Restaurants in Biloxi

The family-owned and operated Slidell eatery offers a seasonal menu of fresh Cajun and Creole cuisine to brighten bored palates. Start with a “colossal” lump-crab-meat salad with fresh veggies and a garlic-cocktail vinaigrette ($18) before moving on to one of Joyce and Darnell's signature entrees. The seared maple-leaf duck breast ($17) recalls the breeze over Caribbean waters, dressed atop a hammock of tropical couscous with a port-wine demi-glace. The seafood pasta (sautéed shrimp, crawfish, scallops, and crab meat tossed with veggies in an asiago cream over orchiette, $18) and succulent grilled filet mignon (with au-gratin potatoes and a crab-and-brie cream, $24) will tempt seafood-eating land mammals and land-loving mermaids alike. Make any meal or choral performance end on a happy note with praline bread pudding swimming in crème anglaise ($6) or a spiced Guinness cake with cranberry compote and a glistening mound of vanilla-bean ice cream ($6). Nestled in a handsome house adorned with wreathes and trees, the breezy eatery offers an upscale and comfortable dining experience, which makes it an ideal setting for your next marriage proposal or dramatic interruption of a marriage proposal in progress. Call ahead for a reservation.

The Brick Pit’s owner, Bill Armbrecht, firmly believes that great barbecue can't be rushed. Open the red doors of his massive smoker—"Big Red"— and you’ll uncover juicy slabs of ribs, chicken, and pork that have been roasting anywhere from 6 to 30 hours. Bill coats each cut of meat in his legendary spicy barbecue sauce, which was lauded by reporters from Southern Living and relished by Adam Richman on Man v. Food. For a sweet finish, Bill and his chefs whip up housemade banana pudding each day from scratch.

After ordering barbecue platters from the back window, guests retreat into the lively dining room. The walls are decorated in the doodles, praise, and thesis papers of the hundreds of guests who've passed through the restaurant's doors along with framed awards and glowing news articles.

Up the steps of the1930s-era home, a wide, wraparound porch gives diners the impression they are entering a rural townhouse. And that’s the feeling Donna Rodriguez and executive chef Marc Walden want to evoke—that of a little house, which they can fill with startlingly large flavors. Chef Walden vows to use only fresh, locally sourced ingredients to craft the eatery’s southern-style dishes, which blossom beneath modern twists, including apricot compote and okra chips. As chefs introduce new york strip, filet mignon, and blackened delta catfish to flame, the contented crackle of the hot grill drifts from the kitchen. Patrons marinating to weekly live jazz music in the dining room request a savory bacon cheesecake to go, or search for Waldo in the pastel whorls of the bistro’s vibrant impressionist paintings.