If you ever find yourself wondering around north Florida’s Amelia Island and looking for a good place to stop and grab lunch, there are dozens of restaurants to choose from. While trying to avoid the obvious tourists traps and oceanfront restaurants that cater to dinner guests, it can be hard to find a great lunchtime meal at a reasonable price. We decided to stop by a market that caters to the breakfast and lunchtime crowd only, Marché Burette at Omni’s Amelia Island Plantation Resort.
Marché Burette is just one of many shops located at The Shops at Amelia Island Plantation Resort, just off of Highway A1A on the southern end of Amelia Island, Florida. The picturesque atmosphere and welcoming exterior of the restaurant – complete with plenty of interior and exterior seating (including a rocking chair front porch) – make it a great place to relax and enjoy a meal in between visits to the many shops located within walking distance of the market. Once inside, one can’t help but notice the diversity of the market itself, with everything from a fully-functioning deli to gourmet desserts – offering fresh foods and made-to-order cuts of meat and fish to take back home – to extensive breakfast and lunch menus for those preferring to eat on-site. The market also has a large selection of fine wines and spirits, making it a one-stop-shop to fulfill any dinnertime plans.
The outdoor patio section is perfect for a sunny afternoon visit to Marché Burette. We opted to check out their lunch menu to see just what they had to offer fresh from the deli. The menu seemed a little pricey at first, with most of their sandwich and soup plates hovering around the $10 range (charging $10 for soup is a felony in some countries), with drinks like Coke, Sprite and sweet tea around $3. A little steep for what many would consider an afternoon snack.
After downing both a smoked salmon BLT sandwich and a French dip, we were beyond impressed. Both sandwiches were definitely worth their weight in a reasonably priced bullion.
The $3 drinks, on the other hand, tasted very similar to 99-cent sodas you can get exclusively at . . . anywhere.
The best part about the market was its evocative feel. It reminded us of small-town markets of the past, where people could pick up everything they needed for dinner in one place, absent of shopping carts ramming one another and obnoxious overhead announcements broadcasting at volume-11. We paid for our meal inside, tacking onto the bill a couple of desserts from the glass case that we couldn’t pass up. With a wide selection of cookies, croissants, brownies, danishes, truffles, and every kind of fudge you could think of, picking just one to take home poses quite the challenge.
A highly-recommended market, we’d give it a 4 out of 5 (if we in the business of rating restaurants). Our only hangup were the high-priced drinks, but other than that everything else Marché Burette had to offer was worth every penny. Anyone making plans to travel to Amelia Island should take an afternoon break from their activities and head down A1A to Marché Burette. You won’t regret it!
DIRECTIONS:
FROM THE NORTH: Take I-95 South to exit 373 (Florida 200E/Florida A1A East). Turn onto A1A East (The Buccaneer Trail) for just over 3 miles before turning right onto Amelia Island Parkway (just after crossing over the bridge, right at the Hess gas station). Stay on Amelia Island Parkway for 2.5 miles before turning right on Amelia Road. At the traffic circle take the exit onto A1A South and continue southward for another 2.5 miles before taking the third exit onto Beach Lagoon Road. The market is part of the Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort, with its front porch facing A1A.
FROM THE SOUTH: Take I-295 North to exit 41 for Florida exit 105 North, which becomes A1A North. Take this route northward for 22 miles and you’ll be taking the first traffic circle exit onto beach Lagoon Road. The market is right off of A1A, on the right.
