These 10 Miami restaurants are worth finding after the South Beach Wine & Food Festival
Think of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival as a tasting menu to Miami.
There are more than 200 events from South Beach to West Palm Beach where out-of-town celebrity chefs and top restaurants collaborate with some of Miami’s best and most creative chefs.
The result? A guide for all the South Florida places you should be eating before and after the festival ends.
The festival highlights some of the hottest restaurants in Miami, which are thrusting South Florida into the national conversation of the country’s best places to eat. And many of the best local spots have been started by South Florida natives and adopted sons and daughters.
So try to see the food festival as just the beginning to your South Florida culinary adventure.
And between those one-off South Beach events, find some of these local restaurants that have hungry Miami diners buzzing.
Alter/Ember/Kaido
The restaurant that put James Beard finalist Brad Kilgore on the map, Alter, has spawned two more totally different Miami dining experiments, each worth exploring. Alter is still where Kilgore plays with unexpected flavors in a tasting menu (where his Soft Egg has become his signature dish). At Ember he applies his skills to his Kansas City comfort food like aged steaks, barbecue ribs, smoked fried chicken. The upstairs Kaido is his sleek Tokyo-inspired cocktail lounge with a hidden, reservation-only dining room, Ama, where he serves a 16-course “amakase” chef’s-choice menu.
Alter: 223 NW 23rd St., Wynwood
Ember/Kaido: 151 NE 41st St #117, Design District
Event: Dinner hosted by Bradley Kilgore, Brady Williams and Peter Fred, https://sobewff.org/tuyo1/
Bachour
Antonio Bachour bakes some of the most delicious pastries and beautiful desserts — not just in Miami, but the world. Bachour was named Esquire’s pastry chef of the year after winning an international Best Pastry Chef Award. France has never made a more butter and perfectly laminated croissant, and his mirror-glazed desserts are Instagram stars.
Address: 2020 Salzedo St., Coral Gables
Event: Cedric Vongerichten, Antonio Bachour and Herbert Schulz dinner, https://sobewff.org/bachour/
Balloo
He turned someone else’s vision into a small-plates success for 10 years at Sugarcane. Now Timon Balloo put his name above the door at his 21-seat downtown restaurant, where he explores his Indian, Trinidadian and Chinese background on the plate. That gave us some of the best dishes of 2019, including his version of a Jamaican curry goat, Trini-spiced oxtail and roasted curry calabaza with labneh yogurt and black lime. All of it is served with his homemade roti bread, in a restaurant where his daughters often dart between tables and his Thai-Colombian wife greets every guest. It’s a restaurant that could only happen in Miami.
Address: 19 SE 2nd Ave Suite #4, downtown Miami
Event: Best of the Best, https://sobewff.org/bob/
Edge Steak & Bar
Don’t be fooled by its Four Seasons Brickell location. Aussie Aaron Brooks runs this like an independent restaurant, where corporate backs away and gives him the resources to create. That yields luxurious meat-centric dishes like foie gras and truffle bon bons, housemade charcuterie, sausages and kielbasas and dry-aged steaks. Or let him take you on an off-menu tasting flight of the flavors that intrigue him.
Address: Four Seasons Hotel, 1435 Brickell Ave., Brickell
Event: Best of the Best, https://sobewff.org/bob/
Finka/Amelia’s 1931
Eileen and Jonathan Andrade come from Miami royalty, the founders of Islas Canarias Cuban restaurant. Jonathan has focused on mass producing the croquetas that made his grandparents’ restaurant famous (ham, chicken, spinach) to exacting detail that still makes them the gold standard in Miami. Eileen Andrade took a different course, infusing classic Cuban dishes with Peruvian and Korean flavors to create something wholly different at her west Kendall spot Finka. She does a quick-service version at a bistro-cute Amelia’s 1931 down the street.
Finka: 14690 SW 26th St., Kendall
Amelia’s 1931: 13601 SW 26th St., Kendall
Event: Croquetas & Cocktails, https://sobewff.org/swine/
Glass and Vine
Few restaurants blend the best of Miami vibes like Giorgio Rapicavoli’s Coconut Grove spot, which opens out onto a park by the sea and presents the creativity of a chef born and bred in Miami suburbs. It’s the perfect time of year to brunch al fresco in Miami and Glass and Vine might be the spot to do it while noshing on Rapicavoli’s jamon serrano croquetas with peach jam dipping sauce, coquito French toast or crispy yuca with huancaina dipping sauce (and, of course, an adult beverage).
Address: 2820 McFarlane Rd., Coconut Grove
Event: Swine & Wine, https://sobewff.org/swine/
Macchialina
For anyone who wants some of South Florida’s best fresh-made pasta, there’s still no better advice than “go to Macchialina.” Michael Pirolo’s South Beach spot only continues to hone and refine, now in its eighth year, with a lovely list of wines chosen by his partner and sister, Jacqueline, that range from sustainably farmed to organic and biodynamic. Short rib and taleggio lasagna, polpettine veal and pork cheek meatballs and veal Milanese or Parmigiana all invite sharing (or greedy indulgence). And a warm, cozy restaurant is just the setting to enjoy it.
Address: 820 Alton Rd., Miami Beach
Event: Pasta-making master class, https://sobewff.org/macchialina/
Nave/Ariete/Chug’s
Nave is what a Miami Herald dining critic called one of the best restaurants in Coconut Grove. That’s it. Here, the Miami-born Michael Beltran, who has created a mini empire of distinct restaurants, partnered with chef Justin Flit to create a seafood and pasta restaurant without borders. The chicken liver fusilli and Peekytoe crab toast are unlikely menu stars. His next-door Ariete is still Beltran’s playground where he experiments with new (often heavier) flavors, like a rabbit terrine. And Chug’s, down the street, is a novel take on the classic Cuban diner.
Address: 3540 Main Hwy #C-103, Coconut Grove
Event: Best of the Best, https://sobewff.org/bob/
Obra Kitchen Table
At the nadir of political and humanitarian upheaval in Venezuela, Carlos García found safe haven in Miami and opened Obra (while continuing to run Caracas’ Alto, named one of the 50 best Latin American restaurants). His dishes are at once soulful, satisfying and a feast for the eyes. (He donates proceeds from his daily soup dish to the needy in Venezuela.) Hamachi tiraditos share the menu with suckling pig with orange and sage butter gnocchi. And his four- and six-course tasting menus where he crosses cultures and spices (think roasted burrata and mushroom skillet, and rack of lamb with aji de mani sauce) might be the best hidden deals in Brickell.
Address: 1331 Brickell Bay Dr., Brickell
Event: Feeding the World with José Andrés, https://sobewff.org/sls/
Zak the Baker
The Miami-born Zak Stern became the kosher king of Miami by his obsessive dedication to preserving classic baking techniques and honoring Jewish tradition at his Wynwood bakery. Meanwhile, he retains his Miami roots, baking everything from several types of challah on Fridays to Cuban pastelitos and everything in between. The bakery is that rare mix of appreciative locals and tourists.
Address: 295 NW 26th St., Wynwood
Event: Zak the Baker’s Gospel and Falafel, https://sobewff.org/gospel/
