Downtown Wilmington Restaurants

There are a host of restaurants located in Downtown Wilmington. We can recommend the following ones for three good reasons. First, the food is reliably good. Second, the prices are very fair. Third, we can almost guarantee that you won’t be disappointed if you dine in any of them.

One of the older restaurants downtown is Deluxe, located on Market Street between Front and Second. Deluxe opens daily for dinner at 5 p.m., with a menu extensive enough for any craving. Whether you want seafood, pasta, steaks, pork, inventive vegetarian dishes or anything else you have a craving for, you’ll find it at Deluxe. They also have a very extensive selection of fine wines as well as a full bar. Deluxe serves a wonderful Sunday brunch as well.

Circa 1922, located on Front Street just off Market, offers diners an exclusively tapas menu – small portions of exquisitely presented food morsels. You’ll find a very large selection of appetizers, pastas, vegetarian dishes and tapas items and should order a little of this, a lot of that in the true tapas spirit. Groups of diners often share large mixed platters, a good way to sample several offerings at a time. In addition to a full bar, Circa 1922 also has a very extensive wine list with many wines available by the glass.

Caprice Bistro, owned by proprietors Patricia and Thierry Moity, has been designated Wilmington’s best French restaurant for the last several years. New Yorkers who are visiting Wilmington will be right at home here; the restaurant feels like it belongs in Greenwich Village. That’s not an accident: the Moitys owned Café de Bruxelles, a highly regarded bistro in New York. Excellent food at moderate prices is offered here, and you’ll find the best mussels in Wilmington at Caprice. Caprice is open for dinner at 5:00 p.m. daily.

Front Street Brewery, located in a beautiful historic building, is the place to go not only for a terrific variety of pub food, but for handcrafted beers brewed on site. Throughout the year, different types of micro-beers are produced by brewmaster Kevin Kozak, winner of two Gold Medals, with everything from lagers to porters to stouts to ales available at different times. You can order a beer sampler or take advantage of the $1.99 mug of the day, and you can take your favorite beer home with you too. As you might expect, there is a huge assortment of sandwiches from burgers, to pulled pork or chicken barbecue to homemade meatloaf to portabella mushroom wraps. Shepherd’s pie, shrimp and grits, fried shrimp and a bratwurst plate are just a few of the entrees. Front Street also has special events several nights a week, including free movies, Wii bowling, live music, and an interactive, live dinner theater called Mulligan’s Wake. Front Street Brewery is open from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 11:30 to midnight the rest of the week.

Riverfront Dining

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. Those arriving by land 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. A full bar and numerous wine selections are offered too.

Riverboat Landing, with private balconies on the second floor overlooking the Cape Fear River and bustling Riverwalk, has a wonderful new, moderately priced menu. The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner and a kids menu is always available. Although there are lots of tasty items on the menu, the emphasis is on value. The restaurant has a full bar and an extensive wine list, with several wines available by the glass.

If you’re craving a USDA Prime steak, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, located in the Hilton Wilmington Riverside, serves only prime meats in all the best cuts of steak, including filet, strip, ribeye, t-bone, and a porterhouse, which is prepared for two. Lamb, pork or veal chops and seafood, including a huge three-pound live Maine lobster, is on the extensive menu too, as is a wide choice of side dishes, including nine vegetables dishes, potatoes prepared eight ways, and seven salads. If you are really, really hungry, you’ll also find a vast assortment of appetizers, an extensive, award winning wine list, numerous beers, a full bar and delicious desserts. The lounge opens at 3:00 p.m. daily with dinner beginning at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday and at 5:00 p.m. all other days.

Caffe Phoenix has been a mainstay in historic downtown for more than 25 years. The restaurant serves innovative cuisine with Mediterranean influences in its very attractive new location on North Front Street. The restaurant also supports the arts with a new show every six weeks. Open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, Caffe Phoenix offers Sunday brunch too. Delicious salads, focaccia pizza and panini sandwiches are among the luncheon selections. Steaks, seafood, pasta, chicken and pork tenderloin are but some of the items that you’ll find on the extensive dinner menu. A full bar and large wine list also are offered.

Fat Tony’s Italian Pub has two locations in Wilmington, one downtown on Front Street and
another on Racine Drive near UNCW and Wrightsville Beach. The huge menu offers everything you would expect and more: pizza by the slice or whole pies with the choice of a host of toppings, appetizers, salads, sandwiches, numerous pasta dishes, and calzones, among many others. What you might not expect is that Fat Tony’s offers the largest selection of draft beers in Wilmington. At last count, there were 25 beers on tap, available by the pint or pitcher. Numerous wines are offered too. Both locations are open daily from 11 to 2 a.m.; on Sunday they closed at midnight.

If just a pick-me-up is what you’re looking for, try Kilwin’s Chocolates and Ice Cream, located at 16 Market Street. Numerous varieties of chocolates and ice cream are available and a sweet treat may be just the nosh you need to complete your sightseeing, shopping or exploring trip. But if you really want to treat yourself, take home a box of their creamy, made on site fudge. It is delicious.