BellyUp! to Tampa’s Best Bars

South MacDill restaurant, bar and arcade from a Tampa hospitality group. Publishes Bucs and Gators schedules, NFL and college football all season, and Premier League on weekends. Says it has 80 TVs.

Virginia Park · $$ · new american, cocktails

District South sits on South Dale Mabry and tells its own origin plainly: a group of friends could not find a place in South Tampa that put quality cooking, handcrafted cocktails and a warm room together, so they built one. The room splits between cosy dining space and an outdoor patio, with a bar that the restaurant describes as the lively end of it. It publishes separate lunch, dinner, brunch, happy hour, dessert and late night menus, which is a lot of service windows for a neighbourhood restaurant.

SoHo · new american

Elevage is the restaurant inside the Epicurean Hotel on South Howard, directly across the street from Bern's Steak House, whose group helped create the hotel with Mainsail Lodging. It serves from 7 in the morning, running brunch into mid-afternoon, then a lite bites window, then dinner to 10. Valet is free before 7 PM and 10 dollars after. It was in the 2025 Florida MICHELIN Guide as Recommended and is not in the 2026 selection, so it carries no Michelin designation now.

Seminole Heights · american, seafood, pizza

Front Porch Grille has been on North Florida Avenue since 2002, which makes it one of the longest-running independent restaurants in Seminole Heights. It works out of a converted two-storey bungalow, the kind of house the neighbourhood is built from, with Bart's Tavern as the bar side of the same operation. Weekend service starts at 8am, so it is a breakfast room as well as a dinner one, and the kitchen keeps its own daily specials and happy hour separate from the main menu.

Ybor City · american, cuban, sandwiches

Gaspar's Grotto sits on Seventh Avenue in the middle of Ybor City and builds its whole identity on Jose Gaspar, the legendary Gulf pirate Tampa throws Gasparilla for every January. Its own site says the bar pays homage to the legendary local pirate Jose Gaspar and celebrates Tampa's immigrant past. There is an indoor bar and dining room plus two outdoor patios with live entertainment weekly, and Sunday brunch has become the thing it is known for. The bar also runs a pig roast, a VIP bottle lounge, weddings and its own Ybor Gift Company merchandise shop.

SoHo · new american, cocktails

Howard & Platt is the polished early-evening choice at Howard and Platt. The full bar, covered patio, dinner menu, and weekend brunch make it better for a seated first round than a 3am finish. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Friday from 4 to 6pm in the bar area.

Ballast Point & Interbay · seafood, american

Hula Bay sits on the water at the end of Tyson Avenue in the Westshore Marina District, and its own site bills it as Tampa's premier waterfront restaurant with Hawaiian leanings. The complex runs a waterfront bar alongside the dining room and a second bar, Duke's Retired Surfers Bar, which shares its reservation system. It posts live music and a brunch service.

University Area · jamaican, caribbean

The Fowler Avenue room with the bright teal roof is the flagship of four Jerk Hut locations, all of them in Tampa, and it is the only one that is a full restaurant rather than a carryout window. It runs a Jamaican lunch buffet Monday through Friday and a Sunday brunch buffet with live reggae, alongside a full liquor bar and a separate carryout counter. On Friday nights the patio turns into a market of Tampa Bay vendors with live cooking stations that runs to midnight, and the ladies' night behind it goes to 3am. The Tampa Bay Times included Jerk Hut in its list of Tampa Bay's 25 most iconic restaurants, a list that required at least a decade in business to qualify.

Downtown · mediterranean

Predalina is a waterfront Mediterranean restaurant and lounge on East Cumberland Avenue in the Water Street district, a concept by Oxford Commons. It runs dinner, dessert, weekend brunch and a full cocktail and spirit-free drinks list, and it is one of the few MICHELIN-listed rooms in Tampa that stays open past midnight, to 1am on Friday and Saturday. It has been MICHELIN Recommended in both the 2025 and 2026 Florida selections.

Tampa Heights · $ · american, bar food

Shuffle is a bar on North Tampa Street in Tampa Heights built around shuffleboard courts, with a full kitchen, six rotating taps and an outdoor stage that carries live music at least weekly. Brunch is a fixture, and the menu is straightforward bar food rather than anything precious. Creative Loafing lists it as a place families can actually use, because the backyard gives children somewhere to be while the adults eat.

Seminole Heights · cuban

Soul de Cuba opened on North Florida Avenue in Seminole Heights and cooks from what it calls authentic family recipes, built around the Cuban sandwich, slow-roasted lechon and Sunday brunch. The kitchen puts on themed evenings rather than just service, including a Taste of Havana plate of ropa vieja, lechon asado, arroz moro, beef empanada and platanos maduros, and an Evening in Havana night of Cuban food, music and stories. There is a bar, a patio and catering for celebrations and corporate events.

Downtown

A pirate-themed sports bar and burger spot on N Ashley Dr, across the street from the University of Tampa. Its own pages list UFC nights, Lightning and Bucs game deals, weekday happy hour and live music on Fridays.

Downtown · seafood, new american

The Pearl is a restaurant, tavern and oyster bar in the Water Street district, serving made-from-scratch entrees, shareable plates and seasonal oysters with a long cocktail and beer list. It runs lunch on weekdays, brunch at weekends and dinner seven days, with a weekday happy hour from 2pm to 5pm. Its own site records inclusion in the 2024 through 2026 MICHELIN Guide.