Openings. Closings. Chicken sandwiches.
White Castle, Portillo’s, Gordon Ramsay and Guy Fieri were among the biggest names in Orlando restaurant news this year (not to mention Michelin), but local indie foodie news was just as splashy, if not always so sweet.
2021 saw loads of openings, despite the industry’s tumultuous times, while some places shuttered for good. Staffing and supply chain issues plagued just about everyone trying to stay afloat. Largely due to an actual plague in progress.
Reduced hours. Temporary closings in the wake of positive COVID tests. Market price chicken wings.
Man, what a year.
White Castle “Cravers” lined up for literal hours to sample the sliders they remembered from two places: back home and back when.
Longtime fans were delighted and new fans born while others wondered what all the hype was about. Meanwhile, right next door, another regional legend — Portillo’s — began slinging its first Chi dogs (Italian beef, too) inside the Orlando metro. They’ve got more local competition than their burger-slinging neighbors, as there are a host of Chicagoan-run joints around town putting together hot dogs with all the sanctioned toppings - but there’s likely room for everyone amid the 407’s sprawl.
Folks clamored to check out Gordon Ramsay’s new fish-andchips outpost on I-Drive.
Thus far, reviews are mixed (yes on fish, meh on chips seemed the overall tone out in Webland). Those interested in a more local approach might peek in at the Best of British Cafe & Pub’s newest offering, The Chippy, located just next door, or hit up a number of others — such as The Friar Tuck, St. Andrew’s Tavern, Harp & Celt or the Clermont Fish House — to find a favorite.
Re-proving the idea that restaurant openings are the new Lollapalooza, folks also queued up for the opening of Guy Fieri’s new Chicken Guy! outpost in Winter Park to sample the spiky
Turn to Thompson,
haired celeb’s brined, pressure-fried chicken tenders and 20+ sauce offerings. Chicken Guy! fell somewhere in the middle of the city’s ever-growing roster of chicken joints, which this year included bb.q Chicken, Itsa Chicken and JAM Hot Chicken, but there are good sammiches to be found well outside what’s recently been dubbed Orlando’s “Chicken Strip,” including more than a few in this round up.
Can the city’s sandwich lovers support this flock (soon to include Colbie’s Southern Kissed Chicken, Chick’nCone and Jollibee)? It remains to be seen, but the pandemic managed to hatch more than chicken here in town. Other notable openings: Space 220 at Epcot in Walt Disney World, brick-and-mortar ventures for Brad’s Underground Pizza (which caused quite the social-media stir with its Chicago-style deepdish pies) and Jeff ’s Bagel Run (selling out the bins on the daily in Ocoee) and a food-hall explosion with the Marketplace at Avalon Park and the Hall on the Yard — and to a similar degree, if not precisely food hall, Milkhouse, where a host or Orlando heavyweights joined forces.
Good Salt Restaurant Group opened the well-appointed Monroe this year,
as well, offering the denizens of Creative Village — and those still trekking to downtown offices (not to mention fans from surrounding neighborhoods) to sample the stylings of chef Josh Oakley and his team in some seriously well-appointed digs.
Second locations were a thing this year, too.
Winter Garden saw the opening of a second Hunger Street Tacos, this one featuring the meaty al pastor vibes of the trompo while the Curry Ford West neighborhood grabbed up some additional taco cred with Black Rooster Taqueria’s No. 2 outpost. Meanwhile Swine & Sons brought its brand of southern fare (including
hot chicken sandwiches!) to Sanford with a space inside Tuffy’s Bottle Shop. And longtime local favorite Shin Jung Korean Restaurant reopened this year following a rebuild after closing in 2019 following a fire. Notable closings included downtown pub Finnhenry’s, sister venue to stillopen Ollie’s Public House and Vanbarry’s, Lombardi’s Cafe at the still-open (and soon to expand) Lombardi’s Seafood and the Winter Park outpost of Bubbalou’s Bodacious Barbecue, along with the venerable Palma Maria Restaurant, which served Casselberry since opening in 1981. The restaurant shuttered following the unexpected death of its co-owner and host, Peter Rosinola.
Rosinola was not the only devastating loss for our restaurant community
this year, which said goodbye to Chuck Cobb, 34, the towering presence and potent pitmaster behind what’s now known as Red Eye’s Git-N-Messy Smokehouse & Tavern (locations in Winter Springs and at Henry’s Depot in Sanford) and chef Chico Mendonça, 57, whose brilliant and ebullient culinary legacy endures at Bem Bom on Corrine in Orlando’s Audubon Park neighborhood.
Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @ amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @ orlando.foodie or email me at amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, and your question could be answered in my weekly Ask Amy Drew column. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun. things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.