Dining By The Water

Two restaurants are located on the ocean in Wrightsville Beach.

Near the northern end of Wrightsville Beach is the Oceans, located on the second level of Holiday Inn Resorts on North Lumina Avenue. The facility is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the year.

The restaurant overlooks a swimming pool and sun deck and has a sweeping view of the Atlantic Ocean as well.

An excellent choice for lunch is the Atlantic Coast cobb salad, made with Carolina shrimp, smoked turkey breast, bacon, avocado, bleu cheese and tomatoes over mixed greens, served with a choice of dressings. Delicious wraps, grilled tuna, flounder or crab cake sandwiches, and angus beef, or portabella mushroom burgers are other good options.

The extensive dinner menu has Calabash seafood platters, ribeye and strip steaks, beef tenderloin, Carolina trout, orange scented beef stir-fry and numerous other choices. Kid’s meals are available too at the family-friendly restaurant and resort. Verandah Café has a full bar with all ABC permits.

The Oceanic Restaurant is on South Lumina Avenue with three floors of indoor seating as well as outdoor seating on a long pier, weather permitting, all overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The restaurant was renovated in early 2011 and now is open for lunch and dinner daily, with Sunday brunch served as well.

A chilled shellfish sampler, with shrimp, mussels, oysters and blue crab claws served with cocktail sauce is a wonderful way to start a meal as is she crab soup of calamari served crispy fried. Three delicious chicken salads, fried fish and seafood baskets, and several types of sandwiches are luncheon choices.

In the evening, choose from numerous seafood platters, available fried or broiled. King crab legs, wood grilled mahi, coconut chicken, ribeye steaks and filet mignon are but other entree selections. Oceanic has a full bar with all ABC permits.

A wonderful spot for people watching is South Beach Grill South Beach Grill, located on Lumina Avenue overlooking Banks Channel at the center of Wrightsville Beach. Indoor and outdoor seating is available and the restaurant has a full bar, a good wine selection and several craft beers.

Consistently tasty food is served, with everything from delicious sandwiches and wraps to very fresh salads to seafood entrees of all types offered. If you love spinach, have the Makers Mark salad with fresh spinach, crumbled gorgonzola, granny smith apples, spiced pecans and mandarin oranges tossed with a bourbon and honey dressing.

For dinner, Grouper Linda, fresh local grouper with a spiced pecan crust, and pan seared with a backfin crabmeat, spring onion, cream sherry beurre blanc sauce, has been a restaurant specialty for 14 years.  Steaks, chicken, pork and pasta dishes are available also and if you can’t decide, the South Beach Sampler, with grouper Linda, crab cake and filet mignon, is a good way to go. A kid’s menu for those under 12 is available and the restaurant has a full bar with all ABC permits. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner daily except in winter, when it is closed Monday.

Blue Water sits on the Intracoastal Waterway at Wrightsville Beach and overlooks a beautiful marina. The sprawling two-story restaurant, with both indoor and outdoor seating, offers casual American food.

Philly steak, shrimp salad or tuna salad wrappers are good choices for lunch as is the fried green tomato club, with roasted red peppers, lettuce and red onion with a cream cheese spread. Bluewater also has a good, fresh salad selection and all salads can be topped with fried oysters, grilled chicken, shrimp or several other choices.

The extensive dinner menu includes coconut shrimp, Calabash seafood platters, seafood lasagna, grilled mahi mahi and crab cakes are just a few of the seafood choices. Baby back ribs, coconut chicken, a 14 oz. grilled ribeye steak, and marinated flat iron steak are some of the non-seafood items. Daily specials are also a good bet. Bluewater has a full bar with all ABC permits and a good selection of beer or wines by the glass or bottle is offered too.

Several restaurants are located on the Cape Fear River in Historic Downtown Wilmington. Ruth’s Chris Steak House, located on the second floor of the Hilton Wilmington Riverside, is renowned for the wonderful USDA Prime steaks of all types it serves, including filet, strip, ribeye and t-bone, and a porterhouse for two. Chops are available in lamb, pork or veal varieties and seafood, including a huge three-pound live Maine lobster, is available also. There is a wide array of side dishes to accompany your meal, including nine vegetables dishes, potatoes prepared eight ways, and seven salads.

In case that’s not enough, you’ll also find a vast assortment of appetizers, an extensive, award-winning wine list, numerous craft beers, a full bar and delicious desserts. Order the caramelized banana cream pie made with white chocolate banana custard for a wonderful taste treat.

The inviting lounge opens at 4:00 p.m. daily with dinner beginning at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday and at 5:00 p.m. all other days. There is a separate lounge menu  and special offers on cocktails, wine or the bar menu are available on several days each week. Ruth’s Chris Steak House also has a private room with a beautiful view of the swimming pool that is available for special gatherings. The wall of windows in the main dining room looks out over the Cape Fear River and Battleship North Carolina.

The George on the Riverwalk is wonderfully situated with a very large deck overlooking the Cape Fear River. The only riverfront restaurant in Downtown Wilmington offering dock and dine, boaters can pull right up to the dock and moor free of charge while dining.

At The George patrons can sample Southern coastal cuisine for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. Specials are prepared daily and the menu is extensive, offering a large assortment of appetizers as well as soups, salads, sandwiches, vegetarian dishes, seafood entrees, kids meals, steaks and pasta dishes. Delicious Black Angus burgers are a popular choice at lunch; they are offered with bacon or swiss, cheddar or provolone cheese. Another version is served blackened with blue cheese crumbles, and all the sandwiches are served with a choice of sharp white cheddar grits, homemade cole slaw, sauteed vegetables, malt vinegar fries or pasta salad. A full bar that includes a large selection of martinis and a large and thoughtful variety of wines are offered too.

Elijah’s is an American seafood grill and oyster bar that has been a mainstay in Historic Downtown Wilmington since 1984. It is located on Chandler’s Wharf in a building that was originally a maritime museum. Several of the paintings, ships models and nautical artifacts remain on display in the restaurant today. Elijah’s has a large deck overlooking the Cape Fear River and Riverwalk, which is a wonderful spot for people watching while enjoying lunch, drinks or dinner.

The menu at Elijah’s is extensive enough to please any diner. Of course the primary concentration is on seafood of all types, with oysters available on the half shell, steamed, fried, and Rockefeller. A Carolina bucket is comprised of steamed clams, mussels, shrimp, crab legs, sausage, new potatoes and corn on the cob. Other popular seafood items are seafood platters available either grilled or fried and shrimp stuffed with crabmeat.

Landlubbers will find plenty of choices too, with New York strip steaks, vegetable linguine, sesame chicken, stuffed pork chop and filet mignon available daily with prime rib added on Friday and Saturday nights. Among numerous desserts are sorbets that change depending on what is in season, old fashioned apple pie, and a low country cheesecake that begins with bourbon pecan pie with creamy cheesecake on top, then finished with ganache. The restaurant is open seven days a week year round. It has a full bar with all ABC permits.

The Pilot House opened in 1978 and was the first restaurant in Chandler’s Wharf, which had just been restored. Only salads and sandwiches, dispensed from a service window to customers who sat in an outdoor dining area, were served since an on-site kitchen was not added until 1988.

The restaurant specializes in Southern regional cuisine and all dishes are made from scratch with fresh ingredients and fish and fowl that is native to the area. Everything from “down home cooking” to Cajun to traditional southern fare with a contemporary flair is offered.Two examples illustrate the diversity of menu choices at lunch. A fried green tomato sandwich with goat cheese, roasted red pepper and mixed greens on sourdough bread is one while another is chicken breast sautéed in olive oil, Marsala wine and garlic, with mushrooms, shallots and sage served over linguine. Crunchy pan fried catfish served with collard greens, grits and red-eye gravy represents a traditional southern choice.

Both the chicken breast and catfish are on the dinner menu as well, as are a tremendous choice of other dishes. Everything from a 9-oz. filet mignon to fried seafood platters to crabcakes served with vegetables, rice pilaf and beurre blanc, to Louisiana hot and spicy shrimp  are just some of the items offered.

The restaurant has a full bar menu with all ABC permits and is open for lunch, drinks and dinner seven days throughout the year. The restaurant and deck is available for weddings and other special events. With several private rooms and deck spaces, events from 30 to 300 can be accommodated easily and with style.

Riverboat Landing has been a dining destination in Wilmington for more than 25 years. The restaurant is housed in an elegant building dating back to 1856, and has nine private balconies suitable for dining for two people on the second floor overlooking the Cape Fear River and bustling Riverwalk. There also is a main dining room on the first floor as well as an al fresco dining room on the second floor. The restaurant features Southern regional cuisine with French, Mediterranean, and Asian influences.

Open daily for lunch and dinner, a kid’s menu is always available. For lunch, try the delicious low country BLT comprised of apple wood bacon, lettuce and fried green tomato with remoulade sauce on toasted hearty white bread or a charbroiled burger served on a wheat Kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and a dressing made in house. Dinner choices include seared beef tenderloin, sautéed fingerling potatoes, cremini mushrooms, asparagus, grilled fennel and charred tomato-chili hollandaise or lobster risotto with English peas, crème fraiche, parmesan, lobster fumet and cremini mushrooms.

Prices are moderate and the restaurant has a full bar with all ABC permits and an extensive, well-chosen wine list. Riverboat Landing also has a private room that is available for 30 or more for special occasions.

Topsail Island has a restaurant on the ocean in Surf City. Daddy Mac’s Beach Grille, located on N. Shore Drive, has an oceanfront dining deck and large windows that offer a panoramic view of the Atlantic. New owners reopened the restaurant in February 2009 and both food and service have improved dramatically. In addition to daily seafood specials, pasta, steaks and crab cakes are on the menu. And if you love fork-tender baby back ribs, this is the place to have them. The restaurant has a menu for kids and elevator access too. Daddy Mac’s is open for dinner only, but is available for luncheon events for larger groups.