Dining
Where to eat, by district
8 walkable districts and 85 venues, taken from the directories the districts and their tourism bodies publish, or from each venue’s own site, rather than from a review aggregator. Walkable is the point: most dining here sits along a six-lane road, and these are the places you can park once.
Waterside Place
District guide →Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota County · 15 venues
Osteria 500
Italian
Forked at Waterside
Good Liquid Distilling Co.
The Lounge by Good Liquid Distilling Co.
Good Liquid Brewing Co.
Agave Bandido
Mexican
Deep Lagoon Seafood & Oyster House
Seafood
Allswell
Eatalia
Italian
Carved
Quincy's Original Lobster Rolls
Seafood
Duck Donuts
Kilwins
Kore Steakhouse
Steakhouse
O&A Coffee Supply
St. Armands Circle
District guide →Sarasota, Sarasota County · 15 venues
Blue Dolphin Cafe
An intimate cafe doing freshly prepared breakfast and lunch, and the Circle spot that fills first on a weekend morning.
Cafe on St. Armands
Mediterranean
Mediterranean cooking on the Circle.
Cilantro Grill
Latin American
Latin American fusion, counter-service in format.
Cha Cha Coconuts
Island-style casual dining, and a Circle fixture rather than a recent arrival.
Columbia Spanish Restaurant
Spanish, Cuban
Spanish and Cuban cooking, the St. Armands branch of a Florida institution founded in Ybor City.
Crab & Fin
Seafood
Seafood on the Circle, one of the longer-standing dining rooms there.
Daiquiri Deck
Frozen drinks first and food second, which is the honest order of it.
Lynches Pub & Grub
Irish
An Irish pub with the beer and whiskey list to match, and a rooftop that catches the Circle.
Nonno Umberto Italian Seafood & Steakhouse
Italian, Seafood
Italian with homemade pasta alongside seafood and steaks.
Venezia Italian Restaurant
Italian, Pizza
Wood-oven pizza and pasta, Italian in the Circle rather than downtown.
15 South by Napule
Italian
Blu Kouzina
Greek
Green Zebra Cafe
Rico's Pizzeria
Pizza, Italian
Tommy Bahama Restaurant & Bar
Rosemary District
District guide →Sarasota, Sarasota County · 12 venues
Wink Wink Food and Drink
Station 400
Breakfast and brunch in a restored railway depot dating to 1854, with Nutella waffles the order people come back for.
Spice Station
Japanese, Sushi
Sake and sushi, one of the independents that filled the district out over the past decade.
SaraFresh Juice
Freshly blended juice and acai bowls.
The Original Wolfie's Delicatessen
Deli
A proper deli: breakfast sandwiches and a counter rather than a dining room.
Project Coffee
Coffee with oat milk lattes and vegan pastries, and the neighbourhood laptop spot.
Vino Bistro
Tapas and wine, small-plates format rather than a full dinner menu.
Arts & Central
Great Heights Creamery
FOOD+BEER
The Rosemary
481 Gourmet
Downtown Sarasota
District guide →Sarasota, Sarasota County · 12 venues
C'est La Vie!
French
A French cafe known for its pastries and quiche, and a downtown breakfast habit for a lot of people.
First Watch
Daytime-only breakfast and lunch, the chain that started in this market, with granola bowls and French toast the signatures.
Duval's Fresh Local Seafood
Seafood
Surf and turf, with the emphasis on local seafood.
Boca Sarasota
Craft cocktails in a deliberately modern room, and one of the downtown places that reads younger than its neighbours.
Element
Contemporary American with a modern gastronomic menu rather than a traditional one.
Bevardi's Salute! Restaurant
Italian
Italian cooking downtown, long established on the Main Street stretch.
Bavaros Pizza Napoletana & Pastaria
Italian, Pizza
Neapolitan pizza and pasta, made to the Napoletana style the name claims.
Marcel
French
French cooking on Main Street, a more recent arrival to the downtown dining row.
Circo
Mexican
Artisan tacos and margaritas, and a room built for the second category as much as the first.
Selva Grill
Peruvian
Peruvian-inspired cooking, with a second location at University Town Center.
Marina Jack
Seafood, Steakhouse
Steaks, seafood and pasta over Sarasota Bay, and the one downtown dining room where the sunset is the point.
O'Leary's Tiki Bar & Grill
A barefoot tiki bar on the bayfront with live music nightly, and about as far from the Main Street dining rooms as you can get while staying downtown.
Main Street at Lakewood Ranch
District guide →Lakewood Ranch, Manatee County · 11 venues
Kuro Sushi
Japanese, Sushi
Peculiar Pub
Delany's Public House
Irish
Casa Maya Mexican
Mexican
Ed's Tavern
Percoco's Pizza & Pasta
Italian, Pizza
Pincher's Crab Shack
Seafood
Paris Bistrot
French
Grove
Juice Pod
Fine Wine & Tastings on Main
Bridge Street
District guide →Bradenton Beach, Manatee County · 9 venues
Bridge Street Bistro
Seafood, Steakhouse
Anna Maria Oyster Bar on the Pier
Seafood
The Bridge Tender Inn Dockside & Tiki Bar
Seafood
Daiquiri Deck
Bamboo Island Bar
Pane e Amore Italian Cafe
Italian
Island Creperie
French
Blue Marlin
Seafood
Island Time Bar & Grill
Southside Village
District guide →Sarasota, Sarasota County · 7 venues
Morton's Market
A bakery and prepared-food counter that has anchored the district for more than forty years, and functions as the neighbourhood grocer as much as a shop.
Gecko's
Family-friendly pub food, cheeseburgers, wraps and sandwiches, with tuna nachos the thing regulars order.
Their site →Pazzo
Italian, Pizza
Italian, with pasta, baked clams, carbonara and pizza.
Libby's Brasserie
French
French-leaning brasserie cooking: brioche grilled cheese, crab and corn chowder, chicken paillard.
Blase Southern Style
Southern
Southern cooking, including blackened jumbo shrimp over smoked gouda grits and a gumbo-style mac and cheese.
Origins Craft Beer and Pizza Cafe
Pizza
Craft beer alongside unorthodox pies, taco pizza and gyro pizza among them, plus baked wings.
Pacific Rim
Japanese, Thai, Sushi
Sushi and Thai-style entrees, on Hillview Street for years.
Downtown Wellen
District guide →Venice, Sarasota County · 4 venues
The Banyan House
New American
New American cooking on Grand Lake, and the restaurant Wellen Park built Downtown Wellen around.
Their site →Oak & Stone
Pizza
Craft beer and artisan pizza, with a wall of taps that is the reason most people pick it.
Their site →Bocca Lupo
Italian, Pizza
Coal-fired pizza, salads and Italian classics, in a room built for families.
Their site →Acqua Pazza
Italian
Coastal Italian, which in Wellen Park means seafood-leaning rather than red sauce.
Districts without a venue list
University Town Center is a regional mall whose dining is mostly national chains and whose tenant list turns over constantly. Naming them adds nothing a buyer needs and would rot faster than anything else here. It keeps a full district page covering what it is and which communities it serves, which is the part that holds still.
Dining FAQ
Where are the walkable dining districts in Sarasota and Manatee County?+
There are five this site covers: St. Armands Circle on the barrier island between downtown Sarasota and Longboat Key, Main Street at Lakewood Ranch, Waterside Place in the newer southern half of Lakewood Ranch, University Town Center on the county line, and Downtown Wellen at the entrance to Wellen Park. Walkable is the operative word. Most dining in this market sits along a six-lane road with a car park in front, and the districts are the exceptions where you can leave the car once and spend an evening. For a buyer that is a genuine difference in daily life, and it is one of the few lifestyle factors that does not change when a restaurant does.
How is this list kept current when restaurants close so often?+
Every venue here comes from the directory the district itself publishes, because that is the list that gets updated when a tenant leaves. Each record carries the date it was last checked, and anything not marked open and verified does not render at all. That is also why this site lists districts rather than trying to be a restaurant guide: a district is durable and a restaurant list is stale within a season. If you spot something here that has closed, tell me and I will correct it.
Which Lakewood Ranch town centre should I be looking at?+
They are not substitutes and the drive between them is real. Main Street is the original, laid out as a conventional high street with the cinema on it, and it serves the older villages around the Country Club and Greenbrook. Waterside Place is newer, built around the water south of University Parkway, and it serves the Waterside villages. If a listing says a home is near the Lakewood Ranch town centre, ask which one, because the answer changes the ten-minute radius you actually live in.
Why is University Town Center listed without restaurants?+
University Town Center is a regional mall whose dining is mostly national chains and whose tenant list turns over constantly, so naming them adds nothing a buyer needs and would rot faster than anything else on this site. It keeps a full district page covering what it is, what it is anchored by and which communities it serves, which is the part that holds still. Downtown Wellen was in the same position until its restaurants were verified one at a time against their own websites, because Wellen Park publishes no tenant directory.
Want to live within walking distance of one of these?
Tell me which district and I will send the communities inside a short walk or a short drive, with what they actually cost to own.
Or call or text (941) 350-0224.