Brevard Restaurant of the Year: Titusville eatery earns kudos with eclectic menu, charming décor
Editor's note: What elevates a restaurant from good to great? It's not the price point or the level of formality. A great restaurant is one that excites, surprises and delights us, one we would recommend to friends and family, one that never disappoints. With this criteria in mind, our FLORIDA TODAY dining experts have named The Daley Trade in Titusville our Restaurant of the Year. But we couldn't stop at one. Ten other other places that we can't stop craving — from fine dining establishments to counter-service casual spots — made our Top 10 Brevard Restaurants of the Year.
Terrence Daley thinks a moment before describing the food he prepares.
"Eclectic American?"
Laura, his wife and business partner, shakes her head.
"But you'll do Middle Eastern, Italian, Thai," she said. "Every week is different."
Terrence thinks a moment longer before settling on this:
"An eclectic, ever-rotating menu of cuisine from around the world based on what's seasonal, fresh and available," he said.
The Daley Trade, the charming restaurant and market the couple own at 330 S. Washington Ave. in downtown Titusville, isn't easy to pigeonhole. The setting is airy, with a Mid-Century-inspired, glass-enclosed dining room; a lush, tropical wine bar out back; and a small, tempting market in front. Rather than the big game of the week blaring from a TV and burgers and wings on the menu, diners are treated to soft ska music and carefully curated small plates.
The inviting setting and knowledgeable staff draw a steady stream of food-savvy folks to the north end of the county.
Restaurants of the Year: These 10 restaurants top our list of favorites on the Space Coast
Building a community around food
The Daleys treat their restaurant with care and intention. They want it to be a neighborhood hangout, a place where friends meet to share lovingly prepared dishes and bottles of natural wine.
Though Terrence trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, The Daley Trade isn't pretentious. Yes, he bakes croissants aux baies (berry croissants), but he tops them with Fruity Pebbles.
And though he likes to have fun with food, he takes his work seriously.
A note at the bottom of the menu states: "Substitutions politely declined. While modifications & substitutions may seem easy to accommodate, these requests compromise the unique characteristics of our food & the efficiency of our service."
While adjustments are made for those with food allergies or who eat vegan or vegetarian diets, Terrence chooses ingredients carefully, and each has a purpose.
"It's not us being rude or stubborn," Laura said. "This is his art. Substitutions are going to change the dish."
Take, for example, the buttermilk ricotta and local veggie tortellini with house-made egg pasta, buttermilk ricotta, Sanchez Farms zucchini and roasted tomato, Pecorino Romano cream and Victory Garden Greens edible flowers. Changing a single ingredient gives it an entirely different flavor.
"We have a certain kind of clientele who are very conscious eaters," Terrence said. "They want to try different food."
They aren't afraid to experiment with new flavors and appreciate Terrence's artistry.
"The food is top tier, presented as small plates, and each single ingredient of each plate had me thinking 'I don’t think this dish could be improved on,' which is a very unusual experience for me, anyway," said Larry Bishop of Merritt Island, when describing the restaurant on Facebook. "The chicken liver pâté, delicately spiced and topped with a cider-vermouth gelée, was as good as any foie gras I’ve ever had, including (gulp) my own."
And for those who really, really don't like a specific ingredient, Terrence challenges them to give his version a try.
"If you don't like vegetables," he said, "chances are you haven't had them prepared correctly. There's no bad food. It's just not done the right way."
The Daley Trade: In the beginning
Owning a restaurant in Titusville wasn't the couple's original plan. In 2020, they were living in Charleston, South Carolina, where Terrence worked as a chef and Laura as an artist, and were preparing for a move to Asheville, North Carolina.
When COVID stalled that move, they decided to wait out the pandemic in Laura's hometown. While Laura continued with her art, Terrence began baking artisanal bread, making fresh pasta and creating homemade sauces. The Daley Trade started in late 2020 as a cottage industry providing contact-free delivery. Everything was made in their home kitchen.
From our archives: Love fresh bread and pasta? Check out Titusville's Daley Trade
In early 2021, The Daley Trade took over a space on South Washington Avenue in downtown after MacSweets, the bakery that had occupied the historic building for seven years, closed in December 2020. Terrence finally had room to spread out.
He wasn't ready for walk-in orders, but he began selling bread and pasta in the market at Rockledge Gardens. Restaurants such as Rebellion Wine Bar in Cocoa Village and Ember & Oak in downtown Melbourne added his bread to their menus.
"This place was three times the size of what we wanted to open," Terrence said. He'd hoped for a funky sandwich shop or maybe a record store and wine bar. The old building had room for more. They decided to use it.
Laura quit her art-related job and dove into the restaurant business.
Terrence and Laura's father did much of the renovation. In February 2022, they opened the market, selling bread, pasta, olives and natural wines.
The dining room followed two months later. Laura designed it to look like a 1960s living room, with mod artwork and intimate seating nooks set in the airy space with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Terrence created a small plates menu designed for sharing.
The Back Bar opened in late October 2022. Around that time, they introduced Wednesday Pizza Nights with specials including Meatball Pie with house-made spicy heritage pork meatballs, crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, Pecorino Romano and fresh basil; Mac + Cheese Pie with five cheese blend fancy-boi cheese sauce and crispy cheese crumble; and Roasted Garlic Shrimp Pie with garlic-roasted shrimp, lemon cream sauce, fresh herbs and lemon.
How the restaurant has evolved
The Daleys don't have investors, though there have been offers to help them open a second location. That's not something they want to do.
"People are coming for Terrence's food," Laura said. "If we had two locations, well, there aren't two Terrences."
They've grown the business slowly, as they've had money to re-invest in it.
They no longer offer delivery, and The Daley Trade's bread and pasta are now sold only at their market, though Terrence is considering expanding his wholesale baking for other restaurants.
The kitchen is small. Much of the food is prepared on induction burners. Eventually, Terrence hopes to get a six-burner range, but the building isn't wired for an industrial-scale restaurant.
And they don't want to become an industrial-scale place.
"It's a family business," Laura said. "We become friends with a huge chunk of our guests that come in. We don't want to get crazy enough that we can't have those relationships."
Between the dining room and the Back Bar, The Daley Trade seats around 75 people. A few reservations are accepted via email, TheDaleyTrade@gmail.com. They don't have a restaurant phone because they want to concentrate on the customers who are there, not someone calling in.
They also don't want to become a reservations-only place. They want their regulars, the people who have supported them from the beginning, to feel like they can walk in and get a table, even if there's a bit of a wait.
It's a full-service restaurant. Laura posts the week's menu on Facebook and Instagram, and it's displayed on flip-stand card holders on each table. Servers explain each dish, recommend wines, take orders and bring out the food.
At the end of the meal, guests pay at the counter so no one feels rushed. They want people to hang out, Laura said.
Word is getting out. Pizza nights can get hectic. Bread often sells out in the market.
The Daleys aren't complaining. These are good problems, they said.
"We've been slowly growing, slowly staffing up," Terrence said.
"But we want to keep up with the growth," Laura said.
What lies ahead
While they manage the growth at the restaurant, they had their most important expansion in August, with the arrival of baby Augustus.
With The Daley Trade open 3-9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, they take Sundays off to spend time as a family. Mondays and Tuesdays are devoted to paperwork, ordering and receiving supplies, maintenance, scheduling and baby care.
Terrence is in awe of his wife. While he started washing dishes in a restaurant at 14, Laura had no food service experience before joining him at The Daley Trade. She took to it immediately.
"Without her, we couldn't do this," he said.
She has a studio at their home, but between the business and Augustus, she has zero time for art.
"I'll get back to it," she said. "The restaurant and baby take priority right now. We put everything in this. It really is our second home. It consumes us."
It's not easy.
"The service industry is a beautiful nightmare," Terrence said.
But it's rewarding, Laura said, especially when they watch diners enjoy a meal or they get good feedback online.
They put a pen and a stack of Post-it Notes in the restroom off the Back Bar where guests leave messages about lots of things, including their thoughts about their dining experience.
When they have a bad day, they read the notes.
"They're funny, heartfelt, sweet," Laura said. "It's worth the tough nights and sleepless nights. If we weren't making people happy, it wouldn't be worth it."
The couple see the restaurant as a passion project.
"We're not here to make a million dollars," Terrence said.
They've visited restaurants around the country and around the world, and they want to bring the best of those experiences to the Space Coast.
"We want high-quality food, good atmosphere and stellar service," Laura said.
They've delivered on all three, while adding a side of groovy fun.
Suzy Fleming Leonard is a features journalist with more than three decades of experience. Reach her at sleonard@floridatoday.com. Find her on Facebook: @SuzyFlemingLeonard or on Instagram: @SuzyLeonard.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 2023 Restaurant of the Year on Florida's Space Coast: The Daley Trade
