The Most New England-y Beach Town in Florida

Sponsored by New Smyrna Beach Area Visitors Bureau

It’s like I have Flagler Avenue all to myself in the early morning; just a few early-bird walkers, some seagulls, and a salty breeze are awake to greet me. As I make my way past shops and restaurants and beneath the arch where Flagler meets the Atlantic, I find a quiet stretch of sand (a sharp contrast to the flock of happy families that will set up camp here in a few hours). Kicking off my sandals, I stroll just far enough to spot the lighthouse that guards the inlet beyond the jetty to the north. Lungs full of ocean-scented oxygen, I head back down Flagler to the open-air café Luma for my morning matcha.

The outline of this morning—the beach walk, the salt air, the café stop on a quiet main street—is one I’ve replicated in all my favorite New England beach towns: Wellfleet, Provincetown, Chatham, Ogunquit, Newport. Only this time I’m in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on the east coast of the Sunshine State. And if you love New England’s coastal villages, with their intimate scale, walkable downtowns, lighthouses, protected green spaces, lively art and food scenes, and easy-breezy vibes, you’ll love it here.

A Foodie Haven

New Smyrna Beach punches well above its weight as a restaurant town. This alluring destination treats you to two primary commercial districts: Flagler Avenue on New Smyrna’s barrier island and the Canal Street Historic District across the Indian River from the beach. In both areas you find the same style of independent, chef-driven restaurants as you would in Portsmouth or Providence. No corporate chains here, just locals who put extra care into their ingredients and technique. 

The difference? Snapper and grouper replace New England’s cod and haddock, and the citrus and produce coming out of central Florida give chefs an endless fresh-grown season. But there are plenty of oysters and scallops to make you feel at home. Try Norwood’s Restaurant & Treehouse Bar for flavorful cocktails, steaks, and seafood served on their deck perched high in a live oak tree with views of the intracoastal waterway.

At the upscale yet casual eatery Third Wave, chef David Moscoso applies his immaculate sourcing of sustainable seafood and local produce to dishes like house-smoked candied salmon, wagyu short ribs, and wild-caught shrimp blackened and presented in chili-garlic butter sauce with a crisp baguette.

Looking for the ultimate beach picnic? Paco Submarine approaches sandwich making as a serious craft. Everything is made from scratch, whether that’s smoking the bacon for a BLT or curing the pastrami. Each menu item features a different bread, and all the bread is homemade. 

Back to where we began, Luma is the quintessential beachy coffee spot, with lawn games, shaded outdoor seating, foamy lattes for an afternoon perk up, and wine and beer service as day yields to evening.

Art for Everyone

If only every beach town had a nucleus like The Hub on Canal, where artists like seascape painter Frank Ferrante, a transplant from the Northeast, invite you into their creative worlds. This combined school, gallery, and studio space has given New Smyrna Beach serious expressive infrastructure, attracting established artists and beginners to work, learn, and gather for poetry readings, concerts, and group shows. 

The gallery density on Flagler and Canal rivals what you’d find in Rockport or Ogunquit, and there’s a laid-back and welcoming spirit in all the cultural institutions here. Likewise, the nonprofit Little Theatre of New Smyrna Beach has been staging Broadway-style plays and musicals since 1947. It’s a great example of high-quality community theater, and the power that the arts have to turn a small town into a magnet for creativity.

Natural Wonders

The lighthouse at Ponce Inlet is the real deal—up there with the tallest on the East Coast—with a keeper’s cottage and a maritime museum that would feel at home on the Maine seaboard. The Canaveral National Seashore stretches south of town, one of the longest undeveloped Atlantic coastlines remaining in Florida, and the Indian River Lagoon system behind it is perfect for kayakers. Abundant fish and aquatic plants attract manatees, pink-winged roseate spoonbills, and dolphins, so bring your camera. 

A bonus: The cream-colored sand on New Smyrna’s 17-mile public beach is packed firmly enough to ride a bike on (I recommend renting an e-bike from Pedego Electric Bikes to enjoy a little more speed).

I will always love summer in New England. It’s brief and glorious. But I also know that little hint of sadness that comes when you watch Provincetown’s galleries shutter for the winter. When sundresses and shorts get packed away.

It’s easier to say goodbye to summer knowing that New Smyrna Beach’s year-round warmth and vibrance is a short, affordable flight away, with airlines like Breeze Airways and Avelo flying direct routes to Daytona Beach International Airport from easy-to-navigate departure cities like Providence/Warwick, Hartford, and New Haven. In a matter of hours, any time of the year, you can be savoring serious food at an outdoor table, painting en plein air with a talented instructor, shopping for sandals, and kicking them off to stroll across the sand, all the way to the brick lighthouse that reminds you of home.

Amy Traverso

Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee and cohost of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with GBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.

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