Thinking about some piece of days-off and you just picked Miami as your destination? Want some ‘must-try’ tips about the best places to dine out with your date or your friends? Stay with us and know our Top 10 Restaurants in Miami.

10 – Palme d’Or

For high-class fine French dining, Palme d’Or, located in Coral Gables’ Biltmore Hotel, has been consistently rated not just one of Miami’s best restaurants, but one of the finest in all of Florida. Light woods, white tablecloths, chandeliers, and, of course, palm trees create a stylish and classy, yet unstuffy, atmosphere, the perfect location to enjoy a five-course prix fixe menu that utilizes only the freshest seasonal ingredients in ways that elevate traditional French cuisine to modern, envelope-pushing extremes.

Appetizers include sea urchin with lemongrass, ginger gelée, and lemon cream; and marinated langoustine with Osetra caviar, passion fruit tapioca, and vodka gelée; entrées include potato-crusted sweetbread with green asparagus, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Ibérico ham, and warm black truffle vinaigrette, and foie gras-stuffed quail with porcini, creamy mash, and black olive sauce.

 

9 – Pubbelly

Miami’s first Asian-inspired gastropub, Pubbelly is quickly on its way to become well-known across the country. The brainchild of Andreas Schreiner, Jose Mendin, and Sergio Navarro, this perpetually packed casual spot, located on the west end of Miami Beach, is not only one of the most creative restaurants in Miami, it’s also one of the most fun.

Pâtés, duck and pork rillettes, terrines, sausages, and pickles are all made in-house, and round out a charmingly creative menu that changes daily, but always includes ramen and udon in ways you’ve never seen them before (like carbonara-inspired), a raw bar, dumplings will fillings like short rib and corn or pastrami and sauerkraut, and a wide selection of small plates for sharing, like fried chicken, BBQ pork wings, and grilled octopus. For the adventurous eater, no visit to Miami is complete without a visit to Pubbelly (or its sister restaurant, Pubbelly Sushi).

 

8 – Pascal’s on Ponce

This contemporary French restaurant located in Coral Gables is one of the city’s most consistently stellar restaurants, thanks to chef Pascal Oudin’s strong guiding hand. The dining room is simple and small, and the menu is equally simple and refined, with classics like bouillabaisse and Gruyère soufflé complemented by inventive entrées like diver sea scallops topped with beef short rib, young fennel, carrot vichy, and fava beans. It’s not one of the flashier restaurants on the scene, but it’s a temple to French cooking at its most precise.

 

7 – Prime 112

This steakhouse from renowned chef Myles Chefetz is one of the centerpieces of the popular South of Fifth neighborhood. Steaks range from an 8-ounce filet mignon to a 48-ounce porterhouse, served with a vast selection of sauces and butters, and are dry-aged for up to a month. Sides include the classically decadent truffled mac and cheese, house-made tater tots, and other steakhouse classics, but you’ll have a great meal even if you’re not big into steak: there’s a wide selection of salads, seafood, and even Chefetz’s interpretation of chicken and waffles.

 

6 – Michy’s

Chef Michelle Bernstein has become nationally renowned for her eponymous restaurant, a beacon in the “Upper East Side” neighborhood. The whimsical, energetic room will put you in the mood for the exciting meal to come, which includes a wide selection of fresh seafood as well as playful dishes like squash blossoms with shrimp mousseline, cheesy grits, and Tabasco nage; seared foie gras with ox tail tart tatin and apple cider gastrique; “tiny diced seafood spaghetti;” whole yellowtail snapper with Malaysian curry; and short rib pot-au-feu with marrow and jus.

 

5 – The Bazaar by José Andrés

Chef José Andrés is one of the country’s finest, and at The Bazaar, which also has a location in Beverly Hills, he’s experimenting with Spanish cuisine in a way nobody else has. Located in a stunning space in South Beach’s SLS Hotel, the Philippe Starck-designed restaurant features playful lounge spaces, an indoor “piazza,” and an elegant main dining room.

The fascinatingly experimental menu artfully combines the Old World and the new, with everything from Singaporean street food to a “bagels and lox”-inspired cone to smoked oysters to Cuban-inspired coffee-rubbed churrasco pushing the boundaries of fine modern dining. Some call it molecular gastronomy; we call it genius.

 

4 – Naoe

For sushi lovers, you won’t find anything to top Naoe in the city. The sushi here would be considered some of the best around even in Japan, and at this tiny, eight-seat temple to raw fish, you can let sushi master Kevin Cory, called the “Omakase King,” be your guide. The accolades for Naoe just keep piling up: Five stars from Forbes Travel Guide, named one of the country’s best sushi restaurants by Travel + Leisure, a nomination for best new chef from Food & Wine, and so on.

If you can snag a reservation (only 16 guests are served each night), you’ll be presented with a selection of some of the freshest seafood imaginable, from both Japanese and local waters. There’s horse mackerel topped with fresh wasabi, fresh-roasted and basted eel, urchin-topped egg tofu, cured squid, Scottish salmon belly… the selection goes on and on, and by the time your meal is through, you’ll never look at sushi the same way again.

 

3 – Michael’s Genuine

According to Michael Schwartz, winner of the 2010 James Beard Award for Best Southern Chef, the most important thing you can take away from dining at his 2008 New York Times top 10 establishment is: Know Your Source. The restaurant procures its Old World rustic-breed chickens, for instance, from North Carolina’s Joyce Foods, the only producer of Label Rouge poultry in the U.S. Heirloom tomatoes figure not only on the menu here (more than once), but also as décor in the minimalist dining room.

 

2 – Joe’s Stone Crab

According to Michael Schwartz, winner of the 2010 James Beard Award for Best Southern Chef, the most important thing you can take away from dining at his 2008 New York Times top 10 establishment is: Know Your Source. The restaurant procures its Old World rustic-breed chickens, for instance, from North Carolina’s Joyce Foods, the only producer of Label Rouge poultry in the U.S. Heirloom tomatoes figure not only on the menu here (more than once), but also as décor in the minimalist dining room.

 

1 – Yardbird Southern Table and Bar

No one in his right mind would consider Miami the South, but Northern Florida-raised and Charleston-trained chef Jeff McInnis felt he needed to bring Southern cooking to the continental United States’ southernmost state. The result is Yardbird, and it has received a lot of accolades since it opened last year. Most of the meals are served family-style and the bar is also Southern-influenced, with the majority of drinks made with bourbon. Even though McInnis left the restaurant and was replaced by Clay Miller in July, the restaurant’s philosophy hasn’t changed and it’s still going strong.