RESTAURANT NEWS | FORT LAUDERDALE
Naia Restaurant: Mediterranean Cooking and a Sushi Bar on Las Olas
The group behind YOLO and Boatyard in Fort Lauderdale pairs mezze dips and live-fire skewers with a full sushi bar, a 24-foot water table, and room for 225.
NAIA | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Eric Barton | Photos by Ruben Cabrera
5:38 a.m. ET, Oct. 13, 2026
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.
Naia takes its name from a word meaning “flow of water,” and the theme is not subtle. Outside, the name glows in firelight against a cascading waterfall wall. Inside, a 24-foot water table seats 20, and a suspended light sculpture inspired by fire and water hangs over the dining room. The menu stays on drier ground: coastal Mediterranean cooking built on fresh seafood, vegetables, citrus, and herbs, with Asian technique running through it.
It's the latest from The Restaurant People, the Fort Lauderdale group behind YOLO, Boatyard, and S3. Co-founder and CEO Tim Petrillo says it's built for the city Fort Lauderdale has become. “Fort Lauderdale has gone from a bedroom community to a thriving city,” he said in the announcement. Naia opens October 22 on Las Olas Boulevard, in a building rebuilt from the ground up at the corner of Southeast Ninth Avenue.
Dinner starts with house-baked bread and sourdough pita, stamped with the restaurant's logo, and dips for the table: hummus, muhammara, spicy feta mousse, and herbed labneh. Then the menu turns to the live-fire robata grill for skewers of harissa chicken, wagyu lavash, and Scottish salmon, alongside wagyu dumplings, sticky Korean-glazed octopus, butternut squash carpaccio with yuzu aioli and scallion ash, and steak tartare over crispy sofrito rice.
The sushi program is built on fish sourced from Tokyo's Toyosu Market, and the Mediterranean thread runs through the rolls. The Athens maki pairs Ora King salmon with whipped feta and crispy phyllo, while the Kataifi wraps tuna, dukkah, and melon in shredded pastry. Entrées run from salmon meunière with beluga lentils and lobster in panang curry to grilled branzino, a filet with buttered lobster, and kakuni pork fried rice. Dessert closes with baklava, tiramisu, and the Dubai Soft Serve, pistachio soft serve under kataifi, candied nuts, and Valrhona chocolate.
Chef Miguel Casanova leads the kitchen, bringing nearly three decades of experience across Caribbean, American, and European kitchens. The sushi side belongs to Ped Phommavong, the group's corporate sushi chef, who trained in Thailand, won Iron Chef Thailand eight times, and most recently ran the kitchen at Okane in San Francisco. He's been in Fort Lauderdale since, cooking at S3.
The space is designed by Tristan du Plessis, his fourth collaboration with the group, and it seats 225 across 5,700 square feet of natural limestone and warm woods. An open kitchen and the robata grill keep the cooking in view, and a 600-square-foot private dining room handles events. The focal point is a hand-chipped Shou Sugi Ban portrait by artist Justin Nomad, made with the Japanese technique of charring timber, its gaze set over the tables.
The cocktail program uses clarification, fat washing, and cold infusions, with house-made syrups that include shiso green tea, saffron honey, and fig-cardamom, alongside premium wines. Naia is the latest from a group that's opened, managed, or operated more than 85 concepts across South Florida since 1997, and it lands as Las Olas trades its spring-break past for dining rooms built to last. Reservations are open on the restaurant's website.
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