When restaurant owners decide what kind of atmosphere they want to achieve, its vital to give deliberate thought to each sensory-focused detail that goes into a guest’s perception of their experience.
With the perfect mixture, a romantic ambiance can come to life. The key ingredients include dim, warm lighting; cozy seats or booths with tables that have adequate spacing; soft music; tasteful decor; and vigilant but tactful servers.
Here are some romantic restaurants, one in each Treasure Coast city where applicable, including some that are less-obvious choices than your tried-and-true favorite.
Dine-and-dock, oceanfront and riverfront restaurants on Treasure Coast
Restaurants on the Treasure Coast not only offer unique meals, but also serve stunning waterfront views.
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY
Blackfins Riverfront Grill at Capt. Hirams Resort, Sebastian
The riverfront restaurant was originally opened as The River Raw Bar in 1986 by Tom Collins and since has evolved into the iconic resort it is today, which the Collins family still owns. The open-air restaurant offers indoor and outdoor seating with booths and tables. It boasts a tropical, laid-back atmosphere, live music, a full-service marina and the Bimini Beach, located near the sandbar, featuring fire pits. The island-inspired menu features items including conch fritters, crab cakes, fish tacos, peel ‘n’ eat shrimp and their signature dirty oysters made with fresh-shucked oysters, caviar, sour cream, onions and hot sauce.
Trattoria Dario, Vero Beach
The upscale Italian restaurant in South Beach is run by Dario Bordoli, who grew up in Lago di Como in Northern Italy, and his family. Bordoli learned how to cook from his mother before taking his talents to Switzerland, then back to Italy, followed by Miami and Vero Beach. He previously owned Mangrove Mattie’s in Fort Pierce and the family also owns Chelsea’s Market on Cardinal Drive in Vero Beach’s Central Beach. The trattoria has red leather banquette seating, an elegant atmosphere, soft lighting, an extensive wine list, a cozy bar and an outdoor patio surrounded by palm trees. The authentic Italian menu features items including arancini, pappardelle bolognese, spaghetti carbonara, homemade gnocchi, Berkshire pork chop and cioppino.
ST. LUCIE COUNTY
The authentic Argentine-Italian restaurant known for its house-made pasta opened in The Galleria of Pierce Harbor in 2021. It is run by cousins Mastias Asenjo and Rodrigo Eboli, originally from Argentina, who previously owned House of Meat, an Argentine food truck in Los Angeles, California. The family also owns Casa Pasta Cucina, an Argentine bakery on South Beach in Miami. It has an elegant yet inviting atmosphere with an artistic interior, adorned with art gallery-like decor with indoor and outdoor seating, and offers a wine list with a diverse range of Italian and international wines curated to completement guests’ meals. The dinner menu features items including nero di seppia (black fettuccine with clams), gnocchi bandiera Italiana (Italian flag gnocchi), risotto aglio spinaci e mascarpone, stuffed pastas, Napolitana and Swiss milanesas and Italian-style salmon.
The Kyle Greene-owned restaurant in The Shoppes at the Heart of Tradition, known for its 73-foot-tall Heart in the Park sculpture, opened in 2025. It is the eighth restaurant for the local restaurateur who also owns Kyle G’s Prime Seafood & Steaks, Kyle G’s Oyster & Wine Bar, The Chicken Place Latin Rotisserie & Cocktail Bar, two locations of Oak & Ember Steakhouse, Nonna’s Italian Eatery and Stuart Fish Grill. The Italian-American steakhouse boasts of being Greene’s newest cutting-edge and most ambitious project, a congruence of culinary ingenuity, classic Italian tradition and fine dining. The Old World luxurious atmosphere is complemented with black ceilings featuring crystal chandeliers intertwined with red and green vines on lighted trellises; moss green and dark brick walls with tassel-trimmed drapes; Renaissance-style art; and a window into the pasta-making kitchen. The outdoor seating and bar, under the heart sculpture, is more relaxed yet still embodies the restaurant’s dramatic flair. The menu features items including roasted eggplant tapenade, sausage and broccoli rabe red sauce pizza, prosciutto and fig white sauce pizza, braised beef tortelloni, lobster alla vodka, bone-in veal milanese, snapper francaise and braised short rib.
MARTIN COUNTY
Margie and Michael Perrin opened the unique restaurant in a house that is over 100 years old in 1986. It was featured as one of the top three restaurants on Florida’s East Coast by the Zagat Survey, has won Florida Trend magazine’s Golden Spoon Award in 2009, 2011 and 2013, and Michael has been featured in the “Best Chefs of America” book. His cooking is inspired by Alice Waters, a California chef who was paramount in the farm-to-table movement. Whenever possible, he prepares his signature dishes with meats raised in humane ways, locally sourced organic produce and the best of both farm-raised and wild-caught seafood. The upscale romantic restaurant offers multiple distinct dining areas as well as outdoor seating. The menu features items including ceviche of Scottish Loch Duart salmon and bay scallops, pan-seared rare wahoo sushi loin, grilled New Zealand elk tenderloin and Turks & Caicos pan-fried conch.
The Chef’s Table, Stuart
Carrah Crehan opened the fine dining restaurant in 2009, converging refined cuisine, tradition, technique and thoughtful hospitality. In 2019, Crehan brought in executive chef Paolo Ferretti from Senigallia, Italy, on an O-1 visa, which is granted to people with extraordinary ability or achievement in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics who have sustained national or international acclaim. His food honors classic Italian foundations while allowing seasonality and restraint to guide each plate. The intimate restaurant has 52 seats indoors and 20 on a covered patio, allowing a measured, personal dining experience. It is elegant without pretense and offers a carefully curated wine list alongside à la carte options and thoughtfully composed tasting menus. Fixed menu items include confettura d’anatra (confit duck leg, parmigiano risotto and pecan crumble), house-made cavatelli cacio e pepe and carré di agnello (lamb chops, sweet potato, asparagus and a rosemary honey dijon glaze).
Jason Stocks and his wife, Mirka, opened the farm-to-table restaurant in 2013, first in Stuart before moving to the historic fishing village of Port Salerno. Stocks serves seasonal fare with a Southern drawl on his ever-changing menu featuring plates for sharing and entrees made with fresh Florida seafood and prime-grade beef, taking whatever is available that day, or even hour, and transforming it in an innovative dish. What they can’t use immediately is preserved, pickled, smoked and saved. The food is paired with craft cocktails, unique beers and a thoughtful wine list. Located in a former bank, it offers an industrial-elegant atmosphere that is also laid-back, featuring indoor and outdoor seating, complete with a fire pit, a large bar and an open kitchen. The menu features raw bar items, a Vietnamese noodle salad, lobster fried rice, sweet tea fried chicken, shoyu chicken, snapper classic (rosemary brussels sprouts, Palm City potato pave and a sherry caper butter sauce) and perfect ribeye (creamed spinach, truffle frites, housemade steak sauce and pecorino).
Ristorante Claretta, Palm City
Clara Russel and her children, chef Francesco and Cristina, opened the casual restaurant that offers an authentic Italian fine dining experience in 1997. They opened their first restaurant in the Piedmont region of Italy in 1993, where a renowned Florida golf course builder suggested they open one in Palm City. The dining room has a casually elegant ambiance with white walls contrasted by black trim, black leather chairs, white tablecloths, delicate pendant lights and walls decorated with large black-and-white family photos. It also offers an outdoor patio for dining. Every summer, they close the restaurant to go back to Italy to observe new influences and kitchen trends as well as to visit their favorite vintners and experience the grape harvest in the Italian regions of Tuscany, Piedmont and Umbria. They import the best ingredients from Italy, including buffalo mozzarella and ricotta cheese from Campania, meats such as speck from Trentino-Alto-Adige and prosciutto from Parma. They hand-make their pasta with imported type 00 Italian flour. Unlike traditional American restaurants, Ristorante Claretta doesn’t turn too many tables and instead offers a true Italian dining experience, where it is not uncommon for a table to spend the whole night there since dinner is the event of the evening. It offers over 200 wines that were meticulously selected to be paired with the authentic Northern Italian cuisine. Menu items include prosciutto crudo e melone, bresaola con rucola e oilio al tartufo (extremely lean cut of dried cured beef, arugula, shaved Grana Padano cheese and white truffle oil), tagliatelle alla bolognese, ravioli, gnocchetti al pesto, vatelli mare e monti, risotto of the day, costolette d’agnello “Scottadito” (thinly pounded rack of lamb) and capesante gratinate (baked wild caught natural sea scallops and shrimp).
Carl Berry and Jason Emmett opened the restaurant serving New American cuisine in 2024. It has a tranquil and intimate atmosphere featuring a beige dining room with pistachio colored booths and knotty wood tables and is decorated with greenery. The menu focuses on chef-inspired dishes made with locally sourced ingredients. The food is paired with carefully selected craft cocktails and a sommelier-curated wine list. Menu items include Parker House rolls with chives, sea salt and allspice butter; pork belly burnt ends; P&I burger with a short rib, chuck and brisket meat blend, lettuce, tomato, smoked gouda and bourbon bacon aioli; corn and mushroom gnocchi; and chicken milanese.
Eve Pierpont is TCPalm’s freelance food writer. Contact her at [email protected].
