The Opening
Omni Hotels & Resorts has opened Barchetta, a coastal Italian chophouse at its Fort Lauderdale property, adding a seventh food-and-beverage outlet to the Broward County-owned hotel and bringing approximately 52 jobs to the local market. Situated on the waterfront plaza at 1880 SE 17th St. — adjacent to the Broward County Convention Center — the restaurant positions itself to capture both convention traffic and the broader South Florida dining market less than ten months after the hotel's December 2025 debut.
Menu and Program
Executive Chef David Caceres leads the kitchen with a menu anchored in imported Italian ingredients filtered through a South Florida lens. Signature dishes include Bistecca Fiorentina, a prime T-bone portioned for two; Frutti di Mare, built around Florida black grouper and Kaluga caviar; and a handmade Bucatini Cacio e Pepe finished with black truffle. The format — premium proteins, house-made pasta, and high-cost ingredients such as caviar and truffle — reflects a full-service Italian chophouse price positioning common to major convention-hotel dining programs, where average check sizes typically run above the broader casual-dining segment. "This is the kind of food I love — great ingredients, bold flavors and dishes with a lot of character," Caceres said. "We've created a menu that celebrates all of those things, and I'm incredibly proud of what our team is bringing to the Fort Lauderdale culinary scene."
The cocktail program leans into aperitivo culture while sourcing locally. The Pomodoro Negroni uses tomato-basil-washed gin with Campari and sweet vermouth; the Day Drift pairs Prosecco with lemon juice, St-Germain, and J.F. Haden's Lychee Liqueur — produced by Miami-based Tropical Distillery, owned by Florida natives and former NFL players Mike and Maurkice Pouncey. The Pouncey-linked liqueur also appears across other bars at the Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel, signaling a broader local-sourcing strategy for the property's beverage program. The list extends to Italian wines, spritzes, and classic pours.
What It Means for Operators
For hotel food-and-beverage operators and restaurant groups tracking convention-market development, the Barchetta opening illustrates the ongoing push by full-service hotel brands to build destination-dining ecosystems rather than rely on a single signature restaurant. Omni Fort Lauderdale's portfolio — now spanning Reef 76 Kitchen + Bar, Fair Ketch, Ibis Sky Lounge, Hidden Key, Tide Coastal Kitchen, Leeward Market, and Barchetta — mirrors a strategy employed by large convention properties in Las Vegas, Nashville, and Austin, where multiple distinct concepts share infrastructure costs while broadening per-guest revenue capture. Broward County's hospitality and tourism district has attracted significant investment since the convention center's expansion, and the hotel's multi-outlet buildout underscores operator confidence in sustained group-travel demand for the market. Relevant trends shaping similar openings — including the growth of Italian-American fine-casual concepts and elevated chophouse formats — are tracked in ongoing restaurant industry coverage and beverage program analysis on this network.
Barchetta operates Tuesday through Sunday; dinner runs 5 to 11 p.m., extended to midnight on Friday and Saturday, with the kitchen closing at 10 p.m. nightly. Reservations are available via OpenTable. General Manager Gayla Guyse framed the opening as part of a longer-term community-integration goal. "Barchetta is an important part of that vision," she said. "It gives our local community, convention attendees and visitors a new reason to experience the waterfront and reflects the continued momentum we're seeing across Broward County."
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
