The sun can shine too brightly on a place like Miami.
Not so long ago, transplants from New York City to San Francisco were flocking to South Florida to enjoy lax Covid rules, cheaper real estate and to build multimillion-dollar 200-seat restaurants.
Those days are over. Miami has seen a rash of restaurant closings, such that five wonderful places we highlighted last summer on our list of Miami’s 25 Best Restaurants are now gone. Recently, I wrote about how skyrocketing rents, soaring food prices, quadrupling insurance rates and a plunging number of international visitors all played a part.
Yet as a Miami native, I never tire of watching inventive, tenacious local restaurant owners fight. They keep giving us new, cozy dining rooms with simple, creative menus that reflect our city. This made it easy to fill those five open spots on our updated list of the best places to eat in Miami right now and have many left over. Let me tell you about three of them:
Yes, you can find great Chinese food in Miami
Remember fun? The folks behind Double Luck do. The restaurant’s chef-owner, Adrian Ochoa, grew up in Miami, the son of Cuban and Guatemalan immigrants, and understands that when people go out to eat in Miami, they need to have a good time. That’s why they play catchy Cantopop in the vibey, red-glowing dining room, and old kung fu movies on a vintage cathode ray tube television set in the bathrooms. It’s a trick he learned from his business partner, Tam Pham, whom he helped start another fun spot on our list, Tâm Tâm, a hot spot for Vietnamese drinking food.
So what’s a Cuban-Guatemalan guy doing cooking Chinese American? He said he had grown up tagging along with a Chinese best friend to his dad’s power lunches with his drinking buddies, staring at menus he couldn’t read. That’s how he fell in love with Cantonese restaurants and the accompanying camaraderie. Want to get a taste of that experience? Hit my favorite place, Kon Chau, where you’ll find made-to-order dim sum any day of the week.
1085 Northeast 79th Street, MiMo District
A favorite ‘Miami girl’ is back
We’ve been waiting for another Michelle Bernstein restaurant for a long time. We love her because she’s a real Miami girl: she danced in a Miami rap video (and with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in New York City), she hosts a show on the local PBS station, and she’s the link between the first crop of big-name chefs, like Norman Van Aken, and today’s local dining scene. When her signature restaurant, Michy’s, closed in 2016, it seemed like the end of an era.
With Sra. Martínez, she has stopped just short of putting her name on the door. (She is Señora Martínez, married to her hospitality business partner, David Martínez.) But the restaurant encapsulates all her flavor memories, those from high school, and her time in a kibbutz in Israel, to her years cooking with grandmothers in Morocco, Lebanon and Spain. Best of all, you’ll actually find her and David Martínez in the restaurant on any given day of the week. That’s what separates it from so many other “concepts.”
2325 Galiano Street, Coral Gables
A best-kept secret no more
I hesitated to put ViceVersa on our list because, well, my partner hates it when I give away a place locals love. But I stink at gate-keeping. I figured that when the James Beard Foundation nominated this Italian cocktail nook for best new bar in America, the secret was out. (Mi dispiace, ragazza!)
What I love most about ViceVersa is what it almost is: an express version of Sunny’s Steakhouse, an impossible-to-nab reservation in Miami. It’s pizzas and crudos instead of duck and steak, yes, but all of the Sunny’s hospitality is there since it’s from the same team. Plus stiff, balanced Italian cocktails. Here’s another freebie for you: The restaurant’s chef-partner, Justin Flit, used to make one of Miami’s best burgers at Proof, a great pizza restaurant he ran in Midtown. On Mondays, the Proof burger can be yours if you get there early.
398 Northeast Fifth Street, Downtown, inside the Elser Hotel
For your itinerary
The downside of being in Miami in August is that it’s roughly the temperature of the sun. We won’t leave the comfort of the air-conditioning. But the upside is that you can find yourself in the Venn diagram of discount deals for people who like to eat well and relax luxuriously.
Miami Spa Month and Miami Spice Restaurant Month overlap all August long, meaning you can get world-class massages at fixed prices ranging from $109 to $199, and fixed-price dining deals at Michelin-star restaurants for $35 (lunch and brunch) and $45 to $60 for three-course meals. The Palms, the Edition and the Ritz-Carlton are all on the spa list. One of the best Spice deals is at Blue Collar (whose sister restaurant Mignonette is on our list), where you can order any item on their regular dinner menu, like their signature Scotch bonnet spicy oxtail.
And be sure to check out the Frost Science Museum, where you can stay indoors and take an amazing Instagram photo in front of the shark tank.
The post We Just Updated Our List of the Best Restaurants in Miami appeared first on New York Times.
