Eateries >>

• Personal Best
  Marla Reis
  Psychologist Marla Reis gave up her practice last year to open Café Emunah in Fort Lauderdale with a friend and kindred spirit Rabbi Moishe Meir Lipszyc. With hip, calming décor and a rule that "only positivity is allowed," Emunah is a place where the pair hoped to offer "an experience for the... More >>
• Best Restaurant in South Broward
  The Boulevard American Bistro
  In an era when it takes a cool couple of mil to open a restaurant with any hope of success — what with the obligatory solid-gold threads in the throw pillows, the de rigueur kryptonite flooring, and the water walls — take comfort that a little candlelit closet in Hollywood is... More >>
• Best Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale
  Josef's
  This modest little restaurant is probably not the kind of place you'd stumble into accidentally. What looks like a sullen strip mall transforms, as you walk through the door at Josef's, into a full-blown fantasy of a quaint, alpine inn. Nor does it resemble in form or spirit the grand eateries... More >>
• Best Restaurant in North Broward
  Darrel and Oliver's Café Maxx
  All good things don't come to an end. After 21 years as the restaurant that put South Florida regional cuisine on the map, Café Maxx has finally, like some respectable old dowager acquiring a facelift and an iPod, got itself a liquor license and a bit of interior renovation. Thus does the... More >>
• Best Restaurant in Palm Beach
  32 East
  Is there an inverse ratio of pretension to quality? Because judging from the décor (casually handsome, if a bit dated), the service (unreservedly nice), and the food (inspired but never showy), you'd never guess that 32 East, wedged in among the hubbub and scuffle of other fine... More >>
• Best New Restaurant in Broward
  The Four Rivers
  Paula Palakawong and Ravin Nakjaroen have their finger on our collective, turn-of-the-century pulse. They take Thai food, upscale it, and purify their menu with organic meats and locally farmed produce and seafood. Then they create from them gastronomic works of art and set the whole caboodle in... More >>
• Best New Restaurant in Palm Beach
  Café Sapori
  Housed in an old bank building at the foot of the Southern Boulevard Bridge, Sapori exerts a gentle magnetism upon Palm Beach island's "smart set," though judging from the placidly banal conversation of these sartorially challenged plutocrats, the smart set could use some reeducation. Owner and... More >>
• Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Paying
  Chops Lobster Bar
  You're not the type to take undue advantage of your expense account, but corporate is flying in to evaluate your department, and you'd like to take the CEO somewhere she'll feel very, very comfortable. You and the boss will slide into Chops the way a chunk of flash-fried Australian lobster tail... More >>
• Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners
  Spice Resto-Lounge
  Let's imagine, for once, that your out-of-town guests are under the age of 70 and not living on a pension. Let's fantasize that your guests like to stay out late and drink strong mojitos, that they have their own sporty little coupe and a suitcase full of shimmery minidresses and linen trousers,... More >>
• Best Chain Restaurant (2 Comments)
  Rosa Mexicano
  There aren't a whole lot of good things you can say for rampant development in South Florida. But one quality-of-life improvement associated with those high-rise condos blocking your view of the beach is the arrival of the upscale corporate eatery. For as surely as the moneyed snowbird flies... More >>
• Best Diner
  Henry's
  OK, so it isn't set in a railroad dining car, and there are no waitresses named Madge. Henry's doesn't serve breakfast all day — there isn't an egg on the menu unless you count the organic egg-white omelet served at lunch (with mushrooms, spinach, Gruy�re, and a side of skinny fries). But... More >>
• Best Seafood Restaurant
  Sunfish Grill
  For an abridged history of Tony and Erica Sindaco's culinary progress in Broward County, look to nearly a decade of New Times Bests-awarded Sunfish Grill. In the nine years since they opened, chef (Tony) and owner (Erica) have brought crab Charlotte, a jewel-toned tower of gastronomic power, to... More >>
• Best Barbecue
  Tom Jenkins' BBQ
  As tasty as it is eccentric — Tom Jenkins' is right off Federal in a log-cabin-inspired building that began accepting credit cards only last year — this is a communal dining establishment. There are no reclusive tables for two here. Just long tables with benches, where blue-collar,... More >>
• Best Cuban Restaurant
  Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine
  Considering that the bulk of Florida's Cuban population resides in Dade County, sometimes it's a challenge to find mouth-watering Cuban food in Broward that's worthy of making us proud. And unfortunately, there tend to be more haunts that specialize in Cuban sandwiches without putting much flare... More >>
• Best Soul Food
  Betty's Restaurant and Barbecue
  When it comes to Southern cooking, in certain neighborhoods, there are soul-food restaurants on almost every corner. With such an abundance, it's hard to come up with an appropriate barometer for quality, since most of the menus at these restaurants are identical. It sounds like fun research,... More >>
• Best Deli in Broward
  The Daily Squeeze Café
  Don't let the small signs and bland décor fool you inside Fort Lauderdale's Daily Squeeze. What the quaint, one-room deli lacks in ambiance is quickly made up for in quality of food and service. Free samples of freshly blended smoothies await every customer walking through the door, and... More >>
• Best Deli in Palm Beach
  3G's Gourmet Deli
  Lots of South Florida delis tout themselves as "New York-style," but then they lack the basics: overstuffed sandwiches, a three-hour early-bird special (in this case, 3 to 6 p.m.), and the stocking of the delicacy meat called, quite simply, "cow tongue," which the uninitiated cringe at and the... More >>
• Best Place to Dine With Gramps
  The Restaurant at the Four Seasons
  Anybody who's survived eight decades deserves to be treated like the heirloom he is: still in decent condition, if a little scuffed at the edges. A dinner at the opulent Four Seasons Resort will act on this antique like a good coat of Minwax. By the time Grandpa has meandered through five or... More >>
• Best Pre-Dinner Cocktails
  Trina
  "The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are... starkly sober... But the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind." Thus spake the great... More >>
• Best Entertainment in a Restaurant (2 Comments)
  Giovanni at Frankie's Pier 5
  Restaurants get up to all kinds of shenanigans to entertain their customers, the better to keep us knocking back after-dinner grappas. What'll it be: Brazilian capoeira? Strolling mandolinists? Interactive mystery plays? Lap dances? But a snapping G-string interferes with the proper appreciation... More >>
• Best Restaurant Worth the Drive
  11 Maple Street
  There's no good reason to get on the road these days if you can avoid it, and guzzling gallons of gas for something as self-indulgent as a restaurant meal is likely to get one tarred and feathered. But special occasions — an anniversary, a proposal, a book deal — demand celebratory... More >>
• Best Restaurant Décor
  Opus 5
  "Handsome is as handsome does," our wise old grandma used to say. Granny would also tell us, were she alive to critique the lemon caper pan sauce on her ruby-red trout, that you can't judge a restaurant by the number of millions used to underwrite its decorating budget. Happily, there's no... More >>
• Best Late-Night Dining
  The Dubliner
  The owners of the new Dubliner have already staked sole claim to the rough-and-ready after-midnight crowd. Running successful nightclubs for more than a decade has taught them exactly what the slow burn of Jägermeister in an otherwise-empty gut feels like at 3 a.m. For a contingent of folks... More >>
• Best Steak House
  Strip House
  One thing guaranteed to get the human male all hot and bothered is a juicy piece of USDA prime. Give him that slab of meat in a room decorated like an upscale bordello, complete with coy glamour shots of turn-of-the-century lovelies in various stages of deshabille, and you've got yourself one of... More >>
• Best Sushi in Broward (5 Comments)
  Cafe Emunah
  If you can navigate through the clouds of New Agey blather that blanket Cafe Emunah like a swarm of Old Testament locusts — just ignore any invitations to take a spiritual journey and concentrate on your exploration of the specialty rolls — you'll find that this little Internet... More >>
• Best Sushi in Palm Beach
  Fah Asian Bistro and Sushi Bar
  Last year, the government in Tokyo, fed up with the proliferation of faux sushi spreading its evil tentacles across the globe, announced that it would offer official seals of recognition for restaurants around the world that served "pure Japanese" cuisine. But we South Floridians don't give a... More >>
• Best Restaurant Expansion
  Sushi Bon
  Once upon a time, there was an itty-bitty sushi bar. At its busiest, it could accommodate maybe 30 people, even with every stool at the bar taken. Regulars who adored the stern and dignified chef swore by the locally caught grouper, triggerfish, pompano, wahoo, and snapper that were magically... More >>
• Best Waitress
  Maggie at Sushi Jazz
  She must have days, like the rest of us, that are less-than-optimal. Her house hasn't fared well through the past couple of hurricanes, and she sometimes talks about picking up and moving to Atlanta. Still, she can't stop herself from ending every sentence with the word honey — as in, "We... More >>
• Best Museum Restaurant
  Cornell Café at the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens
  We're not alone on this one: The Food Network has anointed the Cornell Café one of the top three museum dining experiences in the country. The open-air terrace restaurant that overlooks the Morikami's expansive lakeside gardens draws museumgoers and local diners alike. After running... More >>
• Best Tapas
  The Falcon House
  American-style tapas seems like an imperialistic usurpation of a Spanish tradition, which involved mostly cold appetizers that accompanied a drink before lunch and dinner. Tapas bars in the States "improved" that tradition and made tapas a meal unto itself. The Falcon House does the standard... More >>
• Best Restaurant for Gluttons
  Brewzzi
  We Americans, it turns out, aren't really as fat as we thought we were. Apparently, the hysteria over obesity was yet another plot generated by media types to sell books and score interviews on Oprah. Now the news is that we're just pleasingly plump. The best place to celebrate the demise of the... More >>
• Best Service in a Restaurant
  Paradiso
  The idea of what constitutes excellent restaurant service divides neatly along gender lines — a Hooters maid tottering over with a tray of beers and burgers might impress our male colleagues, but this year, we girls are dishing out the laurels to those dishy waiters who've caused us so many... More >>
• Best Food Court
  The Galleria Mall
  First of all, don't call it a food court. The 12 food outlets that cover 20,000 square feet in the Galleria Mall are collectively known as the Piazza di Giorgio Café. If it sounds like a mall trying to hide its Orange Julius and Chick-fil-A stands behind a fancy name, you haven't dined on... More >>
• Best Salad
  Cobb Salad at Cafe Boulud
  Of course, it's just a chicken salad, but that's like saying a Silver Shadow — the one just now pulling up at the valet station — is just a car. Or that the six-foot-six bruiser in the Armani suit sitting at the corner table is just a football player. If you're wondering what chicken... More >>
• Best Pasta Dish
  Black Squid Ink Taglioline at Il Cioppino
  Any human life passes through certain immutable stages, and the transitions are marked by a corresponding change of preference in semolina. A 7-year-old abandons his infantile dependency on Cream of Wheat in favor of Spaghetti-O's. The adolescent develops her personal recipe for macaroni and... More >>
• Best Reason to Eat Your Veggies
  Green Cay Produce
  Remember the term CSA. If Florida goes the way of green energy and sustainable agriculture, instead of offshore drilling and corporate pig farms, the sort of Community Supported Agriculture practiced at Green Cay Produce promises a future of better health, a cleaner environment, and most... More >>
• Best Restaurant for Kids
  Wilt Chamberlain's
  Kids sure are growing up fast these days. The Internet, cell phones, and video games are all morphing like Power Rangers into a wall of technology that separates the little ones from their desperately lost 'rents. But there's still hope: Nothing makes a better segue into serious kid-to-parent... More >>
• Best Cheap Lunch
  La Granja
  A cheap lunch is almost never a filling lunch; La Granja is the exception. For $5, this Peruvian chain serves a tender, seasoned breast of chicken, hot off the rotisserie, covered by a heap of thick-cut fries. To get authentic South American taste, ask for the ceviche, a seafood salad with hints... More >>
• Best Sunday Brunch
  Café Joley
  "All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast," goes the saying. Fine, but true ecstasy depends on a three-course Sunday brunch, particularly one that ends with an orange pot de cr�me. The French are masters of the broken fast, knowing that a growling stomach is best soothed with hot apple... More >>
• Best Coffeehouse
  Undergrounds Coffeehaus
  It's not really underground, but this tiny storefront might as well be, it's so damned hard to find. But once you do, owner Aileen Liptak will offer you everything from an iced chocolate cheesecake espresso to Turkish coffee to her own "Aileen Special." The comfy Williamsburg living room has... More >>
• Best Teahouse in Broward
  One Tea Lounge
  Meditating peacefully aside from the bustle of other, more frantic Wilton Manors hot spots sits One Tea Lounge. The owners play into the shotgun warehouse shape of the space by soaking the walls in deep crimson hues and dripping luxuriously colored tapestries from the ceiling, in turn creating a... More >>
• Best Teahouse in Palm Beach (1 Comment)
  Teas, Etc.
  Teas, Etc. is a teahouse only in the purest sense of the term. Nobody is going to offer you watercress sammies and petits fours here. There will be no leisurely afternoons t�te-à-t�te over a pot of Earl Grey. What Teas, Etc. does is sell tea — lots and lots of tea, with the fanatical... More >>
• Best Street to Eat Cheap
  Hollywood Boulevard
  Remember, being broke means never having to go Dumpster diving.A La Turca: Ground lamb kibbe, $6Beefeater Steak House: Empanadas, $1.50 eachThe Boulevard: French fries with cheese and truffle oil, $6Chocolada: Piece of strawberry shortcake, $2.99Delicias Peruanas: Corvina ceviche, $11.50Dolce... More >>
• Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant
  Pizza Mia
  Despite changing hands a couple of times over two decades, Pizza Mia has been serving the same menu in its cramped, narrow space — essentially a walk-in closet lined with tables and bad murals of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Coliseum. Nothing except an extra-large pie will cost you... More >>
• Best Expensive Italian Restaurant
  Vic and Angelo's
  Technically, Vic and Angelo's, the new Italian "enoteca" (or wine bar) in Palm Beach Gardens, qualifies as expensive only if you make it so — and it's certainly worth making it so if you've got the dough. Daddy Warbucks begins his meal here with a salumi grande ($25). This rare treat is a... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant in Broward
  Taqueria Dona Raquel
  Foodie boards all over South Florida have been abuzz since Dona Raquel opened a couple of years ago in Pompano, then threw down a sister operation in Tamarac shortly thereafter. Arguably the most authentic and diverse Mexican street food around, the Pompano Dona Raquel offers a charming, homey... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant in Palm Beach
  Taqueria Elvira
  Any Mexican will tell you that there's no such thing as a Best Mexican Restaurant. Ex-pats from south of the border know that you go to one taqueria for your tripe soup, another for your mole, a third for your chile rellenos, and a fourth for your tacos barbacoa — depending on who's in the... More >>
• Best French Restaurant
  Café Claude
  Café Claude comes as a blessed relief: Both atmosphere and menu are stubbornly, willfully oblivious to trends — it's like meeting a lost tribe of French people who've been living undiscovered in Deerfield since the end of the Second World War. The décor hasn't changed a thread... More >>
• Best Place to Dine Alone
  Chez Andree
  Born a ramblin' man? If your footloose life leaves you occasionally dateless, you need to know how to fully appreciate a meal in your own company. And that goes for you single girls too who might occasionally want to partake of a solo supper without the condescension or the sneer on some... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant
  Madras Cafe
  Despite a sizable Broward population of immigrants from the subcontinent where vegetarian cooking is a high art, there's still a dearth of Indian restaurants here willing to venture into the uncommon cuisine of south India. But Madras continues to buck the trends, serving idli, sambar, and those... More >>
• Best Jamaican Restaurant
  Hot Pot
  What can you say? It's a Ting thing. When you get a craving for grapefruit soda and jerk chicken, you want to go where the meat is spicy and tender and the Ting is larger than that glass-bottle thimble they pass off at most Jamaican joints. And on top of that, you want your meal served up hot... More >>
• Best Honduran Restaurant
  La Costa
  Along with Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Haitian, Mexican, and Cuban eateries, western Fort Lauderdale now boasts at least three Honduran restaurants that have all sprung up in the past year. La Costa, housed in an old doughnut shop across from a car dealership, looks to be popular with Central... More >>
• Best Thai Restaurant
  Thai Bayshore
  Few things in life spread happiness like the discovery of a good Thai restaurant in the neighborhood. We're not talking some fusion club with a DJ and a parade of supermodel wannabes sipping saketinis — that just spreads ennui. But a pretty place, preferably run by a not-unfriendly Thai... More >>
• Best Japanese Restaurant
  Japango
  Parkland is placidly rich horse country. You can drive for miles and never see much beyond green paddocks and the occasional glimpse of a McMansion lurking behind electronic gates. But you have to hand it to the moneyed: They don't skimp when it comes to feeding their nags (beet pulp, soy oil,... More >>
• Best Vietnamese
  Cay Da
  It's almost the season to think about squeezing into that bathing suit again — you know, the one you bought three years ago, telling yourself you could drop five pounds no sweat. The ongoing existential conundrum is this: Can one continue to behave like a disgusting glutton and... More >>
• Best Caribbean Restaurant
  The Dutch Pot
  It's no secret that this region has a wide selection of Caribbean restaurants catering to South Florida's African diaspora. Certain eateries have a French Caribbean flair, while others stick to traditional West Indian dishes. Either way, there are tons of Caribbean restaurants to explore,... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Restaurant
  Pine Garden Authentic Chinese Restaurant
  Throw a carrot in any direction in South Florida and you surely won't hit a vegetarian restaurant. The prognosis for herbivores is dispiriting — week after week of bean tacos (hold the lard!), pasta (hold the butter!), and overpriced salads (hold the Chevrie!). Then you stumble across Pine... More >>
• Best Place to Eat Every Day
  Zona Fresca
  Seriously, it'll drive your friends and co-workers crazy, but you really can go to Zona Fresca every day and never tire of this independent eatery's fresh Cali-Mex fare: fish tacos on Monday, steak burrito on Tuesday, char-broiled chili rellenos on Wednesday, quesadillas stuffed with cheese and... More >>
• Best Outdoor Dining
  Casablanca Cafe
  Lauderdale architect Francis Abreu designed this terrific Moorish folly of a house facing the beach on AIA in the 1920s; almost 100 years later, it's still sucking up salty breezes and swirling them around in a vortex of pale stone rooms that look like Scheherazade's digs in Key West. Your main... More >>
• Best Wine List
  Olio Bistro
  Maybe the best wine list is no wine list. Restaurateur Tony Boueri and his brother Joseph have been collecting far-flung wines for a couple of decades and serving them to customers at Boheme Bistro on Atlantic Avenue. But three years ago, Tony built a better place to store those precious extra... More >>
• Best Restaurant for Intimate Conversation
  Bizaare Ave. Café
  Bizaare celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, an enduring testament to a good idea that's persisted through Y2K, 9/11, a celebrity baby boom, a decade of the Donald's comb-over, and the final episode of Friends. In fact, owner Al Salopek credits that NBC megahit as the inspiration for his... More >>
• Best Waterfront Dining
  Prime Catch
  Despite its corporate gleam, the nautical paraphernalia, and a sedate view of a patch of the Boynton Beach Intracoastal, Prime Catch (owned by the same folks who gave us Banana Boat) is a waterfront restaurant that makes good on the old Florida promise of easy living. There's enough space in... More >>