Fine Dining Restaurants in Vero Beach
VERO BEACH 32963, the newspaper for the Vero Beach barrier island, and VeroNews.com, Indian River County's new online newspaper, are pleased to offer this online Dining Guide.
Here are some fine dining restaurants you may wish to visit in Vero Beach. For more information about each restaurant, please click on the link below.
Fine Dining Restaurants on the Barrier Island
Bobby’s: Go for the burgers and the beef
(reviewed the week of 12/09/10) I have always thought it a bit strange when a reviewer goes to a highly regarded restaurant that is known for its specialties, and pans dishes that clearly are not the reason most diners go in the first place. After all, in the real world, how many people go to a fish house if they are craving tortellini al prosciutto. Which brings us to Bobby’s, our favorite beachside hangout when we have a hankering for great burgers or steaks. That (and the clubby ambience) clearly are why nine out of 10 diners are willing to queue up at the bar while waiting for a table. READ FULL REVIEW
Café Coconut Cove: Authentic Deutsche cuisine
(reviewed the week of 06/23/11) Having lived for some years in Munich, from time to time I get a hankering for German food. While there is no place to totally satisfy that craving in Vero (the Melody Inn is an excellent choice, but it’s Swiss), I discovered a few years ago that you can get an authentic German food fix by driving north on Vero’s barrier island to Café Coconut Cove in Melbourne Beach. The name of this restaurant offers no hint that the cuisine inside is prepared by a restaurant family that came here two decades ago from Aachen. But in this attractive hide-away on the Indian River lagoon, the décor and ambience is unmistakably Rhineland, and the menu is definitely Deutsche. READ FULL REVIEW
Chuck’s Seafood: Sunset dining on the veranda
(reviewed the week of 05/05/11) Last Saturday evening, sitting on the second-floor veranda of Chuck’s Seafood restaurant enjoying a pre-dinner glass of wine while watching a glorious sunset across the Fort Pierce inlet, one of our out-of-state visitors remarked: “It doesn’t get much better than this.” And he was right. Those of us fortunate enough to live in this paradise tend to take too much for granted the opportunities we have here – which do not exist in much of the country -- to relax at an open-air table overlooking the ocean or the lagoon, cooled by a breeze off the water, as we savor a drink and await a good meal. READ FULL REVIEW
Citrus Grillhouse: Did I mention the truffled French fries?
(reviewed the week of 11/25/10) Seven months after it opened, the Citrus Grillhouse is hitting its stride just in time for the coming season – and a quieter stride it is, too. When we recently visited the Grillhouse, perched atop the dune where Crusty’s once stood in the new Ocean Park complex, we found a new menu, a new quieter dining room thanks to new sound baffles, and the hottest, most addictive new side dish of 2010: French fries prepared with truffle butter. READ FULL REVIEW
Cobalt: One of the island’s best restaurants
(reviewed the week of 01/20/11) One would expect the Vero Beach Hotel & Spa, as the barrier island’s premiere hotel, to have an elegant restaurant with food and service to match. Finally, it does. Now in its fourth season, the hotel restaurant, for the past two years named Cobalt, at last measures up to what one would hope to find at a four-star hotel. The challenge has never been the décor or setting. A dark-paneled grill which looks out through a 15-foot-high glass wall on the sea, the restaurant has from Day One been the most fashionable dining spot on our beach. READ FULL REVIEW
Havana Nights: Nice spot for an intimate dinner
(reviewed the week of 07/22/10) This summer, many restaurants seem to be struggling – and even some of Vero’s best restaurants are offering special menus for those watching their dollars. One that caught our eye was the prix fixe menu at Maison Martinique. Since entrees at Maison Martinique tend to run $30 or more, the idea of a soup or salad, entrée and dessert for $28 seemed tempting. While it took two visits before we actually gave the prix fixe menu a try, the second effort introduced us to the idea of dining at a spot we had not sampled before: the Havana Nights Piano Bar. READ FULL REVIEW
Maison Martinique: ‘The emperor has no clothes’
(reviewed the week of 04/28/11) It pains me to say this, but I think it will come as little surprise to longtime fans to hear that after a good run at the top of the Vero Beach dining scene, Maison Martinique appears to be in a downward spiral that makes it no longer a great value for what have always been serious dining dollars. That’s not to say that this is no longer the island’s most elegant restaurant – it arguably is – or that you can’t get a good meal there. You can. READ FULL REVIEW
MT’s Chophouse: Go with what MT’s does best
(reviewed the week of 02/17/11) Three years after its arrival in Vero Beach, MT’s Chophouse seems to have its act together, featuring great USDA prime beef, premium wines, and finally service to match. An evening there is not inexpensive, but chop houses are notoriously pricey – and we now have a steakhouse on a par with those found in major cities. For some time, however, we have been intrigued by MT’s efforts to lure new customers on Wednesdays with its budget “Chef’s Night” specials – a three-course menu offered at the low (for MT’s) price of $29. How do these specials measure up against the restaurant’s standard fare? READ FULL REVIEW
Ocean Grill: At Christmas, the next best thing to Toyland
(reviewed the week of 12/16/10) If your household’s Santa is having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit, you need to quickly schedule a dinner at the Ocean Grill. Each year, the venerable beachside restaurant – a Vero institution in the best sense of the word — gets all dolled up for the holidays (the Christmas decorations stay up until New Year’s). When we visited in early December, the magical annual transformation had taken place, and for purposes of getting an Old Grouch out of the Bah Humbug and into the let’s-stroll-down-Ocean-Drive-past-the-shops mood, dinner at the Ocean Grill turned out to be the next best thing to a visit to Toyland. READ FULL REVIEW
Oriente: Surf and turf specials are a winner
(reviewed the week of 01/13/11) Two years after the debut of Vero’s first Latin-fusion restaurant at Gloria Estefan’s Costa d’Este resort, the initial excitement is gone – and so is talented young Cuban-American chef David Rodriguez, who now has a cigar shop on Miracle Mile and soon will serve tapas at a new restaurant he is opening in Stuart. Taking his place when Rodriguez left Oriente restaurant was his understudy and sous chef, Raymond Mumford, a Buffalo native who has retained a number of his predecessor’s excellent Cuban and Caribbean dishes (such as the ceviches) but who now is putting his own mark on the restaurant as well. READ FULL REVIEW
Ocean Grill: At Christmas, the next best thing to Toyland
(reviewed the week of 12/16/10) If your household’s Santa is having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit, you need to quickly schedule a dinner at the Ocean Grill. Each year, the venerable beachside restaurant – a Vero institution in the best sense of the word — gets all dolled up for the holidays (the Christmas decorations stay up until New Year’s). READ FULL REVIEW
Polo Grill: Second time around is a charm
(reviewed the week of 03/10/11) Six months after John Marx returned to Vero and reopened his Polo Grill, beachside residents are once again flocking to this ever-popular restaurant. In fact, so many of the Polo Grill’s fans have returned that Marx already has had to expand, adding an enclosed area to the north side of the restaurant that now enables him to accommodate an additional 50 diners each night. No recession here! READ FULL REVIEW
Pomodoro Grill: After 15 years, a comfortable choice
(reviewed the week of 12/02/10) Any restaurant that has been around for fifteen years clearly is doing a lot of things right, and the Pomodoro Grill has long had legions of beachside fans. Since 1995, Peppy Amelio and family have been serving up Italian veal, chicken and seafood entrees (along with brick-oven pizzas) in an attractively decorated Tuscan trattoria located in the Atrium Building toward the southern end of Cardinal Drive. READ FULL REVIEW
Sonya’s: Doesn’t measure up to its ratings
(reviewed the week of 02/03/09) If a second marriage, as Samuel Johnson famously said, is “the triumph of hope over experience,” I wonder what he would have had to say about a return visit to a restaurant we weren’t all that enthusiastic about the first time around. Oh well, in the “hope springs eternal” category, back we went recently to Sonya’s – the fine dining restaurant at Disney’s resort in Wabasso – which for the umpteenth year is listed by Florida Trend Magazine in its 2010 “Great Florida Restaurant Guide” as one of the two best in Vero Beach. READ FULL REVIEW
Tangos II: Exceeding its early promise
(reviewed the week of 07/08/10) On an early summer night, we paid a return visit to Tangos II, which we previewed shortly after it opened in the winter (see First Bites article in February 4th edition). Back in those early days, we opined that the second coming of one of Vero’s all-time favorite chefs, Ben Tench, was going to provide beachside diners with a great new Southern dining experience. READ FULL REVIEW
The Tides: Sunset Menu is a tremendous value
(reviewed the week of 07/14/11) With Chef Leanne Kelleher and Über-host Claudia Arens spending a week in Key West, we decided to slip into The Tides to see what kind of a dinner you can actually get for $15 at what many beachside residents regard as the island’s best restaurant. That’s right, $15. Ever since The Tides began offering salad and entrée on the Sunset Menu (actually, well before summer sunset; you need to be seated by 5:30) for $15 a person, people have been asking us, ‘Have you tried this? Is it really up to this fine restaurant’s standards?’ So we arrived a few minutes after 5 last Friday, and were seated at a table in the attractive front room. READ FULL REVIEW
Fine Dining Restaurants on the Mainland
The Amalfi Grille: One of Vero’s very best
(reviewed the week of 03/17/11) When it comes to choosing a top restaurant for a special occasion – a dinner for two, perhaps, where you are ready to drop a couple of hundred dollars or more on a great meal accompanied by an extraordinary wine – it is fairly easy in Vero to spend the money. Several beachside restaurants will be more than happy to see you. But you don’t always leave feeling you received value for dollar. Not so at the Amalfi Grille, a small Italian restaurant now in its third year on Royal Palm Pointe that compares favorably -- in food, selection of wines, and ambience -- to restaurants of this kind in New York, Boston or any major city up north. READ FULL REVIEW
Avanzare: A great idea for dinner, early or late
(reviewed the week of 07/21/11) Sorry, Fresh Market. See you in the fall, Publix! It is becoming more obvious to me with each passing week that buying fresh food at the market and preparing dinners at home this summer is not one of the world’s great ideas. The latest restaurant to drive this point home was Avanzare, our favorite Tuscan trattoria in Vero’s old downtown, which is serving a three-course Summer Menu to diners seated before 5:45 for an amazing $15. READ FULL REVIEW
Bella Napoli
11 Maple Street: One of the very best in our area
(reviewed the week of 06/16/11) For years, any time the subject of best restaurant in the area came up, someone was sure to mention 11 Maple Street, a charming and romantic bistro located in a century-old Florida cottage on a side street just off the main thoroughfare in Jensen Beach. Owner Mike Perrin, a self-taught chef, has not only developed a large, loyal following over the years for such seldom-seen-locally dishes as spotted skate wing, sturgeon and elk, but has regularly won high marks from Zagat, Florida Trend and other guides. READ FULL REVIEW
Felix’s Place: A Cuban favorite finds a new home
(reviewed the week of 05/19/11) Felix Fajardo’s dream that his small Cuban restaurant Felix’s Place would one day soar to new heights has finally gotten off the ground with a move to loftier quarters at the corner of Airport Boulevard and Aviation Drive. Just a week ago Friday, Felix’s Place – until mid-April cramped in a building near the southern end of 43rd Avenue – reopened its doors in space occupied until very recently by the Theatre-Go-Round dinner theatre (and before that by La Fonda). READ FULL REVIEW
The French Quarter: Going strong in the post-Ian era
(reviewed the week of 09/02/10) When a longtime favorite restaurateur leaves a place you have often enjoyed, it is only natural to be a bit apprehensive about how things may change in the kitchen. And so it is with the French Quarter, which may turn out to have been Ian Greenwood’s last hurrah in Vero after a quarter-century of starting restaurants, serving his now often-copied dishes to a cadre of enthusiastic followers, then moving on — only to reemerge a couple of years later to launch yet another hot dining spot. READ FULL REVIEW
Hardwood Grille: Almost like the old days
(reviewed the week of 02/26/09) Eight years ago, the Hardwood Grille suddenly appeared on U.S. 1, offering local residents meat, seafood and veggies grilled over a wood flame. It struck us as a wonderful addition to the Vero Beach dining scene. READ FULL REVIEW
Jack Baker’s Lobster Shanty: Popular with many
(reviewed the week of 07/30/09) After a year of reviewing almost three dozen restaurants frequented by barrier island residents, we are about to begin a new round of reviews – which will kick off in our Labor Day issue. But first, we will get in two final reviews of mainland restaurants which have their own cadres of loyal followers: Jack Baker’s Lobster Shanty, in this issue, and Saigon Sushi in our August 13th issue. READ FULL REVIEW
The Lemon Tree: Comfort food for the times
(reviewed 04/30/09) In a trying economy, dietitians say people are more likely to seek comfort food. And at the Lemon Tree restaurant, the comfort food is not only good, but priced at a level that is comforting as well. That may help explain why on a recent Wednesday night, we wound up waiting 15 minutes for a table even though we had a 7 pm reservation. READ FULL REVIEW
Melody Inn: Worth the drive, even from Miami
(reviewed the week of 12/23/10) When people drive up to Vero from Miami just to visit a favorite restaurant, you’d have to guess it must be mighty good. And you would be guessing right in the case of the Melody Inn, an attractive Old Europe restaurant located off the quaint Seminole Courtyard in downtown Vero. Since relocating here in 2004 from Coral Gables, where it had been serving classic French Swiss dishes for a quarter of a century, the Melody Inn has only gotten better – and over the years, a number of its South Florida fans have made the trek north for a nostalgic dinner. READ FULL REVIEW
Mimmo’s Scampi Grill: An oldie but goodie
(reviewed the week of 10/28/10) While the new restaurants in town always tend to get the attention, there is something to be said for oldies but goodies – and among the best of the Italian oldies is Mimmo’s Scampi Grill, which is continuing to go strong in Vero’s old downtown. This attractively decorated trattoria has long been a favorite of beachside residents. When we first reviewed the Scampi Grill two years ago, we focused on scampi dishes (well, it is part of the name), which were delicious. Last year, we turned our attention to the veal dishes, and found them equally worthy of attention. READ FULL REVIEW
Mr. Zhang’s: The nearest good Chinese restaurant
(reviewed the week of 05/13/10) In our never-ending quest to find good Chinese food not too far from Vero Beach (we’ve long-since abandoned hope of ever having it in Vero Beach), we have located an excellent Chinese restaurant not much more than an hour away. Our new nominee as Best-Chinese-Restaurant-Within-a-Reasonable-Drive is Mr. Zhang’s, located just off the Donald Ross Road exit of I-95 on the northern edge of Palm Beach Gardens. READ FULL REVIEW
Patti’s Bistro: Good food at unreal summer prices
(reviewed the week of 06/30/11) Only a couple of weeks into the long Vero summer, more restaurants than ever appear to be offering better deals than ever in a bid to lure new customers and fill dining rooms during what always has been the slow season. While the restaurants we have been visiting on recent weekends seem to be doing pretty well, a number of restaurateurs clearly are nervous about the economy, and are bending over backward to make sure they still are going strong come fall. READ FULL REVIEW
First Bites: Pipa Movida off to promising start
(reviewed the week of 02/03/11) When we think of tapas, we inescapably think of Spain where it all began. Hot and cold tapas are the light snacks that bar-hopping Spaniards enjoy after work to tide them over until dinner (which in Spain generally doesn’t start until 10 pm). In Spain, entire districts in vibrant urban areas are dedicated to tapas bars. So finally, a tapas bar, Pipa Movida, comes to Vero. And instead of locating beachside within a stroll of the Ocean Drive hotels, or perhaps on the mainland in the arts district, it sits by itself out on a lonely stretch of US 1 in the building that once housed the Hardwood Grille. Not a lot of stop-in-for-a-glass-of-wine-and-some-tapas customers in walking distance. READ FULL REVIEW
The Quilted Giraffe: Claudia cringed
(reviewed the week of 06/18/09) From time to time, in the ‘Whatever happened to’ category, we hear someone mention the Quilted Giraffe, which had its fans when it was located in Vero Beach’s old downtown across from Pocahontas Park. READ FULL REVIEW
River Grille: Better than just ‘Sebastian’s best’
(reviewed the week of 06/02/11) Even though Michele Hennessey has been a finalist in Vero’s Top Chef competition each of the past three years – the only chef to achieve this, not to mention winning the title in 2009 and finishing second in 2010 – her establishment is rarely top of mind in any discussion of our community’s top restaurants. Why? Probably because the esrestaurant where she presides, the River Grille, is located in Sebastian – not exactly the Mecca of gourmet dining. Plus you won’t happen across the River Grille by driving along Sebastian’s riverfront looking for a spot to enjoy a scenic meal. It sits in a nondescript building on U.S. 1; the only thing this curiously named restaurant overlooks is a parking lot. READ FULL REVIEW
Tapas Latin Fusion: David Rodriguez’s new venture
(reviewed the week of 04/21/11) Remember how a year ago at this time, David Rodriguez, the chef who brought Cuban-fusion cuisine to Vero at the Oriente restaurant, was telling us he would soon be opening his own wine and tapas bar right here on the beach? Well, fast forward to 2011 and Chef Rodriguez has realized his dream. His attractively decorated Tapas Latin Fusion is serving great hot and cold tapas, not to mention the best paellas around, packing in diners nightly on – US1 in Stuart? READ FULL REVIEW
Yellow Dog Café: Fine dining to our north at a price
(reviewed the week of 07/07/11) For more than a decade, our favorite dining place when returning to Vero from the Orlando airport has been the Yellow Dog Café on US 1 in Malabar a half a dozen miles south of Melbourne. The Yellow Dog is one of those rare restaurants that combines excellent food with a drop-dead view of the Indian River Lagoon. Totally redone following the 2004 hurricanes, the restaurant consists of three charming dining areas: a cozy room overlooking the lagoon and an open kitchen; a more traditional room filled with antiques; and a large downstairs that opens onto an outdoor seating area leading to a dock (yes, you can come by boat). READ FULL REVIEW
14th Avenue Steak House
