Bay St. Louis Restaurants

Bay St. Louis is the small, arty end of the coast, and Old Town's Beach Boulevard and Main Street hold most of its best restaurants. Plan a lunch-and-wander day: eat, walk the harbor, eat again.

If you only have one nice meal, make it Thorny Oyster, below the Pearl Hotel. Cuz's Old Town Oyster Bar & Grill is the oak-shaded patio for chargrilled oysters, and The Blind Tiger (a different place from the Biloxi restaurant of the same name) sits on the harbor with a sandbox for the kids. Bogart's Steakhouse inside Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast gets you sunset over the bay with your ribeye. The Sycamore House serves Creole-leaning fine dining in two 19th-century Acadian cottages, Trapani's Eatery has been on Beach Boulevard since 1994, and 200 North Beach occupies a 1903 newspaper building.

Breakfast belongs to Mockingbird Café on its 1868 wraparound porch and the diner-style Sunrise Cafe. Two more are just down Highway 90 in Waveland: Dat Kitchen Too for breakfast-through-dinner Southern comfort and J's Restaurant for po'boys and stuffed baked potatoes. Each restaurant below has a full guide, and the main restaurant guide covers the rest of the coast.