This year saw the opening of many significant event and meeting venues in Orlando/Central Florida. Here's a look at the best restaurants, party rooms, hotels, corporate event venues, conference centers, and private rooms to open in 2016. These new and renovated Orlando/Central Florida venues suit groups large or small for private and corporate events, business dinners, cocktail parties, conferences, weddings, and more.
The latest restaurant from two-time James Beard Foundation award-winner Art Smith (a former chef to Oprah Winfrey) opened in July at Disney Springs. Chef Art Smith’s Homecoming Florida Kitchen has a casual Southern vibe and a menu to match, with items such as shrimp and grits, fried catfish, and Smith’s signature “fabulous fried chicken” and hummingbird cake. The 6,000-square-foot restaurant can seat as many as 175 people and has a standing capacity of 300. Two semiprivate areas each can accommodate 45 people seated or 70 standing. In the Shine bar, where guests can sip on Florida-made spirits flavored with house-made mixers and locally-grown herbs, there are 20 seats inside and eight outside. The restaurant has a wraparound porch that overlooks the water at Disney Springs. It’s open for lunch and dinner daily.
Loews Sapphire Falls Resort, Universal Orlando's fifth hotel, opened in July. The Caribbean-inspired property has 114,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 41,000-square-foot ballroom that can seat 3,384 at tables of 12 or host 4,071 standing. There’s also a 30,000-square-foot hall that can accommodate 3,120 for a reception or seat 2,400 at tables of 12. The hotel has 16 additional meeting rooms, three offices for planners, and a dedicated registration desk and meeting entrance. For outdoor events, the 16,000-square-foot Cayman Court has both a pavilion with a small stage and a circular lawn. Sapphire Falls Resort is connected via covered walkway to the Loews Royal Pacific Resort, creating the Loews Meeting Complex with more than 247,000 square feet of flexible space. Sapphire Falls has 1,000 guest rooms, including 83 suites, as well as a pool, fitness center, water taxis, and a landscaped path to the Universal Orlando theme parks and CityWalk.
Mango’s Tropical Café is a new restaurant and nightlife destination that opened at the very end of 2015, with a grand opening event in January. The 55,000-square-foot, two-story venue is an expansion of the brand that originated in South Beach, serving Latin-inspired food and drinks. It’s available for buyout for 2,000 people. There is also seating for 600 people for dinner, with about 250 seats on the first floor and 350 upstairs. There are also several smaller areas that can be used for private events, including the Havana Lounge that seats 80 and the Vodou Roomthat seats 100 people. An elaborate show with dancers in colorful costumes and pulsating music takes place nightly at 7:30 p.m. on a large stage on the main floor. Mango’s serves dinner and late night fare daily.
The 400-room Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort Bonnet Creek completed a $5 million renovation project in August that added two new ballrooms. The new 3,500-square-foot Bonnet Creek Ballroom is located on the main lobby level and can seat 250 people or hold 330 for a reception. It is equipped with a special lighting system that can bathe the room in any hue. The ballroom also opens to a 923-square-foot terrace that overlooks the resort’s pool and 10-acre lake. The ground-floor Expedition meeting room is 2,155 square feet and can seat 160 people or hold 210 for a reception. The resort now has a total of 32,000 square feet of meeting and function space.
1921 by Norman Van Aken is the newest venture from the James Beard Award-winning chef of the same name. Located in Mount Dora, about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, the restaurant is in a converted home built in 1921. The menu is focused on “modern Florida cuisine” made with local ingredients, such as spiny lobster and rock shrimp dumplings, butternut squash and maitake mushroom flatbread, and “Korea Town” fried chicken with cola collards and mac ‘n cheese. The restaurant seats 130 in the main dining room, 30 at the bar, and eight in a private dining room. The restaurant is filled with works from artists such as Dale Chihuly, Wendell Castle, and George Nakashima through a partnership with the Modernism Museum, which is located across the street. It’s open for Sunday brunch and lunch and dinner daily except Monday.
DoveCote is French-style brasserie that opened in July in the Bank of America building in downtown Orlando. The restaurant is led by executive chef Clayton Miller, formerly of French Laundry, and Gene Zimmerman, owner of the Courtesy cocktail lounge. The 5,000-square-foot space has seating for 184 people inside the restaurant. When combined with the adjacent Great Hall lobby space, the restaurant can accommodate 300 people seated and 500 standing. There’s also a patio that can hold as many as 150 people seated or 200 standing. The interior has exposed brick, high ceilings, and a large mural in shades of blue with gold leaf surrounding large windows. The restaurant serves lunch during the week and dinner every night except Sunday when it is only open for brunch.
In January, Hilton Orlando opened nearly 9,000 square feet of new meeting space. The Key West and Key Largo meeting rooms have been constructed adjacent to the hotel’s existing Florida Ballroom and steps from the 50,000-square-foot outdoor event space known as the Promenade. The Key West room seats 250 people at round tables, and the Key Largo room seats 210 people. The spaces can also be divided to create a total of eight smaller rooms. The construction also added new prefunction space, a registration desk, and an office for planners. The hotel, which is connected to the Orange County Convention Center via a covered walkway, now has 236,000 square feet of meeting space and 1,417 guestrooms and suites.
STK steak house opened at Disney Springs in May. High-energy music from an in-house DJ fills the 14,000-square-feet restaurant, which is one of the largest locations for the brand that is operated by the New York-based the One Group. The venue has two levels of seating that both have indoor and outdoor options and a total capacity of 471. The main floor seats 260 people in the main dining area, lounge, and patio. There’s also a circular private dining room that seats 12 people. Upstairs there is seating for 62 people inside and 82 people on a covered balcony that has a fire pit. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner daily, and the menu includes items such as jumbo lump crab salad, seared tuna with pickled mango, chili-rubbed rack of lamb, and a variety of steaks served with STK’s signature sauces.
Earls Kitchen & Bar opened its first Florida location at the Mall at Millenia in August. The Canadian-based company is an “upscale casual” concept serving a globally focused menu, with items such as sushi, bibimbap, barbecue ribs, and chimichurri skirt steak. The 9,200-square-foot restaurant seats 260 people. A semiprivate area located in the back of the restaurant has its own bar and can accommodate as many as 40 seated and 60 standing. There is also a covered patio that seats 40. The restaurant has floor-to-ceiling windows and works from local artists throughout the modern space. It is open daily for lunch and dinner and serves brunch on weekends.
Six-time James Beard Award-winning chef Rick Bayless has brought his famous Mexican flare to Disney Springs. Frontera Cocina opened in June. The 6,000-square-foot restaurant has a modern, minimalist design with bright splashes of color, high ceilings, and walls of windows. There is seating for 200 people, including 40 on a patio and 23 at the bar. The restaurant’s open kitchen is open for lunch and dinner daily and serves items such as Oaxacan red chile chicken, shrimp enchiladas suizas, and freshly made salsas and guacamole.
