menu here has a variety of fresh seafood, you should come for the oysters—served raw, baked, or steamed and with or without toppings—and stay for the view. The vibe is casual: place your order when you walk in, and grab a table in the air-conditioned interior or out on the patio; either way, your lunch or dinner will be accompanied by a spectacular Apalachee River basin view.

This spacious cocktail bar and restaurant in the vibrant Warehouse Arts District offers an extensive bourbon list and elevated takes on classic American cuisine in dishes made with locally sourced ingredients. It has a rotating bourbon-based cocktails menu, as well as a $100-per-person interactive Horse Soldier Commander’s tasting experience with a personal steward.

A favorite of business and government bigwigs, the Veranda serves imaginative Continental fare with a trace of a Southern accent for dinner. The restaurant is a combination of two turn-of-the-20th-century homes, with sconces and antique oil paintings on the pale-yellow walls and a two-sided central brick fireplace. Notable menu items are tournedos with smoky sour-mash-whiskey sauce, rack of lamb with rosemary-Merlot sauce, herb-crusted honey-grilled salmon, and a grilled seafood sampler with prosciutto cream fettuccine, all served with homemade honey-drizzled bread and corn muffins with pepper jelly. Ask for an outdoor courtyard table when weather permits.

Although it's in a resort, this family-friendly restaurant is open to non–guests, many of whom drive in from Jacksonville. The dining room has a casual vibe, with plush, roomy booths and tables overlooking the tennis courts; the menu, however, is all business, with a focus on Southern and local food.

The slick, contemporary waterfront restaurant at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) offers seating both indoors and out, with chic decor and accessories true to its "green" name that blend seamlessly with the living walls and hanging gardens strewn across the museum's exterior. The exceptionally affordable, one-page menu features eclectic epicurean lunch plates that include a variety of flatbreads, a house chopped salad (with green goddess dressing), and a gourmet cheeseburger with applewood-smoked bacon.

Museum admission is not required to eat here, but the restaurant is open only during museum hours, meaning lunch only, except on Thursday, when the museum remains open until 9.

You'll feel as if you're dining in a home at this intimate bistro, which serves creative American-Italian-Asian fusion cuisine, and that's exactly how the owners want it to be—inviting, warm, and welcoming. The menu is full of home-cooked classics, but you'll also find chef specials that change with the season or an inspired whim. Customer service is always top-notch.

If you're longing for a true taste of Italy's Emilia Romagna region and a respite from the overpriced SoBe dining scene, head to this adorable hole-in-the-wall restaurant off Alton Road. The pastas and sauces are made fresh daily, using only the best ingredients imported from the chef's homeland supplemented with local produce.

Loud, mad, bustling, and chaotic, this casual, family-friendly restaurant features authentic, thin-crust, Neapolitan-style pizzas cooked in massive ovens named after Italian volcanoes. Toppings include an array of cheeses, spicy Italian sausage, truffle oil, prosciutto—even melon. Particularly good is the seasonal and very authentic carciofi (artichoke) white pizza. The menu also has a large selection of southern Italian favorites; the tortellini is an outstanding pizza alternative. Adults will appreciate the selection of Italian beer, wine, and cocktails.  You're very close to neighboring diners here, so make friends.

House-made pasta and inventive cocktails are highlights at the ultrahip Vivo, which is styled after a trendy Roman nightclub. The waiters are attentive, the food—mussels marinara, lamb ragù, squid-ink seafood—is quietly impressive, and the blazing wood-fired oven makes almost instantaneous pizzas.

This cart is ready for hungry trailblazers, who stop in to enjoy jalapeño poppers or corn-dog nuggets, complete with a fresh-off-the-trail frozen lemonade. And what hungry cowboy doesn't want candied bacon on a skewer? This cart also offers breakfast. If you've entered the park, and the lines at the Main Street Bakery are halfway down Main Street, keep moving, and stop here. Grab a breakfast sandwich to eat while in line for Big Thunder or Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

For a casual, almost funky, nautical experience near the beach, look no further than this raw bar featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. If you want to blend in, order a fish special with whale fries—thinly sliced potatoes that look like hot potato chips. (People come from near and far for these famous fries!) Those with smaller appetites can choose from salads and raw-bar favorites like steamed Ipswich clams.

Situated on 1¼ acres of the city's historic New River waterfront, this nautical-themed space with communal tables and two large bars is surrounded by five local pop-up restaurants and Rivertail, by award-winning chef José Mendin. Nightly events and activities make this the go-to spot for Sunday Funday and hanging out with friends.