Restaurants in Royal Palm Beach

At The Gypsy's Horse Irish Pub & Restaurant, diners kick back with pints of Guinness and classic pub-fare dishes from across the pond. Servers ferry plates of irish breakfast with black and white pudding and pork sandwiches slathered in Guinness barbecue sauce. While sampling the pub's 18 beers on tap, patrons can hit the spacious outdoor patio or sit beside the brick fireplace, tantalizing the flames with wooden tables and chairs just outside of their longing grasp.

Beyond that sea of seating and kindling, wood barrels are enmeshed into one of the walls, further unifying the pub's beer and timber influences. Dartboards fleck another part of the wall-scape, and candle sconces imbue the interior with the ambience of an old tavern. Canteens and pots and pans fill out the shelves, and framed pictures give the decor an artful touch.

When Dean Lavallee opened the first Park Avenue BBQ in 1988, he had one lofty mission in mind: to serve the best barbecue ever made. Despite the seemingly impossible nature of his goal, he and his team continue to rise to the challenge, dry-rubbing their meats to smoke and char-grill on-site. They use all-natural, grain-fed, domestic pork for their traditional and Carolina-style barbecue pork—pulled by hand—and only use fresh, never-frozen ribs that are smoked daily over hickory. As diners chow down on hearty homestyle sides, seafood platters, or buffalo wings tossed in one of six sauces, they can admire the dining room's pictures of their city's most prominent people, places, and robot mayors.

Park Avenue BBQ arranges their meats into fun, hearty dishes such as the Dempublican sandwich, which combines smoked pork and beef brisket separated only by cheese and bacon to create a sizeable sandwich that the team has dubbed "porkalicious". They whip up Funnybonz, which look and taste like miniature ribs, using tender, lean pork that's prepared by cooking up regular ribs beneath a shrink ray. In 2008, their dedication to each dish caused Cityvoter's users to name Park Avenue BBQ the best barbecue in town.

Chef Fritz Cassel constantly imagines up creative dishes to complement his eclectic, ever-changing menus. Servers transport his small plates and inventive gastro-pub dishes—such as mussels, gourmet sandwiches, and cheesy grits—to tables already supplied with complimentary baskets of housemade potato chips. Beneath a lofted ceiling lit by artistic pendant lamps and chandeliers, bartenders pour craft beers and mixed drinks as well as concoct potent adult milkshakes that pair perfectly with a copy of the latest _ Hardy Men_ mystery novel.

"It took them five years before they would let me handle the fish," says sushi chef Jo Clark about his extensive training. He began his culinary journey at 13 years old and spent a decade in an apprenticeship at the Japanese restaurant Yama. There, he honed an ability to prep rice and sauces, wield a knife, and select sushi-grade fish while shadowing chefs from different regions of Japan. In his spare time, Jo enjoys paddle-surfing and once skillfully maneuvered alongside a lively school of sharks.

At the restaurant, however, he deftly manages cuts of salmon, flounder, hamachi yellowtail, and shellfish to craft more than 40 inventive sushi rolls. He toys with the traditions of sushi, wrapping some rolls with thin slices of European cucumber and creating a sashimi pizza on a tortilla crust. The aromas of ginger, eggplant, and garlic wander from pots of Thai-style dishes in the kitchen and out into dining rooms. Though each location has distinct decor, diners mingle among elements such as exposed-brick bars, hardwood floors, and hanging Japanese paper lanterns in the exciting bright colors of a furious traffic cop viewed through a kaleidoscope.

Orchids are, in general, delicate and colorful flowers, concepts appreciated by Japanese and Thai chefs. Orchids of Siam brings the two schools of cuisine together under the flower's banner, serving colorful curries, stir-fried medleys with noodles, and, of course, sushi. The chefs draw flavors from all over the map, though, in their quest to create memorable dishes, infusing shrimp tempura sushi with the flavors of roasted garlic or enriching pad thai with eight ounces of fresh lobster.

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.