Ômo by Jônt is helping make Central Florida a foodie travel destination

Good luck if you expected a grand marquee entrance for the award-winning restaurant helping drive Central Florida’s foodie reputation.

It’s easy to miss Ômo by Jônt.

The Winter Park restaurant is sandwiched between a pizza joint and a slushy shop, a few short steps off Park Avenue. But inside, the spotlight falls on the restaurant’s multicourse menu that earned a Michelin star this year.

“We’ve accomplished a lot in a short period of time,” said Chef Ryan Ratino, who opened the restaurant in early 2024 and was included in the Michelin Guide less than a year later. “It’s exciting to see our journey and where we’re going and how we will continue to evolve.”

The menu’s four- or six-course meals feature a blend of exotic and locally grown ingredients. You could be eating white truffles imported from Italy or fish hand-selected from Japan and the next moment be munching on produce grown at 4Roots Farm in Orlando.

Ratino’s menu is French-inspired with Japanese influences. Patrons sit around a 16-seat table where staff recommend the best way to eat the steak and present crab rice, the restaurant’s staple.

“It’s rice that’s cooked in a clay pot from the south of Japan called a Donabe and then topped with various sea meats and a little bit of French butter and herbs, and then topped with a wild crab that’s been glazed in a sauce made from the innards of the crab. And then we shave truffles over the top,” Ratino explained. “It’s so homey and feel-good. … The crab rice is always the one that resonates with people.”

After dinner, patrons filter into the dessert parlor to taste an entremet with honey ice cream that the pastry chef took days to make and truffles served in a wooden box.

The restaurant also opened The Salon this Summer, where guests without reservations can sip a cocktail or eat snacks without doing the full tasting in the back.

Despite their calm demeanor, the staff members’ minds move constantly. Before Christmas, they were already planning the Valentine’s Day menu.

The restaurant may take food seriously, but doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s not stuffy. “Super Freak” by Rick James played as backdrop music one recent night. The wine menu offers a wine sample menu dubbed “F*** It.” 

“We open amazing wines from all over the world that you typically wouldn’t have all those bottles open in a single night,” Ratino said.

Why not? Go for it. F*** it.

Ômo’s Michelin praise has given it a boost and brought in Disney tourists to venture to the north Orlando suburb of Winter Park, which is becoming a hot spot for foodies.

One new report says about two-thirds of Americans want to go on a “foodie trip” in 2026.

“The undeniable stalwart — so much so that it may be time to call it a fact of travel rather than a trend — is foodie trips or culinary travel,” said the study by Future Partners, a travel and tourism marketing research company.

That’s good news for Visit Orlando as it promotes Central Florida, home of more than 6,000 restaurants cooking 40-plus international cuisines.

“Orlando’s growing culinary reputation is both a point of pride and a powerful driver of visitation. Elevating our dining reputation has been a top priority for Visit Orlando because dining is a key travel motivator and, for many travelers, a primary factor in destination selection,” said Visit Orlando President and CEO Casandra Mataj.

Ricky Ly, who founded the well-known TastyChomps.com food blog, remembers watching Central Florida’s food scene develop over the years. Orlando is the headquarters of Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden. Chain restaurants are everywhere.

“When I came to UCF back in 2003, going out to eat was probably Cheesecake Factory or P. F. Chang’s,” Ly said.

Fast forward to present day and the Orlando region is getting write-ups in The New York Times and being recognized for having some of the best food in the Southeast, from fine dining to food halls to the Asian cuisine in Mills 50 neighborhood. 

Winter Park, in particular, is well known for its farm to table restaurants. “But with the Michelin Guide, it seemed like it stepped up another notch,” Ly said.

“It just speaks to the caliber of our restaurants here and the chefs, many who have traveled the world and worked at Michelin restaurants and returned with those skills like the prodigal son,” Ly added. “They decided to make their livelihoods here in Orlando instead of, say, New York or London. So we’re very grateful for them to be here.”

Ratino, a Midwesterner who went to culinary school in Orlando, is among those award-winning chefs staying and leaving their mark. When he was just an aspiring chef, Ratino said he had always wanted to open his own restaurant in Winter Park. 

Just like his low-key restaurant storefront, Ratino’s background is full of surprises.

Ratino, who played baseball as a kid, grew up in Cleveland in a middle-class family rooted in the steel and mining industries although Ratino knew he wanted something different for a career. 

“My whole life, my mother would rush home to make dinner for us and we would all sit around the table,” Ratino said. “But in a very modest way, like Hamburger Helper and pot roast and things of that nature.”

“I started cooking as a young teenager just to help relieve the pressure from my mom.”

Ratino started watching celebrity Chef Emeril Lagasse on TV and asking his mom to pick up more special ingredients from the store for his pasta dishes.

When it was time to start thinking about his future, Ratino decided to go to culinary school and he began discovering other chefs and new styles of cooking. His education fueled his passion for food and his competitive drive to strive to be the best in his field. He developed his own style too.

“When you’re a younger cook, you want to show everybody what you can put on the plate, like look at all these techniques and look at all these things that I know how to do,” Ratino said. “And now I feel far more accomplished as I put the least amount on the plate as possible with the most refined techniques, the best-sourced ingredients that I can find, cooked perfectly.”

Ratino spoke with Florida Politics before the holidays just before he left for a two-week trip to Tokyo to meet with his local suppliers and discover new ingredients and techniques. He travels to Japan regularly to get fresh inspiration to bring back to his Winter Park and his other acclaimed restaurants in Washington, D.C.

With multiple Michelin stars at just 35 years old, Ratino admits his Midwestern family is amazed and a bit shocked when they come to visit and eat at his restaurant. 

“They’re like, ‘Where did this thing come from you?’ I was just a rough and tough boy that played sports and got dirty. Now I like refined things.”