Eateries >>

• Best Expensive Italian Restaurant
  Primavera Restaurant
  Top Ten Reasons Why Primavera Is Better Than the Italian Restaurant You Go To: 10. You can't fool all of the people all of the time -- Primavera's been around since 1985. 9. Wait staff isn't snobby, nor is it informal to the point of saying things like "Fuhgeddaboudit!" 8. Roasted... More >>
• Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant
  Zuccarelli's Italian Kitchen Readers' Choice: Il Mulino
  The Olive Garden doesn't serve tripe. That's OK, but it also doesn't offer fresh pork or beef braciole, chicken scarparielo with homemade sausage and mushrooms in lemon sauce, pignoli-crusted snapper over spinach, and more than 40 types of pasta dishes -- and that's not OK, which is one reason... More >>
• Best Caribbean Restaurant
  Caribbean Choice Restaurant and Bakery
  More than 300,000 South Floridians describe their primary ancestry as non-Hispanic Caribbean or West Indian. That's a good thing, because it means there are plenty of places to get really good West Indian food. Heck, you could throw a rock almost anywhere within Broward and Palm Beach counties... More >>
• Best Haitian Restaurant
  Pollo Kreyol
  Pity poor Haiti, wracked by poverty and continual political unrest. Judging by Pollo Kreyol, these put-upon islanders must take great solace in the zesty fare they've concocted through the years. Housed in a defunct fast-food joint, this eatery is a magnet for Creole speakers and offers handy... More >>
• Best French Restaurant
  Cafe Claude
  Duck confit, a specialty of southwestern France, is one of the world's oldest preserved foods and, because of the technique involved in its preparation, serves as the ultimate litmus test for judging the skills of a French kitchen. First, the duck gets dry-rubbed in herbs, spices, and coarse... More >>
• Best German Restaurant
  European Deli & Restaurant
  Results from a recent government survey on diet and health show that the average person gained three pounds from just perusing the menu at European Deli & Restaurant. A breakdown of the numbers reveals that those who read only the menu sections regarding Friday and Saturday specials put on only... More >>
• Best Restaurant in Broward
  Mark's Las Olas
  No matter how amazing Charlize Theron might be in her next role, it's money in the bank that she won't win another Oscar in 2005. Why not? Same reason that Mark's Las Olas hasn't copped a New Times Best Of restaurant award since 1999: Panels don't like to repeat themselves. Still, Mark Militello... More >>
• Best New Restaurant in Broward
  Johnny V
  Over the past decade, chef Johnny Vinczencz, formerly known as "The Caribbean Cowboy," has traveled from town to town or, more specifically, from Astor Place in South Beach to De La Tierra at Sundy House in Delray Beach, titillating diners with robust American cuisine dashed with Spanish and... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant in Broward
  Sushi 1 Take-Out
  To win this category, you must be located in an interesting neighborhood, serve top-drawer chow, and be reasonably priced. That is indubitably the case with Sushi 1. The ambiance is nothing. Zero. But the sushi is some of the freshest that we have ever eaten, and daily specials, which generally... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Restaurant in Palm Beach
  Cuoco Pazzo Café
  This place has two lives. In the winter, snowbirds inundate Cuoco Pazzo Café, making the wait on weekends often longer than two hours. The café is actually a sister establishment to the Cuoco Pazzo restaurant next door, and the old codgers know you can eat cheaper, and just as... More >>
• Best New Restaurant in Palm Beach
  Sol Kitchen
  Statistics show that nine and seven-eighths of every ten new dining establishments go belly up within 15 minutes of opening -- or something like that. Which means that either the management team, kitchen crew, and service staff perform admirably right from the start or the signage on the... More >>
• Best Restaurant in Palm Beach
  The Restaurant at the Four Seasons Resort, Palm Beach
  It is said that the same yardstick used to critique the arts can be applied to reviewing restaurants: mood, tone, theme, setting, and harmony. The Restaurant's elegant setting is defined by its sweeping arched entrance, which is flanked by palm trees, a fountain, and tropical flowers. Once... More >>
• Best Greek Restaurant
  Taverna Milos
  Don't be scared away by the Paradise Beach Resort setting. Forget the hotel-lobby furnishings. Never mind the hokey music. Focus instead on the sparkling, Hellenic-like beachside, the festive table-dancing until 5 a.m., the warm, home-baked loaf of bread that is delivered to each table, and the... More >>
• Best Service in a Restaurant
  L'Escalier at the Breakers
  Great service in a restaurant is about making you feel as though you belong. Some dining establishments have an easier time of this than others. Diners, for instance, would seem the perfect choice to make you feel at home. They are informal, unpretentious, low intensity. But at the palatially... More >>
• Best Restaurant When Someone Else Is Paying
  Cafe Boulud Palm Beach
  Local heirloom tomato salad with herbes de Provence: $13. Sirloin burger with foie gras and black truffles on parmesan bun: $29. Truffle-braised snapper with Vichy carrots, pea shoots, and pommes croustillantes: $36. Bottle of DeLille Cellars' Chaleur Estate Meritage, 2000: $140.... More >>
• Best Restaurant to Die in the Past Year
  Hoot, Toot & Whistle
  One of Delray Beach's most distinctive dining venues has hooted, tooted, and whistled for the final time. Built to take advantage of a location adjacent to railroad tracks, Hoot offered the Orient Express, an old-fashioned wood-and-tile "dining car" with large, comfy booths, life-sized picture... More >>
• Best Late-Night Dining
  Sande's Restaurant
  After a late night out on the town, it's hard to just say good-bye and go home -- especially when the sun's already well ahead of you. Plus, all that partying creates quite an appetite, and all that alcohol needs something to absorb it -- that is, unless you enjoy a hangover. You could go to... More >>
• Best Cheap Breakfast
  Las Colinas
  You know you're getting an inferior diner breakfast when you get the toast. It's dry and almost cold. Next to it on the plate are a couple of fresh-from-the-fridge butter patties. At Las Colinas, the bread comes straight from the iron sandwich grill -- la plancha -- with the butter melted inside... More >>
• Best Breakfast
  Simply Delish
  Forget the usual mega-brunches, with their prix fixe prices, "whatever"-service, and trips back to the empty salvers. Here in this two-room corner cafe that throbs with highly caffeinated conversation, major hallooing, and some of the wisecrackingest service this side of Rosie on a roll is yet... More >>
• Best Double-Entendre
  Sue and Lou's Restaurant
  Does this lawyerly eatery have an impressive tort-quashing track record? Or maybe a helpful friend at the small-claims courthouse? More >>
• Best Finn Food
  Scandia Bakery & Coffee Shop
  South Florida is a long way from home for the several thousand Finns who spend the winters in Lake Worth. For a little taste of the motherland, many of them come to Scandia Bakery, which has become something of a city hall for snowbirds from the Helsinki hinterlands. They discuss news from the... More >>
• Best Outdoor Dining
  Florida Tap Room Dockside Restaurant & Bar Readers' Choice: Dada
  With 14 draft beer choices (among them, the 1988 British Grand Champion Old Thumper and a crisp, dry Shipyard Light Ale) and a no-strangers bar, the Tap Room defines itself as winningly as Charlize Theron negotiating the red carpet at the Oscars. While this may not be high dining, its score of... More >>
• Best Place for Intimate Conversation
  Bistro La Tavernetta
  About the same size as the cabin of an executive jet and as darkly intime as Antonio Banderas' eyes, this dinners-only slice of high dining has been enjoyed for 35 years by luxe Lauderdale. And it doesn't need to raise its voice to declare its utter suitability for proposals of any kind. You,... More >>
• Best Asian Restaurant
  Sushi-Thai Oakland Park
  English clergyman Sydney Smith claimed, "Soup and fish explain half the emotions of life." Spot-on, Syd. Since at least half of the menu at this pan-Asian place is one or the other and since at least five are among the best liquids you'll ever swallow (a tom yum seafood soup will send you into a... More >>
• Best Raw Bar
  Whale's Rib
  The no-holds-barred crowd that often lines up in early evenings to get into this 20-plus-year-old spot is a mix of bikers, surfers, condo-nauts and prowling tourists -- all eager for their electronic buzzers to light up and tell them it's their turn to cram into this little combo... More >>
• Best Seafood Restaurant
  Hobo's Fish Joint
  The name of the restaurant is misleading, as this surely isn't a joint but a handsomely designed room with cherry-wood floors, warm mahogany highlights, and two separate rooms for parties and corporate events -- exactly the sort of environment that hobos have, throughout their colorful history,... More >>
• Best Place to Take the Kids
  Shirttail Charlie's Restaurant
  It's about time we found a place where both you and the kids can let down what's left of your hair. This low-profile Lauderdale landmark tucked along the downtown stretch of the New River is just the place. Here, by the dockside restaurant (a more formal dining area is upstairs), the kids can... More >>
• Best Diner
  Horizon Diner II
  This place wins for personality and service hands down; it's an added bonus that the food is tasty. And the Horizon's got history too. This location opened a year and a half ago after its namesake on Davie Boulevard burned to the ground on Christmas Day. Owned by middle-aged Greek couple Spiro... More >>
• Best Deli
  Poppie's Restaurant & Delicatessen Readers' Choice: Too Jay's
  You are not a number; you are a human being. Now try telling that to the hostess at one of the big chain delicatessens that are to Palm Beach County what automobile factories once were to Detroit. It's true that the assembly-line pastrami sandwiches at these places are usually flawless, but you... More >>
• Best Power Lunch
  Timpano Italian Chophouse
  Tie pins, French cuffs, the finest wools, complexions aglow from heavy gym-time and stock options -- all are as prevalent as Britney before a CD release at this 4-year-old bastion of the New Lauderdale, which packs a Wayne (Huizenga)-meets-Terry (Stiles) degree of clout rarely seen locally... More >>
• Best Soul Food
  Betty's Soul Food & Bar-B-Que
  Yes, Betty's turns up on winner's lists all over the place, and yes, it might be great to find a new champion, but who can argue with the royal richness of the Red Velvet cake or that reasonably priced ($8.25) but unreasonably good fried chicken (done up in heart-conscious canola oil)? Then... More >>
• Best Roti Shop
  Joy's Roti Delight
  A fascinating cultural collision plays out daily at Joy's, a bustling East-meets-West Indian restaurant tucked in a corner of the Lauderhill Mall. Delicious curry goat would be the standard (and most popular) option at $7, but chicken, oxtail, shrimp, conch, beef, and veggies are also available,... More >>
• Best Spanish Restaurant
  Café Seville
  The traditional Spanish regional cuisine at Cafe Seville is cooked to order, which means you may have to sit awhile in the quaint dining room, sipping one of the restaurant's excellent wines, perhaps snacking on tapas or a cold platter of Spanish Serrano ham, manchego cheese, chorizo, and... More >>
• Best More Than Mexican Restaurant
  Tipico Cafe
  Smack in the middle of what may be the hippest little shopping center in South Florida (if we need to tell you the name, you're over), Tipico boasts a menu that says it all: "American Style -- Mexican Flavor -- Spanish Flair," with selections that jitterbug from Mexico to Cuba and on to Kansas... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Restaurant
  Pho Nam Do Vietnamese Noodle House
  Our mission ultimately led to this unassuming little eatery in a nondescript strip mall in Lauderdale Lakes. Its references were good, and it lived up to the reputation. There's not much in the way of atmosphere; there are only a dozen or so tables, and the service is friendly. But you'll... More >>
• Best South American Restaurant
  Panorama Restaurant
  Daril and Denizio Corti's 12-year-old Brazilian restaurant isn't big on being big. There is no ostentatious décor, no room-length salad bar, no rodizio wherein men carve large pieces of meat at your table. Panorama concentrates instead on cooking up genuine Brazilian specialties that you... More >>
• Best Steak House
  Runyon's Restaurant
  With its high ceilings, graceful archways, large wooden tables, upholstered chairs, and rustic fireplace, Coral Springs' landmark Runyon's Restaurant looks more like a country inn than your typical steak house. It is only when you dig into giant, succulent meat like the famous prime rib with... More >>
• Best Place to Be a Carnivore
  The Knife Argentinian Steak House
  Oh sure, the Knife has a salad bar, vegetables, pasta, and the like. They got pork too, along with chicken, if you're in a fowl mood. But this place is all about the beef. We're talking brisket, roast beef, flank steaks, T-bones, ribs... all things bovine. The place has got dead cow aplenty.... More >>
• Best Early Bird Special
  The Broadway Restaurant & Deli
  The red-winged blackbird inhabits marshes and is known for its complex vocalizations. The orchard oriole can be found in the mesquite shrubs of Arizona and is characterized by modulated song. The early bird congregates in South Florida strip malls from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.; its distinctive cries of... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Restaurant
  Sublime
  Mad cow hasn't changed anything -- many restaurateurs still consider vegetarians the al Qaeda of American diners. Sublime offers a much-needed refuge of respect to these oft-abused eaters and does so in more convincing fashion than anyplace else in the region. The 150-seat room is Zen-like... More >>
• Best Middle Eastern Restaurant
  Caspian Persian Grill
  The menu is chock-full of wondrous Persian cuisine -- which is a politically innocuous way of saying Iranian food. All this may seem quite exotic, but many of the offerings here are surprisingly familiar, like hummus, stuffed grape leaves, and kebabs of chicken, salmon, tenderloin, and lamb --... More >>
• Personal Best
  Johnny V
  Name: Johnny V (Johnny Vinczencz) Age: 43 Hometown: St. Louis Claim to Fame: One of South Florida's most sought-after and most restless chefs What he's done for us lately: He kicked off the year by opening Johnny V Restaurant/Lounge on Las Olas Boulevard. This after hopping around... More >>
• Best Chinese Restaurant
  China Lane
  Located just west of Presidential Circle in Hollywood, China Lane is nestled in a strip mall that gives it the perfect location for movie night. After all, since Blockbuster Video is one block east, you can pick up that new release, then grab your piping-hot order of moo goo gai pan ($8.95). But... More >>
• Best Place for a Volcano Roll and a Thai Friend
  Saito Bangkok
  Nok arrives at our table, beaming her angelic smile over a plateful of volcano rolls. She sets it down, then brings us more Sapporo. How old could she be? 19? Yet so independent, so brave, here all by herself. We are going to Thailand next week. This dinner is anticipation. "You make me miss my... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant
  Nabab Indian Cuisine
  The first thing you'll want to do is buy some tumeric, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and black peppercorns. Next, you'll take a mortar and pestle and crush the seeds (don't grind!). Now you've got your masala spice mix and can begin prepping the rest of the ingredients for your... More >>
• Best Cuban Restaurant
  Punta del Este
  From the outside, Punta del Este looks like a dive bar. It's located right next to a laundromat called Sexy Suds. But if you're brave enough to go inside, you'll find a lobster Creole ($14.95) that'll make you cream your jeans and fried cassava ($1.75) that's almost better than sex. In fact, if... More >>
• Best Chain Restaurant
  Sweet Tomatoes Sweet Tomatoes
  OK, so you have to queue up with what can be described only as an arthritic chorus line of elderly people who, for some unexplained reason, seem to have extremely sharp elbows. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. But once you plop the two big, empty, white plates upon your tray (only novices take... More >>