Flip down a breezy aspect road and catch the scent of roasting pork. Comply with it, and also you’ll discover a family-run Cuban café slinging slow-cooked lechón and robust café con leche. Or perhaps you veer towards the waterfront, the place docked yachts sway beside a Thai kitchen serving lemongrass-laced curries with a canal view. Across the nook? An upscale izakaya. A Haitian bakery. A speakeasy behind a freezer door.
Welcome to Higher Fort Lauderdale—a sprawling, polyglot metropolis the place greater than 4,000 eating places mirror the 147 languages spoken throughout its neighborhoods. In North Lauderdale, Haitian puff pastry patties crinkle below your fingertips; in Wilton Manors, you’ll discover Laotian-style sausage with sticky rice at a queer-owned supper membership. Even the Michelin Information has began paying consideration, lastly catching as much as what locals have all the time recognized.
As a local Floridian, I’ve watched town develop from a spring break hotspot right into a vibrant, cosmopolitan vacation spot. Through the years, I’ve chased down griot on Dawn Boulevard and located omakase menus tucked into strip malls. I’ve wandered streets, cruised canals, and pushed by means of off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods, all the time letting my urge for food information me. Right here’s what I discovered.
Down by the New River, I adopted the aroma of coconut milk and dendê oil to a dockside hideout the place silver-haired chef Roberto Guerios guidelines the galley. Born in Brazil and raised in Italy, Guerios channels Bahian flavors in dishes like moqueca effervescent with fresh-caught grouper, creamy shrimp bobó shiny with cilantro, and vatapá so wealthy it coats the spoon like velvet. The nautical eating room seems like a ship mid-voyage, flags fluttering overhead, spices perfuming the air. It’s flavorful, sun-soaked, and just a little bit wild—precisely how a pirate would need it.
On a quiet stretch of Broward Boulevard, chef Timon Balloo cooks from reminiscence, mixing the flavors of his Trinidadian-Chinese language heritage with flavors from the locations that formed him—Miami, San Francisco, Bangkok. His chowder fries are pure alchemy: Belgian frites topped with clam chowder, bacon, and herbs. I adopted them with mother’s Trini oxtail, slow-braised till it collapses below a fork, and served with Haitian pikliz to chop by means of the richness. And don’t get me began on the “torrejas” French toast dessert—avoid wasting room, you gained’t remorse it.
The cafecito line was already three deep once I arrived at this no-frills family-run spot. The sound of vaca frita crackling with garlic and lime and the smells of sofrito and ropa vieja fill the air. Yuca con mojo comes previous me steaming and tangled with candy onions. Locals greet one another by title, and the counter employees strikes with the benefit of people that’ve finished this for many years.
The odor of blackened seafood and the brassy lilt of Dixieland jazz guided me into this Victoria Park creole outpost, the place Mardi Gras arrives in Higher Fort Lauderdale. Partitions lined with beads and classic beer adverts set the tone, however the meals delivers the actual NOLA power: crawfish étouffée with a slow-building warmth, golden fried oyster po’boys, and a gumbo so smoky it lingered on my tongue like a backbeat.
In a low-slung strip mall not removed from downtown, I discovered a few of the fiercest flavors within the metropolis. Chef Suksamran’s Larb Thai-Isan delivers khao soi bathed in golden broth and topped with crunchy noodles, and som tum snapping with fermented crab and spicy fowl’s-eye chile. The duck salad, dotted with crispy pores and skin and tossed in candy chili and lime, is a grasp class in distinction. Come hungry, carry pals, and put together to attend—it’s value each second.
Stepping inside Cunning Brown is like strolling into your favourite sitcom kitchen—cozy, acquainted, perhaps just a little retro. “We’ve grown alongside households and regulars, pioneering Fort Lauderdale’s brunch scene since 2012,” says director of operations Sasha Formica. The menu riffs on nostalgia: Inexperienced bean fries arrive tempura-crisp with sriracha aioli; the beef-a-roni marries tender quick rib and creamy native ricotta tossed in casarecce pasta, similar to the canned model of my latchkey childhood. However the sleeper hit? A banana bread grilled cheese with nutella and brûléed banana.
Whitewashed partitions, clinking glasses, platters the dimensions of hubcaps—Greek Islands Taverna doesn’t do delicate. The pikilia platter alone is a meal: tzatziki, melitzanosalata, skordalia, and tirokafteri are all begging for torn pita. I adopted these with lamb chops adorned merely with lemon, oregano, and olive oil nonetheless sputtering from the grill. The hospitality brings me again to the mountainside villages on Crete that I really like, the place it doesn’t matter what language you communicate as a result of meals and friendship are common. Come hungry and are available early as a result of they don’t take reservations.
In Wilton Manors, the place rainbow flags line the sidewalks and the music by no means stops, Tulio’s hums with power and mezcal. “Tulio’s creates a welcoming area the place everybody feels at house,” proprietor and founder Brian Parenteau tells me. Candy claw meat and shiny roasted corn salsa overflow the lobster tacos; the birria—pull-apart quick rib folded into crisp tortillas—is served with consommé I’d drink by the mug.
Tucked simply off of Flagler Village, this spot pulses with power. Rino Cerbone, half chef, half rock band entrance man, pours coronary heart and warmth into his Italian American menu. “I wished to be the one to alter the sport [in Greater Fort Lauderdale],” Cerbone says. “Individuals see it. Individuals really feel it. They know in these 4 partitions one thing superior is going on.” The razor clams beckon, nonetheless scorching below a layer of breadcrumbs and Calabrian chile. Handmade pastas and pizzas, crafted together with his household’s secret dough and blistered within the wooden oven, draw me in each go to. However the staple for Cerbone? “The pizza I grew up making with my father, the recent tomato,” he says. “It’s 5 components. Nothing to cover behind, simply easy and scrumptious.”
On a gusty stretch of Fort Lauderdale Seaside, this Japanese-Korean fusion spot doesn’t shrink back from taste: Brief rib jabche melds glassy candy potato noodles with galbi cooked sous vide to trembling tenderness; duck baos arrive pillowy and bursting with hoisin warmth. “Takato is greater than only a restaurant—it’s the place custom and fervour come collectively to create flavors that inform a narrative and convey folks nearer,” says common supervisor Paul-Antoine Fabre.
