Pastis Gives West Palm Beach's Nora District Its Anchor

A Parisian brasserie now sits at the center of a former warehouse district that already knew how to fill a day, from morning bagels to a late dinner.

By Eric Barton
6:14 a.m. ET, Nov. 5, 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.

The Nora District in West Palm Beach runs along North Railroad Avenue, where old railway warehouses now hold restaurants, shops, and offices. It already had a morning crowd and a dinner crowd. What it didn't have, until now, was a centerpiece.

That arrived with The Nora Hotel, a 201-key hotel from BD Hotels and hotelier Sean MacPherson, which opened Oct. 19. The hotel’s ground floor holds the district's anchor: Pastis, the Parisian-style brasserie from restaurateur Stephen Starr.

Pastis takes up 13,300 square feet on the hotel's ground floor, with the brand's curved zinc bar, white subway tiles, and red banquettes. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with weekend brunch, and the menu sticks to the classics people expect from the name: onion soup gratinée, escargots, tuna carpaccio, steak frites, moules frites, duck confit, chicken paillard, and grilled branzino, plus the cheeseburger à l'américaine that has become a signature of its own.

Jack’s Bar

The original Pastis opened in New York's Meatpacking District in 1999, closed in 2014, and Starr helped bring it back in 2019. West Palm Beach is its fifth location, after New York, Miami, Washington, and Nashville, and its second in Florida. The West Palm Beach version keeps the formula intact rather than reinventing it, which is exactly what the regulars from those other cities will come looking for.

The hotel adds a lobby bar, Jack's Bar, to the district's nights, and a rooftop restaurant and lounge, Lillys, is still to come. But Pastis is the table the district will be judged by, and it gives Nora something it lacked: a place that works as well for a long lunch as for a late dinner.

A day in Nora starts early. H&H Bagels, the New York bagel shop, opens the morning trade, and Sunday Motor Co. pours coffee nearby. Celis Juice Bar & Café, a local favorite, covers juices, smoothies, and breakfast sandwiches for the same crowd.

H&H Bagels

By afternoon, the district shifts. Del Mar, the Mediterranean restaurant from Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, serves coastal cooking with a big indoor-outdoor setup. Loco Taqueria & Oyster Bar, which came south from Boston, brings tacos, oysters, and margaritas to the same stretch. Sports & Rec, from the Garret Group, adds games and entertainment to the mix, and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream closes the loop with a dessert stop.

Nora District

Pastis profiteroles

That spread is the point. Nora was not built around a single restaurant, and Pastis doesn't change that. It gives the district a famous name and a big dining space at its center, while the smaller places around it keep doing what made the street worth walking in the first place.

More is still coming. Indaco, a rustic Italian restaurant with house-made pasta and wood-fired pizza, is slated to open in the district in late 2026. Until then, the district's pitch is already complete enough to test: bagels in the morning, a brasserie at night, and plenty in between.