The Glasshouse Café by Le Basque

Located inside Fairchild Botanical Garden, the Glasshouse Cafe is excellent. In most places like this, one wouldn't expect much better than snack bar food. However, the choices and quality of the food is a pleasant surprise. While not a traditional Cuban sandwich, the flavor of the pork is some of the best I've had. Also tried the chicken club wrap and it was fresh, light, and healthy. Besides the food, the backside of the interior seating has floor to ceiling windows of the butterfly enclosure. It is really nice to get off your feet, enjoy a delicious bite, and still enjoy the butterflies fluttering about.

This is one of my favorite museum/ garden restaurants. We were at Fairchild Tropical Gardens for Smithsonian Museum Day. Since admission was free a lot of other people had the same idea. To get your food at the Glasshouse you check out the menu and order at the outside window. They give you one of those plastic squares that vibrate when your food is ready and then pick up your order at the inside window. You can then eat inside or out. It was blazing hot out and the line was long but the staff handled it well and kept the line moving forward. They have a nice variety of sandwiches, salads, soups, drinks, and desserts. Prices are a reasonable $8 to $14 for a sandwich. They even had a board with some specials for museum day. I prefer to eat inside because I love their dining room not to mention the air conditioning. The whole back glass wall of the dining area looks onto the Wings of the Tropics butterfly garden and it's beautiful. While we were eating we got to watch numerous butterflies and we even saw the hummingbird flit around the flowers. The ceiling has a gorgeous Chihuly glass sculpture hanging from it. For lunch we shared the croque-monsieur and the La Basque's club sandwich with grilled chicken and bacon. Both were delicious. For dessert we had one of the large chocolate chip cookies that had three kinds of chocolate in it. All of that plus two sodas came to $28. I love eating at the Glasshouse when I come to visit the gardens. The food is of a higher quality than most attractions and the view is one of my favorites.

Order at a window outside, collect your light-up notifier (no yelling anymore!) and wait inside for your food to be ready. We came on thanksgiving Sunday and the line and wait for food wasn't bad at all.The food is ok, a bit expensive for what you get but typical for a place like this. My roast beef sandwich was good, my husband's Italian spicy sandwich, today's special, was to his liking. With two drinks and chips it was over $23.Sit inside and enjoy the butterfly conservatory through the windows and the Chihuly chandelier. Tables outside as well.

Omg! so good. Loved this gooey sandwich and can't beat the setting, an awesome view of the butterflies. Will definitely comeback. Next time ill try the hummus tacos.

Located inside the beautiful Fairchild gardens, with a perfect view to their iconic butterfly garden, the Glasshouse cafe comes in like an Oasis to the yearlong summer days of Miami, FL. Their menu fits in one sheet, which is comforting because it makes their service specialized. We tried their prosciutto wrapped dates, they are a hit. Packed with flavor, and easy to eat. They used wood utensils, one way to fight against plastic. I ate their salmon avocado sandwich. Wow, it was refreshing to eat, light on the stomach and well seasoned. Not sure why I thought it would come toasted, but it was a pleasant surprise that it didn't. The only reason it honestly doesn't get 5 stars is because to order the food one must go outside to their window. It makes sense that they have an outside ordering method, but it is very inconvenient, since one picks up the order on the inside. Perhaps in a more busy day like their festivals it makes sense, but on a slow day it would make sense to allow orders to be placed inside. Or implement some of the order via phone tech. Be that as it may, I will certainly be eating here again.

This was a refreshing stop in our delightful day at the Garden. The food is good for a quick bite and is ready in a timely manner. Pleasant outdoor seating area.

It was a wonderful surprise to find something good to eat at a Park, since I have diet restrictions for me is even more difficult to find something that accommodates to my regular menu. I had the veggie tacos that were very well presented and very tasty, service was super nice and they were very careful with my order.

Located inside the Fairchild Gardens next to the Butterfly Garden. It's more like a seating area for you to eat with a great view of the Butterfly Garden. You order your food at the window outside -- we had a particularly long wait in line but it might not be so long on other days. Also, the menu itself says there is a 7-10 minute wait for the preparation of your order. It actually took a little longer for us.So, you order your food then wait inside for them to yell out your number. And I mean, YELL!! If someone's order isn't picked up right away, they will continue to YELL out their number, which is quite annoying to the patrons enjoying their meals inside. Perhaps they could invest in some kind of speaker system to call out the orders for people who may be sitting outside and not hear it. Ok, that aside, on to the food.The food was actually quite good. I got the mango, chicken salad which was nicely prepared and very tasty. Small portion, and served on recycled cardboard boxes takes away from the appeal, though. The others at my table ordered sandwiches and wraps and all reported that they were actually pretty good.There's not a lot of variety on the menu, and there's no service, but when you're hungry and want to rest your tired feet in air conditioned area with a view of butterflies, then this is your place to go.

I had lunch there yesterday. I cannot say how disappointed I was with the turkey sandwich I paid $12.00 for. It had 2 paper thin slices of turkey with a few paper thin slices of avocado between 2 tasteless slices of what they said was sour dough bread. I told the kitchen how disappointed I was. A few minutes later, a man who said he was the manager came out to my table to speak with me. He gave me a story about how the avocados he was now buying cost $2.00 each.... If the whole sandwich cost him 50 cents, I would have been surprised. Sorry, but the sandwich was tasteless, the customer service was nonexistent and it was a complete non-value for my money. Fairchild Gardens should consider bringing in a catering vendor that cares about the food it serves and its customers.

The atmosphere is nice, the food is ok, but the service was horrible. We were there December 28th, for lunch. The cashier lady was terribly rude. My daughter politely asked what the creamy potato soup had and the lady looked upset for having to answer that. I asked her if she could ask somebody and she called somebody (nobody picked up apparently) but she looked very irritated that we asked that. In the end we bought the soup and a curry chicken wrap because we were hungry. Also, she never told us where to get the food so we sat there waiting. When the notifier started lighting up my daughter went to get the food but there was nothing there at the counter, so I went there and asked her where to get the food and again she looked like we were inconveniencing her and people in line told us where to get it. Terrible service! What could be a great memory for us ended up being a bad moment for the terrible experience with a gratuitous angry dismissive demeanor.