MIAGuide

The Hit List: New Miami Restaurants To Try Right Now

The new spots we checked out—and loved.
A table full of plates, including a sliced steak.

photo credit: Cleveland Jennings / @eatthecanvasllc

When new restaurants open, we check them out. This means that we subject our stomachs and social lives to the good, the bad, and more often than not, the perfectly fine. And every once in a while, a new spot makes us feel like Pitbull at a white suit sale. When that happens, we add it here, to The Hit List. 

The Hit List is where you’ll find all of the best new restaurants in Miami. As long as it opened within the past few months and we’re still talking about it, it’s on this guide. The latest addition might be a tasting menu spot with a dedicated caviar attendant. Or it might be a ventanita where a few dollars will get something that’ll rattle around in your brain like a loose penny in a dryer.

Keep tabs on the Hit List and you will always know just which new restaurants you should be eating at right now.

THE SPOTS

photo credit: Mangrove

Jamaican

Downtown

$$$$Perfect For:Drinking Good CocktailsDancing
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During the day, people walk in and out of here lugging dense takeout boxes from Jrk, Mangrove’s sister spot that operates in the same space. But at night, Mangrove turns into a restaurant and bar worthy of a fun weekend meal with friends who like to dance to reggae while holding utensils. After you eat great Jamaican dishes like jerk wings, curry oxtail, a whole fried snapper, stay for some cocktails and dancing. Just make sure to find a moment to appreciate the bar’s backsplash constructed out of thousands of dominoes.

photo credit: Ogawa

As more and more multi-hundred dollar omakase concepts open in Miami, you have a right to be skeptical. But Little River's Ogawa sticks the landing on one of Miami’s most expensive omakase meals. The 11-seat counter serves a 19-course dinner that walks that impossibly narrow tightrope between reverence and relaxation. Chefs bounce from silly to serious, reading your emotional needs as if they were provided a 500-page memo on you the moment you made your reservation. The food is a perfectly paced march of highly seasonal seafood and nigiri, like sea bream marinated in cherry blossom leaves. This is a meal for people who have been mentally planning a trip to Japan since their very first paycheck—and it'll cost nearly as much as a one-way ticket too.

This casual Doral sandwich shop has a menu inspired by literary characters from 17th century Spanish novels and, much like a good book, you can inhale their sandwiches in one sitting. El Cid—their massive take on a pan con bistec—is made using half a loaf of cuban bread. The mahi sandwich has a thick slab of mahi so soft your teeth suddenly feel superfluous. And some sandwiches come with toothpick-thin potato sticks that are made in-house. Cuento also makes incredible croquetas, lemonade, and half-baked brownie cookies. If it’s your first time, get El Cid. It just might make you read up on 300-year-old literature to figure out when the word beefsteak became bistec.

photo credit: Cleveland Jennings / @eatthecanvasllc

$$$$Perfect For:Walk-InsLunch

Drinking Pig used to serve the best barbecue in Miami from a residential cul-de-sac in North Miami. Four years later, the pop-up has a home in Downtown Miami, where you can still find their delicious smoked ribs, mac and cheese, brisket, and cornbread. Even your picky friend who cuts all the delicious fat off her steaks will like this barbecue. Especially since they’ve now got indoor tables, air conditioning, and a fun bar with delicious cocktails. But Drinking Pig still has that same sense of community and camaraderie. Folks line up before they open, the bar is where you make friends, and the communal table is where you move so you can hear them better. As of right now, Drinking Pig is only open on Saturdays and Sundays from noon until they run out of food, but it’s already one of our favorite new restaurants in Miami.

Gramps is one of our favorite bars in Miami, and now you don’t have to brave the chaos of Wynwood to satisfy a Gramps craving. You can just go to Gramps Getaway in Key Biscayne. Here, in the former Whiskey Joe’s space, you’ll find pretty much everything we loved about the original Gramps: rare $12 cocktails, DJs playing songs you forgot you knew all the words to, and an old school atmosphere that’ll feel familiar to anyone who’s lived here for more than 10 years. But there’s also a waterfront view and The Lazy Oyster, a pop-up serving oysters, lobster rolls, and other small seafood plates. This is the perfect way to end any Key Biscayne beach day.

photo credit: Virginia Otazo

$$$$Perfect For:Date Night

Palma is a tasting menu-only restaurant so thoughtful, the team could blindly buy your mother-in-law the perfect birthday present. The $85 menu changes every 10 to 15 days. But you can expect seven courses (and a palate cleanser) of locally sourced dishes, like fresh steamed snapper with spigarello or steak tartare wrapped in a crunchy ribbon of radish. A silver spork is the weapon of choice for attacking a meticulously scored and seared squid in mushroom ragu with pepitas, ensuring no seed or sauce is left behind. And a mid-service bread course fills the empty room in your stomach and doubts in your mind that you’ll leave famished after eating otherwise light and small portions. Plus, the dark, moody lighting and candles make it the ideal spot for a sexy night out.

photo credit: Cleveland Jennings / @eatthecanvasllc

No one seems to notice Aoko. With little to no internet footprint (and not even a sign on the door), this place feels like it was built during the sushi prohibition era, which actually was a thing in early 19th-century Japan. Thankfully, sushi makes up pretty much the entire menu here in the form of nigiri, sashimi, temaki, and maki. They have a la carte sushi and omakase options under $100. To start, order the hamachi carpaccio, which comes with tiny dollops of chimichurri, a few slivers of nori, and yuzu ponzu gel—an unexpectedly delightful trifecta right up there with the Beastie Boys. Then please, for the love of all things with gills, order at least one omakase. You’ll be chopstick fencing with your friends for the otoro. This is the place to go if you’re looking for that sweet spot within the casual to upscale sushi spectrum.

photo credit: Cleveland Jennings / @eatthecanvasllc

RESERVE A TABLE

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This Spanish restaurant in North Miami is making dishes so much more complex than its casual interior would lead you to believe. The all day menu features a bucatini carbonara with smoked idiazabal cheese that’s simultaneously light and rich. There’s also a steak tartare on a flaky croissant toast with hazelnut emulsion that’s incredibly delicate. And we haven’t even gotten to the steak. It’s cooked “al punto,” meaning your aunt Hilda who thinks a parasite will burst out of her stomach if she eats anything under medium-well will want to send it back. Do not let her. This could be the best steak in the entire city, and at $80, it’s also an excellent deal for a 30oz dry aged ribeye that comes with a side of large, crispy patatas so airy a squirrel could use them as water skis.

If you weren't fortunate enough to try Fratesi's during its pop-up days at Over Under, good news: it's back. But this time the bar pies are coming out of Tam Tam's kitchen every Sunday night. The pizza here is a very close relative of Chicago’s tavern-style pizza: ultra thin, super crispy, and with cheese that nearly covers the entire surface. The spicy demon pig boy is thankfully still on the menu. It’s topped with pickled hot peppers, charred pepperoni, Calabrian chili oil, and three types of cheese, which is the correct amount of cheese. You can also expect some crossover dishes with Tam Tam (like their incredible wings tossed in buffalo sauce). To stay up to date on all things Fratesi, keep an eye on their Instagram.

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