Dining in Davie
Fast-food joints and the popular diner Flashback Diner line Downtown Davie’s Western-themed main street, Davie Road. Restaurants and markets are located in strip malls and shopping centers, which means little outdoor ambience, but great parking. Old-school favorites include the Vienna Cafe and Wine Bar in its 17th year, hosting regular wine events and spirits tastings, and Vinnie’s Lobster Bar, a trattoria serving up lots of Maine lobster and Italian-American classics. Fresh new faces are lighting up the food scene, too. On busy University Drive, JW Pastry’s Jonathan Grotsky bakes European pastries, croissants, mousse cakes and rustic breads, and serves Miami-based artisan roasters Panther Coffee. JW shares space with the Good Pie Company, makers of sweet and savory treats. Nearby, B.C. Taco, a popular food truck, chose Davie for their B.C. Cafe, serving tacos and craft beers. “We looked at Davie as an up-and-coming area,” says owner Brett Chiavari. “We have a lot of families, a lot of new families with younger kids, a lot of young couples, big groups of friends. There’s so much great food out here it’s nice to be a part of it. We are very happy that we got to be here at the beginning.”
Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s are recent arrivals to Davie. Hiding in plain sight are Asian hole-in-the-wall restaurants and markets worthy of a trek by Miami-Dade residents hungry for ethnic provisions. The Foodtown shopping plaza at Davie Road and Stirling is one of those gems. Pungent with fishy odors, the supermarket is a global bazaar where you can find live frogs, eels, crabs; halal meats; roast duck hanging in the cafe; Asian produce; and aisles of ethnic specialty foods. In the same center are three Vietnamese restaurants: Pho 79, 545º Banh Mi and Brandon Asian Cuisine, an outpost of Sunrise’s Pho Brandon. Another fun surprise is the Paris Morning Bakery on University Drive. They sell French macarons and pastries, but go for the Korean foods – kimchi baguettes, white bean paste hamster pastries, bubble teas and bing-soo, huge shaved ice desserts.
