The 14 best new restaurants in Miami

This petite, Downtown Vietnamese restaurant filled with live plants, bright floral upholstery and wood-paneled walls feels like it’s been plucked from New York’s LES. A funk and disco mix streams from the speakers as bartenders serve sherry-spiked Viet iced coffees and explain the Saigon-inspired dishes. The menu is mostly small plates meant for sharing, but larger dishes like the Lamb Wrap Situation can feed a whole group. Our Coconut S’mores Mousse dessert tasted like a perfectly sweet and toasty campfire. Find your way through the beaded curtain to the bathroom, where your lavatory break can also include an impromptu karaoke session.

The new Brickell restaurant Zeru, meaning “sky” or “the heavens” in Basque, has instantly become our favorite Spanish restaurant in Miami, a testament to the Spaniards’ ability to elevate simple ingredients and transform them into very special dishes. The concept arrives via Mexico City, where its two locations have landed on multiple best-restaurant lists. Here, corporate chef and partner Israel Aretxiga tapped Gabriela Guitrón Ramírez to run the kitchen and, very soon, we suspect she’ll be a finalist for the Beards, the Michelins and, hopefully, your shortlist of favorite restaurants.

French bistro Pastis began its life in 2000 in the Meatpacking District of New York. For the buzzy Wynwood location, the first of several clones planned to open around the country, restaurateurs Keith McNally and Stephen Starr recreated the original's Parisian antique shop aesthetic seemingly piece by piece. Though it looks the same, Pastis Miami boasts an expanded menu that includes dishes from the South of France, like the snapper provencal and a poached fish dish served in aioli. All of it’s very good, without trying to be something new, which according to Starr is kind of the point. “Classics are classics,” he says. “Why try and reinvent? Why try and do French-Mexican-Ukrainian or what? I mean, that’s just trying too hard.” 

Residing in the original Schnitzel Haus, a neighborhood staple that served German comforts in the form of gravy-soaked cutlets, bratwurst and Das Boots, The New Schnitzel House pays homage (obviously), though not without asserting its own zany, Postmodernist identity. A small, white box on the edge of the road, The New Schnitzel House offers a friendly, dimly lit reprieve from the unrelenting sun of the 79th Street Causeway. On our visit, we sampled a pickle plate filled with fun stuff like pickled eggs and mushrooms, and a juicy brat sourced from Babe's Meat & Counter. The pork schnitzel was flavorful and filling if on the thicker side. But the baked spaetzle made with cheddar gouda stole the show. Outside, plenty of shade, a fan and TVs make this garden patio bar one we foresee becoming a chilled locals' retreat. 

Previously, most people knew Valerie Chang for being part of the family that opened Itamae, the much-acclaimed Nikkei restaurant in the Design District where experimenting with entirely new flavor combinations is the whole point. At Itamae, Chang was part of a team, sharing in the Michelin Bib Gourmand and the James Beard semi-finalist recognition. With Maty’s, Chang has shown that she’s a superstar ready for her own spot on the podium. The concept is an homage to her Peruvian roots and her grandmother, Maty, who inspired her to cook. Here, Chang aims to keep proteins and veggies simple, dishes elevated instead by the bright and complex sauces that accompany them.

Like its sister restaurant Wabi Sabi, Midorie is tucked pretty hard off the beaten path in a mall-like building you probably didn’t know existed. Behind Chug’s Diner, past a second-hand bike shop, take a left and then a right, and Midorie is back there in an open-air courtyard, just 12 seats outdoors and 10 inside. The idea here was to keep the place small since they’re sourcing the fish directly from Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market. It all looks fairly simple and tidy, with a one-sheet menu broken down by bowls, maki rolls, individual sushi pieces and what might be the best omakase deal in town. Seriously, $50 for 12 pieces of expertly prepared sashimi over rice almost seems hard to believe in this era of $25 cocktails at your average corner restaurant. In a city where club-restaurants and chains from Austin and New York seem to open daily, Midorie is an understated respite of exceptionally fresh sushi.

Supper clubs and Cuban restaurants are aplenty in Miami but a combination of the two is, surprisingly, rare. Calle Dragones on Calle Ocho aims to fill that void with an entertainment-fueled dining experience that’ll have you dancing at the table in between bites of roasted lechón. Its name derives from an iconic street in Havana’s Chinatown and, as such, the menu is a mix of Asian-influenced Cuban cuisine and somewhat traditional dishes, among them crab fricasé with Thai sofrito, crispy wontons stuffed with lobster, lechón dumplings and a Chino Latino fried rice served with chunks of pork and maduros. The real show, however, is on stage. Calle Dragones welcomes new entertainers for a different theme each night: flamenco on Thursdays, Havana nights on Fridays, salsa disco on Saturdays and carnaval on Sundays when the entertainment runs all day long. 

Formerly at the helm of Marcus Samuellson’s Red Rooster in Overtown, Chef Tristen Epps presents a coastal seafood menu filled with just-picked, locally sourced and recently caught ingredients—good enough, hopefully, to draw locals to this touristy strip of Miami Beach. The clean, breezy aesthetic of Ocean Social allows for the fewest distractions to best appreciate the azure views, and the menu follows suit: The white gazpacho is chilled and creamy, the ceviche is bright and citrusy and the pizza with a dazzling fan of avocado is pretty enough to steal the show from those beach vistas—if only for the few minutes it takes to devour.

The idea of taking a traditional French technique or ingredient and trying to perfect it or improve on it, that’s the entire point of this place. It’s not an easy task, considering all the hundreds of years the French have been perfecting their stuff already. But Brasserie Laurel nails plating and technique and even the atmosphere that ought to surround all of this Frenchiness, a brasserie that will likely bring the stars and Beards and all the honors bestowed to restaurants this good.

There’s a lot about this sleek Coral Gables omakase you’ve likely encountered before: the unassuming entrance, the restrained elegance of Japanese design, the intimate experience and perhaps even the chef, who some might recognize from Michelin-starred Hiden where he previously worked. There’s also quite a bit different and new about Shingo. For its apparent simplicity, Shingo’s aesthetic took years to conceive, including its striking Hinoki-wood counter. The 18-course menu comprises a seasonal variety of fresh sushi and Yakimono dishes, such as the Binchotan-charcoal-grilled eel topped with caviar and fresh wasabi (it will turn eel haters into lovers with a single bite). Ingredients are imported from Japan as well as sourced locally in Florida.

Walking into Petite Comité in Edgewater, we felt like we were in the uncertain first minutes of a blind date. The owners describe the place as Japandi cuisine, and we’ll save you the time of googling that phrase. Japandi is actually a design trend that combines Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics. Petite Comité aims to channel that vibe into its dishes, a fusion of Japanese, Scandinavian and French influences. From the sampling we had, expect singularly combined ingredients and cooking styles that turn out surprisingly well—the blind date that ends with breakfast.

The first thing you should know about the new Okeydokey food hall is that it's not, technically, a food hall. It’s a large, sprawling, three-story Brickell entertainment venue with multiple vendors and bars selling very different lineups of food—which, we admit, sounds a lot like a food hall. But stick with us for a minute. Instead of the traditional food hall arrangement—wander around and order whatever you want, receive a beeper and grab a table (and repeat each time you want another plate or cocktail)—there’s a bit of a new setup at Okeydokey. It starts with a hostess who leads you to a table where there’s a server, food runners and busboys. So, like, a restaurant. Maybe a hall-staurant? Whatever you call it, Okeydokey is worthy of a trip. It’s full of quality vendors and laid out in a handsome space where you’ll want to spend a weekend night.

Walrus Rodeo, the playful new concept from Boia De’s Michelin-starred co-chef/owners Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, strives for a similarly understated yet ambitious menu and service-oriented experience. Located in the same plaza as Boia De, Walrus’ contemporary kitchen centers around the hulking wood-fired oven, a remnant from the space’s previous life as a pizza joint. Everything on the ever-evolving menu benefits from the kiss of its flames, borrowing flavors and techniques from Italy to Mexico to the Caribbean. The atmosphere here is decidedly more casual, though the dishes, like the mustard green lasagna and potato gnocchi, are anything but.

Previously a senior sous chef at the two Michelin-starred L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Giselle’s chef Gustavo Zuluaga has created a menu that somehow manages to upstage the grandiosity of the space. Perched atop E11even, the famed downtown mega-club, Giselle evokes an Alice-in-Wonderland-on-molly, mushrooms-in-Vegas sort of vibe. But beyond the disorienting decadence, the contemporary French-Asian food shines through. At the end of the meal, you’ll head back out toward the elevator, through the made-for-selfies hallway, and back to whatever simpler life existed out there before. But for a few hours at Giselle, you’ll feel very much like a blissed-out Vegas high-roller.