8 Best Restaurants in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, Florida

3030 Ocean's unpredictable menus are guided by award-winning chef Adrienne Grenier's perfectionist flair. Her interpretation of modern American seafood focuses on balancing complex flavors to enhance her fresh ingredients—without subtracting from their integrity. Although that may sound standard these days, she executes without fail. 3030 makes a colossal effort to source everything from Florida, and even South Florida, while it's in season. The menu is never static, but you can expect outstanding dishes like charred octopus, grilled black grouper, and sautéed Florida flounder in a stylish setting.

On an island that was once a bootlegger's haunt, this ramshackle seafood spot reached by launch has served the famous as well as the infamous, including the likes of Winston Churchill, FDR, JFK, and Al Capone. Cap was Captain Theodore Knight, born in 1871, who, with partner-in-crime Al Hasis, floated a derelict barge to the area in the '20s. Broward's oldest restaurant, built on the barge, is run by Hasis's descendants. Sesame-crusted mahimahi is served with soy-ginger sauce, flaky rolls are baked fresh, and tangy lime pie is a great finale. Clams and oysters are shucked to order, and the hearts of palm salad is made from local Okeechobee harvest.

The late Wayne McDonald started with a cozy one-room roadhouse in 1955 when this stretch of Dania Beach was a remote service road just west of the little airport. The still-rustic place brags that it's "still crackin'." The huge menu features garlic crabs (patrons bang crabs open with mallets on tables covered with newspapers) and peel-and-eat shrimp (either with garlic and butter or spiced and steamed). Finish off your meal with Key lime pie made from a family recipe.

You have to take the road less traveled to find Sea Level, a haven for fresh seafood. The indoor-outdoor restaurant overlooks the ocean from sea level at Marriott's Harbor Beach Resort & Spa, and its seasonal menu wows with daily specials and cocktails featuring ingredients from the chef's organic garden.

You can't go wrong at this unpretentious dive, where seafood reigns. Feast on raw or steamed clams, raw oysters, and peel-and-eat shrimp. Sides include Bimini bread, conch fritters, beer-battered onion rings, and corn on the cob. Follow the motto here, and you'll fit right in: "Eat fish, live longer, eat oysters, love longer, eat clams, last longer."

For a casual, almost funky, nautical experience near the beach, look no further than this raw bar featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. If you want to blend in, order a fish special with whale fries—thinly sliced potatoes that look like hot potato chips. (People come from near and far for these famous fries!) Those with smaller appetites can choose from salads and raw-bar favorites like steamed Ipswich clams.

In the heart of Las Olas at the Riverside Hotel, this seafood restaurant and bar keeps things simple with a small menu focused on a beautiful raw bar and ever-changing preparations of diverse catches from Florida, Hawaiian, and New England waters.