Hot Dish: Grown-Up Halloween Treats and Events

From candy-apple muffins to glowing cocktails, Halloween isn’t just for kids. While some may have reached a pumpkin spice saturation point, there is still plenty more on the Paradise Coast for a frightfully good time (and good eats!) at the end of October.

SUNBURST CAFE’S CREATIVE MORNING MUFFINS

You can count on muffins from this breakfast spot to be delicious no matter what the season, but the owners have extra fun around Halloween by rotating flavors like caramel-apple-frosted chocolate and pumpkin cheesecake in the days leading up to the holiday. (And fear not—the baristas who infamously wear "Friends don’t let friends go to Starbucks” T-shirts can whip up pumpkin spiced-anything on request should a craving hit.)

’S SOPHISTICATED CUPCAKES

This bakery just opened at the Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt, and we shouldn’t have expected anything less than the crème de la crème from a three-time competitor on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. Twix, a simple candy bar, gets reimagined with a perfectly balanced milk chocolate frosting and caramel cream filling plus a splash of ganache and cookie

crumbles. The pumpkin cupcake laced with melty chocolate chips? To-die-for. Even more gourmet treats, like flavored popcorn (caramel spiced apple and a fruity “Frankenstein” mix), custom-bottled retro sodas and mummy sugar cookies round out the roster of impressive confections.

MASA’S DIA DE LOS MUERTOS MENU AND ASHES TO ASHES MARGARITA

Halloween, or, ahem, the Day of the Dead, is a two-day fiesta at this modern Mexican restaurant with specials and entertainment on Friday, Oct. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 31. A DJ will spin from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. both nights, and a makeup artist will be painting sugar skulls from 3-8 p.m., but we can’t stop thinking of the scary-good food. A menu highlighting autumnal flavors can be ordered as three courses for $35 (or a la carte)—think: pomegranate guacamole and pumpkin flan with sugared pepitas—and the Ashes to Ashes margarita, spiked with spirits (blue curacao, rum and Chambord, that is) is finished with extra flourish by way of a glowing purple ice cube.

YABO’S AND BARBATELLA’S COSTUME PARTIES AND MERCATO’S WINE WALK

For wicked fun, look toward these two restaurants. In Fort Myers, Yabo, an Italian restaurant-come-music-club late at night is having its bash at 9 p.m., Friday the 30th, featuring the band Bite the Bullet. Barbatella on Naples’ Third Street South is having music and dancing from 7 p.m. till close on Halloween night. But if you can’t make either, check out Mercato’s Hallowine (get it?) Wednesday, Oct. 28, from 6-8 p.m. The $40 ticket (benefiting the Naples Gulf Shore Sunset Rotary) gets you a drink and bite from each of the 12 participating restaurants and lounges.