Community Chat

[Major Shopper]

A friend is moving to St. Augustine and I would like to surprise her with a gift certificate for an upscale establishment. Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[lil spot]

Sunset Grille. It's a favorite of not only the tourists, but, the locals as well. Across A1A from the water, with different seating inside or outside on deck. Great seafood, steak or even pasta. My favorite is the steak, my families is the seafood.

http://www.sunsetgrillea1a.com (Hope this link works)

Edited to add, this is a casual dining place (as some have pointed out) but, has fun atmosphere and great food. Most of St. Augustine is casual.

What a sweet thing to do for your friends!

[Burnsite]

I just checked on Trip Advisor, and for St Augustine, the current #1 restaurant is "Collage." But it is rather pricey. Check out the Trip Advisor reviews for St A restaurants, maybe, to match your friend's tastes with the top rated places.

[Major Shopper]

Thanks lil spot and Burnsite! I appreciate the info!

[lil spot]

Burnsite also has an excellent recommendation. Collage is smaller with a romantic feel. It's also downtown in the heart of St. Augustine, so they would enjoy walking around after dinner. They do have great food and the desserts are heavenly. I would highly recommend reservations here.

[goodstuff]

Raintree is a very nice St. Augustine fine dining restaurant. We eat often at Sunset Grill and enjoy it -- but I don't consider it "upscale" or dressy. It's a casual beach restaurant with concrete floors and a noisy bar with TV's where people show up in shorts and flip-flops.

http://raintreerestaurant.com/

Another favorite stop in St. Augustine is the Tini Martini Bar, located on the porch of the Casablanca Hotel, overlooking St. Augustine's beautiful harbour-front. A wonderful place to sit and sip a generous martini while soaking in the local color and the ocean breeze! Live music most evenings.

We love St. Augustine and have vacationed there for many years. Beautiful old city!

[conlt]

I have lived in St. Augustine for 33 years, and we have many fine Restaurants. The Sunset Grill is not upscale at all. The Raintree is very nice, my family goes there every Thanksgiving, La Pavillion (not sure of spelling) is also nice, La Cocina International is great too. Also, in the Casa Monica Hotel (you can google that website) they have an upscale restaurant in there. There is a restaurant on St. George Street that just won a culinary award that only 20 in the country won. It is in the back of Pizzallys Pizza and it is called the Chianti Room. It is not so fancy but the food is good. Oh, and my favorite is Caps on the Water, although casual it is on the Intercostal and beautiful because you can eat on the deck outside. However, the food at Caps is Upscale. St. Augustine itself is kind of casual but there are many great local places here.

[conlt]

I have lived in St. Augustine for 33 years, and we have many fine Restaurants. The Sunset Grill is not upscale at all. The Raintree is very nice, my family goes there every Thanksgiving, La Pavillion (not sure of spelling) is also nice, La Cocina International is great too. Also, in the Casa Monica Hotel (you can google that website) they have an upscale restaurant in there. There is a restaurant on St. George Street that just won a culinary award that only 20 in the country won. It is in the back of Pizzallys Pizza and it is called the Chianti Room. It is not so fancy but the food is good. Oh, and my favorite is Caps on the Water, although casual it is on the Intercostal and beautiful because you can eat on the deck outside. However, the food at Caps is Upscale. St. Augustine itself is kind of casual but there are many great local places here.

[CatsyCline]

These two restaurants are casual dining: Salt Water Cowboys on A1A and also Salt Life Food Shack also on A1A.

Teeny Martini Bar is FUN. Trade Winds is right down the street, they have 60 and 70s cover bands - nothing like it! Tiny place, sometimes there is a brief wait because the place is small and you wait until people leave- the best music!! Everyone there is "Vintage" A BLAST!!! Love it.

[conlt]

The Tradewinds is a bar and it gets kind of rough in there. Locals know it as a tough type of bar. It is popular during Bike Week. Salt Water Cowboys is casual, I forgot to mention Creekside Dinery (same owners as Cowboys), again casual. Salt Life is new and very casual. The last time I was there we ate up on the top deck where you can see the ocean. Like I said, St. Augustine is mostly casual fair but there are a lot of good local places.