MIAReview
Juvia
This spot is Permanently Closed.
Deciding to go to Juvia is essentially answering one question: just how badly do you want to eat on a rooftop? Are you willing to pay $10 for a pathetic serving of mashed potatoes that taste straight from the frozen food aisle? Are you OK with an atmosphere that feels like a low-budget music video for a reality-TV-star-turned-EDM-DJ? Are you prepared to snap a chopstick in frustration when you’re served a spicy tuna crispy rice that contains an embarrassing amount of both spicy tuna and crispy rice?
You’ll have to answer yes to all these questions - and more - to justify coming to Juvia. This overpriced Lincoln Road restaurant serves mediocre food in ridiculously small portions. But, we admit, the view of South Beach is pretty nice.
Unfortunately, you can’t just come here, take in the aerial scenery, and leave. You have to consume something to earn your seat at one of Miami Beach’s only rooftop restaurants, and beer or wine are pretty much the only things we recommend spending money on at this place. You can do that if you just head to the bar, but on a crowded night, it can feel like a singles mixer for people who were kicked off every dating app for being too creepy with emojis.
It’s only a slightly better option than sitting down and eating. Juvia’s food menu reads like a plagiarized essay - each section feels borrowed from some other menu they found on the internet five minutes before their homework was due. And for whatever reason, ceviche, burrata, dumplings, and three versions of mashed potatoes all live chaotically on the same page.
Whatever you do get, it will be underwhelming. The amount of fish that comes on the $23 tuna tostadas (there are three flimsy tostadas per order) could fit in a Tic Tac container. About as much care went into the “signature” mashed potatoes as we put into our own signature when we’re in a rush at Publix. And you’d need to hire an archeologist to find any king crab inside the king crab risotto.
Normally, we’re willing to jump through some hoops in order to eat at a very pretty restaurant. Any meal in Miami that comes with a gorgeous view usually also means paying a little more, or maybe throwing on nice clothes and putting up with a crowd that makes you feel like an extra on Entourage. But Juvia’s obstacles are just too much. And it makes answering that question - how badly do you want to eat on a rooftop - pretty easy for us: not this badly.