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Miami has no shortage of great restaurants where you’re expected to dress up, valet your car and pretend you’re not checking whether anyone famous is sitting at the next table. Now The New York Times is reminding us that some of the city’s most exciting food is happening far beyond velvet ropes.
Tin Tin, the Little Havana restaurant from co-chefs and co-owners Sachi Statz and Victor Santos, has been named one of the best restaurants in America for 2026 by The New York Times. The list praised Tin Tin's ambitious Latin-European cooking, such as snapper fillet buried under a cloud of aerated potato purée and yellowtail crudo sitting in coconut leche de tigre. This is not exactly the Cuban food your abuela was making—but Tin Tin isn’t pretending it is.
Instead, Statz and Santos are taking the flavors they know and giving them a decidedly more cosmopolitan wardrobe. Ropa vieja gets stuffed into tortellini, jamón serrano meets pressed papaya and the rest of the menu pulls from Cuban, Spanish, Italian and French traditions without seeming like it was assembled by a committee.
That makes sense considering where the restaurant comes from. Statz is part of the family behind Tinta y Café, the beloved Cuban sandwich and coffee shop that has been around for more than 20 years. Santos is her longtime colleague, and together they’ve turned their shared Miami food history into something more ambitious.
The location is part of the point. Tin Tin isn’t in a glossy new tower in Brickell or another buzzy Wynwood warehouse designed to look like it was waiting for an Instagram photographer. It’s on Calle Ocho, in Little Havana, where Cuban sandwiches, cafecito and decades-old neighborhood institutions have long defined the dining landscape.
Now there’s a restaurant serving food that could easily hold its own among Miami’s trendiest dining rooms—but without abandoning the neighborhood that inspired it.
Tin Tin is located at 2555 SW 8th St., and is open Tue.–Sat., 4:30pm–10pm, and Sun., 11am–4pm. For more information and to make a reservation, click here.