Restaurants in Palm Beach Gardens

Embedded into 264 The Grill's worn stone façade over a blue-and-white awning is a clock that reports the hour that meals begin. However, the weight of time vanishes once you're through the door, thanks to the posh interior full of timeless paraphernalia, classic entertainment such as live jazz, and a time-tested menu of upscale eats. Here, the chefs whip up a menu of surf 'n' turf classics, filling sizzling pans with new york strip steaks and fillets of their signature "steak"—a seared lobster cake drizzled with béarnaise sauce. They prepare freshly caught fish in four different fashions: siciliano, caribbean, baked and stuffed, or pineapple plank. As a side, Susan Merritt and her jazz trio fill hungry ears with smooth tunes on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, inspiring diners to get up and cut a rug or carve a baked potato into a pan flute.

At the family-owned Nick's 50's Diner, you’ll find time-period specific memorabilia, including celebrity photographs and illustrated advertisements, as well as a 1955 Seeburg Juke Box. Red diner booths and checkerboard floors complete the scene. This is a spot where people can grow nostalgic for another time—or to simply enjoy the era’s delicious food. The diner serves classic burgers, sandwiches, and breakfast eats, and Nick and his cooks make everything by hand. They’ll go as far as roasting their own turkeys and beef, slicing them onto sandwiches and transforming the rest into delicious gravies. Finish with a treat from the soda jerk, perhaps an old-fashioned shake or an egg cream.

Brewzzi funnels its German influences into a lineup of craft microbrews to complement its bistro-style menu. The brewmaster crafts lagers, ales, and seasonal beers right onsite. In the open kitchen, chefs feed flatbread bruschetta and hand-stretched pizza dough to a hungry brick oven, and craft ranch burgers filled with Angus beef, bacon, monterey jack cheese, and dreams of running away to join the circus concession stand.

New England–style fresh seafood items, such as carpetbagger oysters and lobster rolls, accompany pork rib chops and brisket tacos to tables at Longboards Restaurant and Bar. Inside, hanging longboards and flat-screen televisions unite in their skinniness to forge a laid-back yet entertaining setting, similar to a monk's cabin placed in the middle of a red-light district. Behind the longboard-shaped bar, a libation wizard concocts house-made juice-infused cocktails and doles out craft brews to supplement a list of 16 bottled beers such as Shock Top and Kalik Gold. Porters, pilsners, IPAs, and ciders further solidify the eatery's credibility as a haven for hops.

Since no surfing-styled venue would be complete without an alfresco component, Longboards Restaurant and Bar also maintains an outdoor patio replete with a mini wooden walkway and picnic tables nestled atop a bed of sand, where a gaggle of plastic flamingos hones yoga skills. Trees, lights strung overhead, and colorful longboard murals ensconce patio denizens in an atmosphere utterly bereft of dullness.

Chefs at Casa Mia Trattoria & Pizzeria slide wooden pizza peels into a glowing wood-fired brick oven to retrieve sizzling pies, while cooks nearby craft pasta for lasagna entrees. Beneath the soft light from pillar candles mounted on wrought-iron chandeliers, servers weave between dark-wood tables in the dining room, delivering paninis and salads topped with the morning news.

Although Cafe Toscano's cuisine remains firmly rooted in Old World tradition, its ambience embraces the aesthetic of a contemporary café. Imported cookies and pastries bring authentic Italian flavors to the brightly lit display cases, but the cooks also recreate homestyle staples by making pastas in-house and accompanying them with meatballs, sweet italian sausage, and eggplant parmigiana. Sleek, black chairs and low-slung white booths evoke a modern air, but the walls also include several murals of traditional Italian scenes, including a cobblestone street, a barrel-filled wine cellar, and an uncannily realistic host asking how many people are in your party.