Restaurants in Sylvania

Fat Fish Blue warmly welcomes diners of all stripes and polka dots to kick back with live entertainment, cold drinks, and New Orleans style comfort fare. The eatery's kitchen blends Louisianan staples such as gumbo and Cajun burgers with steadfast American favorites such as fried chicken and pasta. Five nights a week, live musicians and entertainers regale the audience with on-stage showmanship, and on the other two nights, the microphone belts out "Born on the Bayou" all on its own.

Over the course of its 176-year history, The Commercial Building has purportedly been a stop on the Underground Railroad, a route for bootleggers during Prohibition, and a watering hole for Abraham Lincoln, who prosecuted cases at the nearby courthouse. Situated on the first floor of the building, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Dégagé Jazz Café draws contemporary crowds with its combination of live music and French-inspired cuisine.

Chef Jacob Jacobsen, a Toledo native and French Culinary Institute grad, crafts seasonal menus inspired by French and New American cooking. Dishes range from salads with locally grown apples and pears to slow-braised baby-back ribs and wet-aged rib-eye steaks. Other entrees incorporate sustainable seafood, including wild, line-caught Atlantic king salmon and local walleye from Port Clinton Fisheries. Servers carry dishes to weathered wooden booths inside the club-like dining room or float them onto its outdoor patio via attached mini-parachutes.

Sugary sculptures of characters such as Yoda, Hello Kitty, and Barbie grace custom cakes at Cherry Tree Bakery and Floral, where confectioners also whip up muffins, scones, and other baked goods from scratch each day. For heartier appetites, they also prepare café fare ranging from oatmeal sprinkled with cinnamon or dried cranberries to salads, sandwiches, and soups. Additionally, florists pack a glass display case with flowers fashioned into artful bouquets or trompe l'oeil donuts.

Celebrating 10 years of service this year, Molly’s Diner serves up comfort-fare classics such as juicy burgers and country-fried steak in a sunlit dining room with a checkered floor. Breakfast, served all day, plates stacks of pancakes and griddles of eggs, hash browns, and bacon. Health-conscious diners can round out meals with fresh side salads or munch hearty chef’s salads topped with smoked ham, swiss cheese, and turkey.

At Sylvania Diner, cooks marry classic American diner fare, such as burgers and omelets, with authentic Lebanese gyros, falafel, and shish kebabs. The dining room's decor mirrors this fusion of cultures, with one wall draped with an American flag and another swathed in a giant mural depicting a boat navigating the jutting cliffs, blue seas, and feta-scented beaches of a Mediterranean shoreline. Red, white, and blue streamers flutter from the ceiling, dancing above loyal regulars' heads as they bask in shafts of sunlight pouring through the restaurant's expansive windows.

The culinary team at Clamdiggers of Toledo whips up a mix of American fare classics, from crispy chicken wings doused in barbecue sauce to a blue-cheese burger seasoned with Cajun spices. Guests can feast atop stools at the indoor bar or dine on the massive deck as wafts of fresh air billow in from the Maumee River. Because of its riverside locale, Clamdiggers of Toledo accommodates visitors with docking for more than 30 boats or catfish-drawn chariots, and more traditional travelers can sidle into parking-lot spaces. Once they've arrived, guests can settle in until 2:30 a.m. seven days a week. Every Thursday–Saturday, guests groove to tunes spun by Jim Lieber and Sounds of Music.