Visitors to Fort Pierce who want to eat where the locals eat will love the Harbor Cove Restaurant. The atmosphere is casual and comfortable, with plenty of buoys and fishing gear on the walls and patio-style tables and chairs on covered porches and decks overlooking a marina on the Indian River. The menu features seafood with a southern Italian accent. Appetizers include mussels with garlic broth, fried calamari and artichoke hearts with crabmeat stuffing. Southern Italian flavors also dominate the list of dinner entrees with traditional dishes like linguini and clam sauce, lobster Fra Diablo, mussels in tomato sauce and shrimp scampi. Harbor Cove has a lunch menu featuring sandwiches and dinner is served from 4 to 9 p.m. On weekends, local musicians usually perform in the evening.
Mangrove Matties' décor is simple and elegant with natural wood features, but it's the huge picture windows overlooking the inlet and Fort Pierce State Park that give the dining room its salty atmosphere. The menu features tried-and-true regional seafood specialties such as coconut shrimp, Florida crab cakes and broiled salmon. A lighter lounge menu offers some creative variations of familiar dishes such as calamari with cherry peppers and Portabello mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat. Mangrove Matties also offers a champagne Sunday brunch, with a breakfast dishes such as eggs Benedict and Belgian waffles, alongside smoked fish platters, peel-and -eat shrimp and roasted beef and pork.
The motto at Archie's Seabreeze is, "No shirt, no shoes, no problem," and that sums up this local landmark on the ocean side of Hutchinson Island. Opened in 1947 as a beer shack that catered to soldiers, Archie's evolved over the years into a tourist-friendly biker bar with legendary fish sandwiches and dolphin melts. The menu features light fare such as chowder and Caesar salad topped with fresh fish, and not-so-light baskets of fried clams, shrimp and fish fingers. Portions of peel-and-eat shrimp come by the pound, and lobster from the catch-your-own tank is served boiled or baked. Archie's also serves burgers, wings and other traditional pub fare.
Located on Hutchinson Island, the Bluewater Beach Grill is colorful, casual and friendly. Geared toward Fort Pierce's surfing crowd, the restaurant has a laid-back between-tides atmosphere complete with a five-page menu of designer drinks such as a key lime martini made with Liquor 43, lime juice, cream and a graham cracker rim. The menu features local dishes dressed up with Mexican flavors. Shrimp Sticks Mexicali adds cilantro and lime butter to a traditional grilled shrimp dish, and Baja tacos blend blackened fish with lettuce and melted cheese. The Bluewater also serves more familiar seafood dinners, such as baskets of fried shrimp, oysters, fish and gator tails.
