CITY GUIDES | FLORIDA

Melbourne’s Best Restaurants Have Their Own Orbit

Florida’s Space Coast restaurants have helped the restaurant scene take off.

By Eric Barton | Nov. 1, 2026

Cedars Café

AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.

In Melbourne, breakfast might mean fried alligator on an orange-zest waffle, and dinner might begin with crab cakes fried in bacon fat. There’s a certain consistency of purpose there. But the appetites on Florida’s Space Coast run well beyond Southern cooking: a Lebanese family kitchen puts local mushrooms over hummus, a Paris-trained baker supplies the croissants, and an Eau Gallie pizza oven borrows the contents of a Cuban sandwich. Add a remade diner and a river house with a new kitchen, and there’s plenty to arrange a day around. These are the best restaurants right now in Melbourne, Florida.

Backwater

$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

At Backwater, eight griddle tables let breakfast become a modest hands-on project, with squeeze bottles of batter for anyone inclined to draw a pancake before eating it. The kitchen’s menu gives the less industrious plenty to work with, including fried gator over an orange-zest waffle and Carolina pulled pork eggs Benedict on a grilled biscuit. At the original downtown location, local sourcing extends to shrimp and alligator.

Best for: Pancakes with the family

The Brevardian Riverfront

$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

At The Brevardian, the cornbread crab cakes get fried in bacon fat, which is a fairly persuasive way to begin dinner on the Indian River. Chef Gage Rivera’s menu follows that lead with grouper over beet risotto and a Florida cioppino of Canaveral shrimp, mussels, and seasonal fish in smoked tomato broth. The former Bonefish Willy’s became The Brevardian in 2024 after a renovation and kitchen expansion; its river-house setting and waterfront deck now come with a kitchen willing to give familiar Florida seafood a few new assignments.

Best for: Florida seafood on the river

Cedar's Cafe Melbourne Florida Best Restaurants

Cedars Café

$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Chef Toni Elkhouri carries on the Lebanese restaurant her parents, Marlene and Antoun, started in Melbourne, with a particular interest in Florida ingredients and reducing kitchen waste. Begin with locally grown mushrooms sautéed in garlic over hummus, then move to baked kibbeh or lamb skewers glazed with pomegranate molasses. The small café also makes room for artichoke and mushroom shawarma, and dinner requires a reservation, a detail to settle before showing up hungry.

Best for: Lebanese cooking with a Florida sensibility

Chez Quan’s

$$ | MAP | WEBSITE

Chez Quan’s gets a good deal of mileage out of the space between a Thai beef salad and a plate of chicken fried rice. They meet in the Sawadeezle, a house specialty whose alternate name, Sour Diesel, suggests the kitchen is enjoying itself. Add a curry-chicken empanada with potato and sweet potato or an E.G. roll filled with chicken, carrot, and cabbage, and you have the makings of a casual meal with a vocabulary all its own.

Best for: Thai flavors and a casual lunch

Crush XI

$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

The smoked duck fettuccine at Crush XI comes with tea-scented pasta, cremini mushrooms, pistachios, dried cherries, and duck cracklings, a useful indication of how this downtown restaurant approaches dinner. You can start with Medjool dates wrapped in millionaire bacon and paired with goat cheese and grilled pineapple, then work toward that pasta or a sorghum-brined pork chop with apple butter. The contemporary dining space and substantial cocktail selection make it a strong choice for a dinner date.

Best for: Cocktails and a downtown dinner date

Ember & Oak

$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Ember & Oak supplies the downtown steak dinner with a menu that can accommodate both a filet and a 50-ounce dry-aged porterhouse. Before getting there, consider oxtail poutine, with beef-fat fries, cheese curds, and red wine gravy, or cobia ceviche with aguachile and a cornbread funnel cake. The optional steakhouse board adds loaded potato, mushrooms, creamed spinach, and oxtail-stuffed bone marrow, making the question of what to order on the side considerably easier.

Best for: A steak dinner with substantial sides

FM Pizza Oven

$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

FM Pizza Oven moved from a food truck into a former bank in Melbourne’s Eau Gallie Arts District, where the wood-fired oven now handles a fairly expansive idea of pizza. The Cuban pie combines pulled pork, smoked ham, Swiss, mozzarella, pickles, and a mustard-mayo base; the Brussels sprout version gets bacon, onion, and balsamic glaze. With a cocktail bar and two dining rooms in the historic building, it’s an easy choice for a sit-down pizza dinner.

Best for: Wood-fired pizza in Eau Gallie

Hemingway’s Tavern

$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Hemingway’s Tavern borrows its appetite from Key West and Cuba, giving the author’s name a practical application at lunch. Start with mojo-pork empanadas and guava barbecue sauce, then move to Papa’s Cuban, a pressed sandwich layered with slow-roasted pork, ham, Swiss, mustard, and pickles. The relaxed, island-themed restaurant also serves panko-crusted black grouper with crab beurre blanc, making it useful for the table that wants both a straightforward sandwich and a fuller seafood dinner.

Best for: Cuban sandwiches and an island-minded meal

Jacqueline’s Bakery & Café

$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Jacqueline Dittmore enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris at 49, added bread training at Ferrandi, and eventually opened this bakery with her husband, Christophe Molitor. That background finds a daily use in the croissants, quiches, and croques, including a croque madame with béchamel, Swiss, ham or turkey, and a fried egg. Have breakfast at the café, now with two locations, then choose a pain au chocolat or an almond croissant for the sort of afternoon emergency that requires pastry.

Best for: Legit French baking

Meg O’Malley’s

$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Meg O’Malley’s takes its Irish-pub assignment seriously enough to serve bangers over colcannon with Guinness-onion gravy and corned beef brined for 21 days. Start with a Scotch egg or the potato balls, a breaded mix of mashed potato, corned beef, cheddar, and scallions, before choosing fish and chips or beef-and-Guinness pie. The busy downtown pub earns its place through the food as well as the beer, with plenty of hearty options to turn a pint into dinner.

Best for: Irish pub food and a pint

Melbourne Kitchen

$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

Tara and Chris Weaver spent more than two years remaking the former Eddie’s Sunrise Diner, giving Melbourne Kitchen a fresh start on NASA Boulevard. Breakfast can go straight to shrimp and grits with andouille sausage and jalapeño bacon, or take the chicken-and-waffles route, with burgers and sandwiches covering lunch. The family-owned restaurant keeps the appeal of a generous daytime meal while giving you something more interesting to consider than how you’d like your eggs.

Best for: A substantial breakfast or lunch