5 Best Restaurants In Miami Beach
Miami Beach isn't just home to some of Miami's best restaurants, it's home to some to Florida's best restaurants overall. Some of the world's leading chefs and restaurateurs have decided to bring their talents to the town's fabled shores, and have set up shop in the finest hotels, but other great restaurants have been operating independently there for years. We recently compiled a ranking of the 20 Best Restaurants in Miami, and these are the top 5 Miami Beach restaurants that made the list.
#5 Pubbelly
Miami's first Asian-inspired gastropub, Pubbelly is the brainchild of Andreas Schreiner, Jose Mendin, and Sergio Navarro. This perpetually packed casual spot, located on the west end of Miami Beach, is not only one of the most creative restaurants in Miami, it's also one of the most fun. Pâtés, duck and pork rillettes, terrines, sausages, and pickles are all made in-house, and round out a charmingly creative menu that changes daily, but always includes ramen and udon, a raw bar, dumplings with fillings like short rib and corn or pastrami and sauerkraut, and a wide selection of small plates for sharing, like fried chicken, BBQ pork wings, and grilled octopus.
#4 Prime 112
This steakhouse from renowned chef Myles Chefetz is one of the centerpieces of the popular South of Fifth neighborhood. Steaks range from an 8-ounce filet mignon to a 48-ounce porterhouse, served with a vast selection of sauces and butters, and are dry-aged for up to a month. Sides include the classically decadent truffled mac and cheese, house-made tater tots, and other steakhouse classics, but you'll have a great meal even if you're not big into steak: there's a wide selection of salads, seafood, and even Chefetz's interpretation of chicken and waffles.
#3 J&G Grill
This hotspot comes from none other than Jean-Georges Vongerichten, where he's serving his take on global cuisine from a bright, spacious dining room overlooking the ocean. Taking inspiration from this proximity, seafood is abundant on the menu, with items ranging from simply grilled yellowfin tuna and pumpkin swordfish to steamed black halibut with spiced jade emulsion and celeriac.
#2 Michael Mina 74
Located in the heart of the landmark Fontainebleau, this high-end bistro not only offers some of the city's finest cocktails, including barrel-aged cocktails and punches on tap, it's also where you'll find some of the city's freshest seafood, fresh-caught daily on the hotel's private boat, the BleauFish. The selection of items served via roving trollies adds a bit of whimsy, as do items like truffle donuts.
#1 The Bazaar by José Andrés
Chef José Andrés is one of the country's finest, and at The Bazaar, which also has a location in Beverly Hills, he's experimenting with Spanish cuisine in a way nobody else has. Located in a stunning space in South Beach's SLS Hotel, the Philippe Starck-designed restaurant features playful lounge spaces, an indoor "piazza," and an elegant main dining room. The fascinatingly experimental menu artfully combines the Old World and the new, with everything from Singaporean street food to a "bagels and lox"-inspired cone to smoked oysters to Cuban-inspired coffee-rubbed churrasco pushing the boundaries of fine modern dining. Some call it molecular gastronomy; we call it genius.
This post was originally published December 8, 2014