In the Sunshine State, you might need a good appetite more than a good bathing suit. Prepare to enter a state of culinary bliss, a place where no craving is too great nor taste too exotic for local restaurants to handle.
Being surrounded by water, fresh seafood is all but guaranteed in the Sunshine State, though how your chef may choose to prepare and present it may be a delicious surprise. Florida yellowtail, Atlantic dolphin and grouper, shrimp and oysters from the Gulf of Mexico, conch from the Caribbean: All are showcased on local menus, along with succulent stone crabs in season, which are as much a Florida trademark as palm trees.
Local eateries are proud to show off their culinary expertise in other areas as well, from New American to South American, down-home Southern to European, Asian to fusion, soup to nuts.
While it may take several repeat visits to even scratch the surface of Florida’s culinary variety, one great way to bring variety into the group dining experience is with the dine-around, and Florida’s year-round balmy weather and abundant alfresco dining districts make the state particularly well suited to dine-around programs.
“I think the fun of it is that people can get out and explore the destination,” says Debi DeBenedetto, sales and marketing manager for the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades CVB. “It’s also an ideal way to dine off-property without the stuffiness of a banquet room or the ‘same old-same old.’ And it’s fun to have something to talk about on the way back to the hotel, to compare notes on the different places where everyone dined.”
City Seasonings
Naples offers a number of settings for dine-arounds, including the popular Fifth Avenue South, where more than 20 restaurants within an eight-block radius include Bellini Italian Ristorante, Bistro 821—fusing Asian, European and domestic flavors—and Mangrove Cafe, where the specialty is sweet-and-sour snapper.
Third Street, with its restaurants and galleries, is another option in Naples, along with the Village of Venetian Bay, and Tin City, whose restaurants are within walking distance of dining at the new Naples Bay Resort, home to the recently opened Olio and Bonefish Grill.
While Naples’ relatively compact downtown area makes it a natural for dine-arounds, you’ll have to look for a city-within-a-city if planning a pedestrian-style dine-around in metropolitan Miami, just across the Everglades from Naples, where locations like Coconut Grove, South Beach and Coral Gables fit the bill nicely.
“Coral Gables has a great scene,” says Lyan Tassler, associate vice president of convention services for the Greater Miami CVB. “Along Miracle Mile, there are a number of restaurants to choose from.”
There’s also a mouthwatering variety—from a seafood raw bar and California-style cuisine to a Mexican grill and Spanish gourmet restaurant serving tapas accented by Spanish wines. You might be tempted to pick up some handmade Venezuelan chocolates or gourmet couture cupcakes—so go ahead.
On South Beach—famed as much for its dining as its dusk-to-dawn nightlife—the micro-neighborhoods break down even further, to Lincoln Road, Ocean Drive and south of Fifth Street.
“There’s enough density in restaurants now,” Tassler says, referring to such culinary hot spots as SushiSamba Dromo, a fusion of Brazil, Peru and Japan; Ola, where Nuevo Latino cuisine is enhanced by a full mojito and ceviche bar; and the local legend, Joe’s Stone Crab, which is open seasonally from October to May.
Many South Beach restaurants feature signature brunch menus, so a brunch-around isn’t out of the question either. Are the possibilities endless?
“We had a group that bused in about 800 people, and they dropped them down on the corner of Fifth and Ocean Drive, and they ran shuttles from 6:30 to midnight,” Tassler notes. “They had a list of restaurants, and they were just let loose.”
Deliciously Themed
Another option for a memorable dine-around is to work a theme.
Greater Miami’s wealth of Latin restaurants makes it easy to theme dining events, and the same can be said of Greater Fort Lauderdale, whose network of inland waterways makes it ideal for a “dock-n-dine” experience. Attendees can catch the water taxi for appetizers at one waterfront eatery, cruise to dinner at another, then finish up somewhere else with dessert and drinks accompanied by a water-reflected moon.
Heading over to the west coast, Tampa’s heyday as “the cigar capital of the world” is recalled in historic Ybor City—a streetcar ride away from downtown Tampa—where vintage architecture complements the dining experience at Columbia, Bernini, Green Iguana and the elegant Teatro on Seventh, housed in a restored 1892 building that once operated as a ballroom and theater.
Nearby, an evening in Old Florida is waiting in Gulfport, a historic St. Petersburg enclave where mom-and-pop eateries are housed in converted bungalows, all situated along a central thoroughfare that dead-ends at the Gulfport Casino Ballroom, a 1920s-era waterfront dance hall now used for special events.
In Central Florida, historic downtown Kissimmee offers great dine-around options within a hometown environment—diverse options include Caribbean-style seafood at Chef John’s and a cuisine-art combo at Broadway Cafe—while delegates can follow the cobblestone streets of St. Augustine to choice dining locales like 95 Cordova Restaurant and A1A Ale Works.
