Omni Fort Lauderdale has opened Barchetta, a coastal Italian chophouse positioned on the Intracoastal Waterway at the hotel's waterfront plaza adjacent to the Broward County Convention Center. The addition marks the seventh dining or bar concept under the Omni Hotels & Resorts flag at the property — which itself opened less than a year ago — and adds approximately 52 jobs to the local hospitality labor market.
For operators and foodservice vendors tracking hotel F&B strategy, the move illustrates a pattern worth watching: convention-anchored hotels are treating multi-concept dining as a competitive differentiator rather than an amenity afterthought. Barchetta joins Reef 76 Kitchen + Bar, Fair Ketch, Ibis Sky Lounge, Hidden Key, Tide Coastal Kitchen, and Leeward Market — a portfolio breadth more common to destination resorts than a single urban convention hotel opened within the past twelve months.
The Menu Architecture
Executive Chef David Caceres built the menu around imported Italian ingredients layered with South Florida sourcing. Signature dishes include a Bistecca Fiorentina prime T-bone for two, a Frutti di Mare featuring Florida black grouper and Kaluga caviar, and a handmade Bucatini Cacio e Pepe finished with black truffle. The format — handmade pasta alongside premium seafood and prime cuts — reflects the Italian chophouse positioning that has gained traction in coastal markets where guests expect both bistro comfort and steakhouse occasion dining in a single visit.
The cocktail program reinforces the local-sourcing narrative in a way procurement teams and beverage directors should note. Barchetta features J.F. Haden's Lychee Liqueur from Miami-based Tropical Distillery, placing a hyper-regional craft spirit at the center of the menu rather than in a supporting role. That kind of embedded local-brand partnership — versus a standard well or call-spirit model — signals that hotel beverage programs are increasingly being used as discovery platforms for emerging regional producers. For craft spirits brands and their distribution partners, convention-hotel placements with this level of menu integration represent a meaningful visibility channel.
What This Signals for Operators
General Manager Gayla Guyse framed the opening explicitly around community embedding, noting that Barchetta is designed to serve local diners, convention attendees, and leisure visitors simultaneously — a three-audience model that requires different service cadences and menu price-point management than a single-segment restaurant. Operators running hotel F&B programs in convention markets will recognize the challenge: the same room must convert a business traveler on a per-diem at 6 p.m. and a local celebrating an anniversary at 9 p.m.
The Intracoastal waterfront positioning also speaks to a broader real estate logic in hotel F&B: destination-view concepts justify premium pricing and support organic social visibility without paid amplification. For vendors and design firms pitching convention-hotel clients, exterior-facing concepts with strong visual identity — Barchetta's warm reds, leather, and Italian-inspired artwork — are increasingly the brief. Operators considering a hotel F&B brand launch or a beverage program overhaul can benchmark Barchetta's local-spirit integration and multi-audience positioning against their own concept mix.
Barchetta is open Tuesday through Sunday, dinner from 5 to 11 p.m. (midnight on weekends), with reservations via OpenTable. For operators tracking beverage program trends and on-premise sourcing shifts, the cocktail menu's deliberate placement of a Florida-native craft liqueur alongside classic Italian aperitivo builds is worth a closer read.
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.
