Writing this year’s Best New Restaurants feature feels more complicated than in years past. In recent months, countless conversations with chefs and restaurateurs have revealed an industry under pressure: Rents and operating costs are sky high; the summer months were exceptionally slow; and when we profiled six of the area’s oldest restaurants for our July issue, most lacked a clear plan for the next generation of stewardship.
Yet despite this undercurrent of uncertainty, there’s undeniable momentum and creative energy shaping the evolution of Southwest Florida’s culinary scene right now. This year’s Best New Restaurants represent expanding homegrown empires, raised design ambitions and chefs who aren’t afraid to chart their own course. They’re also serving delicious food—the kind that leaves you thinking about a simple salad six months later.
The future brims with more exciting developments, too. Just as we went to press, chef Vincenzo Betulia debuted an haute steakhouse on Fifth Avenue South with an impressive Wagyu program and blue-chip wine list, and the Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, opened reservations for its flagship restaurant helmed by two-time James Beard Award winner Gavin Kaysen. Other ambitious projects are in the works from the owners of Sails Restaurant, Harold’s and Bicyclette Cookshop—each promising to push the dining scene into new territory. In short, there’s never been a better time to dine along the Gulf Coast.
Amber Cove
Grouper, sea bass and short ribs are ubiquitous across Southwest Florida menus, but at Amber Cove, the familiar standards feel reinvented. Former Baleen chef Jehad Alsharabini tinkers with formal technique and creative pairings to create gastronomy at a level that’s only seen at a shortlist of the region’s top restaurants. Miso-glazed sea bass is transformed into an artful composition with salted sea foam and a delicate squid-ink tuile, while 32-hour braised short ribs arrive at the table under a cloche filled with applewood smoke, which dissipates to reveal meltingly tender meat and silky, truffle-scented pommes purée.
Owner Tim Herman purchased the North Naples restaurant (formerly KC American Bistro) in March after more than 15 years working in hospitality at The Inn on Fifth and LaPlaya Beach & Golf Resort. He meanders through the dining room each night, greeting familiar guests, pouring Old and New World wines, and patiently answering questions like “What is the secret ingredient in this incredibly buttery Gruyère polenta?”
Best of all, Amber Cove remains an under-the-radar gem. Even on a Friday night in season, prime-time reservations are often available. Take advantage now; I can’t imagine it will stay that way for long.
Blackbird Modern Asian
Though it’s right on the marina at the Naples Bay Resort, no one is clamoring for a water view at Blackbird Modern Asian. Instead, everyone is jostling for a table inside, where the immersive, sultry interiors make for one of the city’s buzziest see-and-be-seen rooms. Start the evening in the moody, crimson-lit bar with pho-spiced cocktails and sake service. Then, move through the dining room to a cozy banquette anchored by custom murals and a color-changing cherry-blossom light installation that spreads its branches overhead.
Following the lead of the Jupiter original, Blackbird offers upmarket riffs on Asian takeout favorites—comforting, familiar dishes dialed up with a little indulgence. The best of the bunch are the chargrilled octopus, miso brushed and finished with pools of ají amarillo sauce and crispy rice pearls, and the Jurgielewicz Peking duck, the result of a three-day process.
But Blackbird is, above all, an experience—you come for the atmosphere, the pulse of the room, the sense that you’ve stepped into the season’s most electric dining scene. Even the fortune cookies play along. Break one open and it might read: “Your luck is about to change, but you still won’t find parking on Fifth Avenue this season.”
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Canary Club
At this new Bonita Springs eatery, chef and co-owner Brandon Schewe flaunts his mastery of sourdough with pizza and pita. Which is to say, he understands that with sourdough, you never really crack the code. The ratios and three-day fermentation process change constantly, driven by intuition rather than recipes.
The downtown restaurant is the third venture from Brandon and his wife, Caitlin, who covered the dining room in floor-to-ceiling coral paint, adorned the walls with ornately framed mirrors and layered patterned rugs across the polished cement floors. Like their other businesses, The Bohemian and Downtown Coffee and Wine, Canary Club isn’t afraid to write its own rules. The official line is “Middle Eastern innuendo cuisine,” a combination of wood-fired pizza and mezze that resists fitting neatly into either tradition.
Order anything and everything that features their pillowy sourdough pita, including the tehina hummus doused in golden olive oil. Follow that with crisp, blistered pies featuring Brandon’s mercurial combinations like roasted mushrooms, brie, burnt onion cream and truffle. For your drink order, you’ll be drawn to the Lebanese wines and aromatic, seasonal cocktails laced with sumac, chai and fig. Gathering a group of friends to work your way through the menu is highly encouraged.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
best new restaurants 2025 canary club pizza
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
best new restaurants 2025 canary club dining
Brandon and Caitlin Schewe have been steadily redefining Downtown Bonita Springs over the past six years. At their third venture, Canary Club, three-day-fermented sourdough becomes both pizza and pillowy pita, paired with wood-fired mezze that chart their own course through Middle Eastern traditions.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
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Estia
With its first foray into Florida, the Philadelphia metro area-based group behind Estia captures the best elements of Naples dining. The interiors feel polished yet relaxed, with live olive trees, botanical light fixtures and collections of clay amphorae. Additional tables spill out onto a spacious, breezy patio. The menu is light and seafood-heavy, and the wine list features crisp, under-the-radar Greek grapes that are perfectly suited to steamy Southwest Florida evenings.
The kitchen leans into uncomplicated presentations and fresh ingredients: a stack of delicate eggplant and zucchini chips with a dollop of tzatziki or a whole fish, flown in from the Mediterranean, seasoned with just extra-virgin olive oil, lemon and briny capers.
The epitome of the ‘simple-is-better’ philosophy is the Horiatiki salad. The culinary team spent months tasting tomatoes from local farms to find the perfect specimen with a firm, meaty texture and natural sweetness. Complemented by crisp cucumbers, sharp red onion, salty olives and thick-cut slabs of feta, the dish transports you straight to the Cyclades.
Courtesy Estia
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Philadelphia-based Estia debuts in Naples with botanical interiors spilling onto breezy patios, Greek wines suited to steamy evenings and a pristine seafood menu. The philosophy is simple is better, from the vodka-honey-passion fruit Meli cocktail to whole, fire-kissed Dover sole.
Mimoto
For the third time in four years, June Dispongsa and Somi Vasitorn have nabbed a spot on our Best New Restaurants list. Like their previous entries, Ichi Togarashi and Tong Yin, Japanese seafood cafe Mimoto raises the bar for Asian food in Naples with some of the city’s best sushi.
The minimalist, 10-table dining room evokes the intimacy of a Japanese home kitchen, with floating shelves displaying sake from small family-run breweries and cult-favorite producers. But the focus is on the seafood. Little puffs of steam from the rice cooker and the occasional flare of a kitchen torch draw attention to the counter, where chefs cut rose-tinged slices of buttery hamachi and luxuriously fatty bluefin tuna. There are no heavy, mayo-based sauces to obscure it—just seasoned rice and delicate, pristinely fresh fish.
Much of the seafood is delivered daily from a vendor in Miami who sources from Tokyo’s famed Toyosu Market, but Mimoto also partners with local dayboat captains. Blue crab pops up across the menu in dishes like chawan mushi, a silken egg custard that tastes like the very essence of the Gulf.
Photography by Anna Nguyen
best new restaurants 2025 mimoto tuna
Naples restaurateurs June Dispongsa and Somi Vasitorn unveil their latest culinary endeavor with Mimoto, a must-visit for sushi and seafood. With just 10 tabletops, the thoughtfully curated space puts diners close to the action, where torches flare up behind the counter as chefs slice up buttery hamachi and bluefin tuna.
OISE Ristorante
At this new Downtown Fort Myers gem, James Beard Award semifinalist Brad Kilgore champions itameshi cuisine, a fusion of Italian and Japanese flavors. Each rooted in longstanding traditions, the two food cultures meet in their shared devotion to umami, expressed through the deep richness of truffles and Wagyu and the bright, salty punch of ponzu and Parmigiano. Here, the fusion skews rich and decadent, seen in plates like tuna nigiri with Calabrian chili and a rich, creamy truffle-sesame carbonara.
Originally a Wynwood pop-up, Oise found its way to Fort Myers thanks to restaurateur Brad Cozza, who’s also a partner at speakeasy Escondido Lounge around the corner. Here, too, he’s bolstering downtown’s nightlife. DJs spin on the weekends and the entire length of the century-old building is dedicated to the bar, anchored by a living green wall. The best seats in the house are the green velvet banquettes raised above the rest of the dining room. Order a cocktail, like a Japanese plum liqueur Negroni or an Aperol and yuzu sake spritz, and take in the scene.
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Courtesy Trinity Group PR
best new restaurants 2025 oise bartop
At Fort Myers’ Oise Ristorante, James Beard Award semifinalist Brad Kilgore explores itameshi cuisine, where Italian and Japanese flavors meet through shared devotion to umami. The artful presentation extends beyond the plate—cocktails arrive as meticulously crafted as the truffle-sesame carbonara and Wagyu nigiri.
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Courtesy Trinity Group PR
best new restaurants 2025 oise crab sushi
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Courtesy Trinity Group PR
best new restaurants 2025 oise soup
Silver King Coastal Kitchen
After cycling through nine chefs in four years, the flagship restaurant at the Luminary Hotel & Co. on Downtown Fort Myers’ riverfront has shed its formal, French-leaning veneer under chef Zach Geerson. The 35-year-old Fort Myers native, who came up under Lee County legends Harold Balink and Shannon Yates, has reimagined the menu with global small plates, including deeply fragrant Spanish octopus stew and delicate lavender-crusted yellowfin tuna with a swoosh of black garlic whipped feta.
His playfulness comes through most clearly at the chef’s counter, one of only a few such experiences in Southwest Florida. Here, the menu changes daily as Zach leans into local ingredients and plays with perspective and plating. Each course is a dialogue—about what’s fresh, what’s local, what inspires him, and about the craft that goes into each element. The exchange encapsulates the precision, intention and creative energy that drives not only Silver King, but all of this year’s Best New Restaurants.
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Photography by Anastasia Walborn
best new restaurants 2025 silver king salmon
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Photography by Anastasia Walborn
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Though Silver King Coastal Kitchen has operated within the Luminary Hotel & Co. for four years, the restaurant’s direction under Fort Myers native Zach Geerson qualifies as a full reset. His chef’s counter—a rarity in Southwest Florida—showcases global small plates on ceramics by Christine Cutting, whose shell-inspired pieces connect each dish to place.