Technically the chef here is Peru’s famed Gastón Acurio, but the guy actually cooking day to day back there is the talented Diego Oka, who’s constantly experimenting with new recipes. For sure, order the ceviche, done up in semi-traditional and quite original ways, plated with the precision of a gallery artist. From there, Peruvian classics like lomo saltado and chaufa get remastered with new ingredients, right down to anticucheros (that’s often beef hearts, mind you) made of grilled vegetables. All this gets served up in a dining room and outdoor patio with Miami’s best skyline view, the waters of Biscayne Bay lapping up just right there.
Picture the Miami that’s portrayed in hip-hop videos, or captured on Tik-Tok clips shot from the back of cigarette boats, or as imagined by the mind of a kid from Milwaukee. Every day like a Mardi Gras, Will Smith promised. This Miami, this is the Miami you’ll find at many Brickell restaurants—so beautiful, so overly and outrageously dressed, both the patrons and the places. But it’s also not all that. Brickell, Miami’s true downtown and Wall Street South, also has excellent neighborhood pizza shops, restaurants where talented chefs get to do whatever they want and innovative cooking as good as anywhere. But don’t just stumble into any spot in Brickell, because this is also a place where big-name restaurateurs spend fortunes to outfit talked-about spaces that’ll be gone in a month. You need a guide to Brickell, and so here are the finest spots in a neighborhood where Miami is turned up to 11.
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