The 10 Restaurants That Defined Miami Dining in 2025
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We asked our contributors to the Resy Hit List to share their top dining experiences in their cities this year — to choose 10 restaurants that define the state of great dining right now. Welcome back our Best of The Hit List for 2025.
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It might feel like Miami’s culinary scene has become a blur of omakase counters and high-end Italian spots, but we’ll still never get tired of discovering new dining choices in our city. And this year, a few particular trends and newcomers stood out.
Some of our favorite new restaurants tapped into a growing desire for fancy nostalgia, whether it was a fine-dining steakhouse that still feels like the new neighborhood hang (Daniel’s) or a throwback pizzeria with cracker-thin pies and sitcom reruns (Fratesi’s Pizza).
Caribbean and Latin American influences continued to guide some of the most exciting cooking in town (Shiso, Las’ Lap Miami), while a handful of chefs leaned into deeply personal, hard-to-categorize culinary manifestations that resisted the usual labels (To Be Determined, Mutra). And another spot proved that simplicity can still feel thrilling in a city known for excess (Si Papi at 3190).
Other openings reflected Miami’s ongoing obsessions, like the ever-expanding pizza wave and the explosion of breakfast and café culture (Tina in the Gables), while one restaurant made its mark by championing a cuisine not in the spotlight (Double Luck Chinese).
Here are 10 restaurants that captured the moment, and shaped Miami’s dining scene in 2025.
1. Daniel's Miami Coral Gables
Daniel’s might be the new restaurant we dined at the most this year, despite also being the one we can least afford. Yes, you will pay a premium for quality ingredients and exceptional service, but it’s one of the few places you never leave with an ounce of regret. What makes Daniel’s so special is how it balances its fine-dining polish with the soul of a true neighborhood fixture. The Coral Gables location opened earlier this year in the former Fiola space as the Miami sibling to the Fort Lauderdale original, but with some unique menu items and expanded hours. And with diners today craving experiences that feel welcoming rather than exclusive, Daniel’s delivers: prix fixe lunch and brunch menus at approachable price points, a lively bar turning out gourmet riffs on comfort classics (think organic chicken nuggets with caviar), and DIY soft serve sundaes that unlock nostalgia.
2. Double Luck Upper Eastside
It was never just luck. As we close out the year celebrating that this favorite local pop-up is now officially a full-fledged permanent restaurant, Double Luck has proven that the Tâm Tâm crew’s gift for turning dinner into a party is the real deal. With its playful regional flair and devotion to spectacle, Double Luck has brought Miami the kind of high-energy, personality-filled Chinese dining it didn’t know it needed. The dining room glows under red lanterns with Cantopop buzzing, and servers arrive tableside to set the Hennessy orange chicken ablaze in a fiery showstopper. Even the crab rangoon goes maximalist, each crispy wonton parcel wrapped around an entire claw. By blending fun with full-throttle flavor, Double Luck channels Miami’s love of big vibes — and proves that its rise was anything but accidental.
3. Bar Bucce Little River
Pairing the feel of a neighborhood market with the energy of a wine bar and pizza counter, Bar Bucce in Little River expanded the Macchialina family’s footprint with a concept built for everyday pleasure. With its easygoing Italian charm, it’s the kind of multipurpose spot that reflects how Miami diners increasingly want to eat: casually, convivially, and with options to either linger or take the good stuff home. Walk up to the counter, grab a table, and settle in for creative pies like zucchini or amatriciana pizza, alongside antipasti and glasses of natural wine. Inside, shelves of Italian staples line the space, while the covered patio with its retractable roof keeps the atmosphere breezy and communal. Guests can pop in for aperitivo, swing by for a spontaneous lunch, or stock up on cured meats and cheeses for later.
No reservations. Find more info here.
4. To Be Determined Coral Gables
To Be Determined lives up to its name in the best possible way — a dimly lit Coral Way hideaway where the menu shifts every few weeks, and the excitement lies in discovering what the team is dreaming up next. The concept feels like fate for its two Venezuelan-born chefs, Johnny Delgado and Richard Ortega, beloved for their quick-service pop-ups, and both longtime collaborators whose creative chemistry first came alive during a pandemic-era private dinner series. They’ve built a restaurant that celebrates seasonality and spontaneity. The brief menu of nightly dishes always includes a housemade pasta that’s a highlight (past iterations have come in the form of cavatelli with crab and Calabrian butter, silky truffle cavatelli, or comforting pork cheek cappelletti in pork brodo). An even smaller Sunday brunch menu keeps the surprises coming, and meals often end with an excellent flan. TBD offers Miami a dining experience driven by curiosity, craft, and the joy of returning to see what’s next.
5. Fratesi's Pizza Miami
As Miami’s ongoing pizza renaissance keeps evolving, Fratesi’s has quickly become the spot everyone is planning around, with tables booked solid every night. Fratesi’s feels like stepping into your childhood ideal of a pizzeria: cushy red booths, stained-glass lamps casting a glow over cold drink pitchers, and sitcom reruns playing like background music. But the cracker-thin Jersey-style pies are what have made this place one of the city’s most coveted reservations. The crust is the star: light, crisp, and spread edge-to-edge with sauce, cheese, and toppings so not a single bite goes to waste. Now firmly planted in its permanent Downtown storefront, the pizzeria channels its scrappy spirit into a polished, full-scale operation that feels instantly at home on the block where it first earned its following as a pop-up.
6. Mutra North Miami
Mutra might sit in a nondescript North Miami strip mall, but step inside and it becomes one of the city’s most transporting dining experiences: an intimate, open-kitchen homage to Israeli cooking that feels more like a personal invitation than a reservation. With no shortage of Mediterranean restaurant options in town, it stands apart by rejecting the greatest-hits playbook and instead offering a menu that feels truly, refreshingly different. The wraparound counter encircling the kitchen sets the tone — you’re close enough to watch hand-stretched Yemeni bread take shape and to feel the warmth of spices perfuming the room as slow-braised dishes emerge. Named for chef Raz Shabtai’s grandmother, the restaurant embraces the soulful cooking of Jerusalem’s immigrant communities while grounding itself in Miami’s global rhythm.
7. Tina in the Gables Coral Gables
Tina in the Gables feels like the brunch spot Miami’s been building toward — a cozy café that captures the city’s Latin and coastal sensibilities in a space that feels more like your abuela’s house than a dining room. Miami’s breakfast and coffee scene has exploded this year, and Tina emerged as one of its pioneers, proving that daytime dining can be just as thoughtful and exciting as dinner. The menu is indulgent yet refined: a crispy-meets-cloudlike French toast brightened with orange zest; a wildly satisfying Sunny Side Duck layered with sunny side-up duck eggs, smoky duck breast bacon, and silky duck pâté; and lunch-leaning favorites like soft-shell crab sandwiches and picanha. The tiny space itself channels homestyle charm with brown-rimmed plates, woven-seated chairs, and a warmth that makes lingering feel natural.
No reservations. Find more info here.
8. Si Papa at 3190 Coconut Grove
Si Papa might be one of Miami’s most delightfully simple dining experiences: a narrow Coconut Grove bar serving exactly one thing: lasagna. Suggesting we can’t quite keep up with all the big, shiny openings and encyclopedic menus, this lasagna-only “speakeasy” feels a little like a rebellion. The owners have tapped into a moment in Miami dining where choice fatigue is real, and diners are increasingly drawn to concepts that strip away the noise. Here, the ritual is the point: slip into the intimate space, order your single bubbling slab of lasagna, and settle into the cozy pleasure of not having to think too hard. It’s the latest hit from 84 Magic Hospitality, the group behind a growing collection of one-item menus and the quirk of analog reservations (you have to call in — scary, we know, but the fact that people are picking up the phone is proof that the formula resonates). In a city known for going over-the-top, Si Papa is graciously giving us the option to keep things uncomplicated.
Find more info here.
9. Shiso Wynwood
Shiso might be new to Wynwood, but it feels like it was destined for the neighborhood — a vibrant, art-forward Asian smokehouse that speaks the same bold, streetwise language as the murals outside its doors. Chef Raheem Sealey has created an entirely new culinary vocabulary here, blending the Japanese techniques he honed at Pao and Zuma with the wood-fired flavor of his former Drinking Pig BBQ pop-up and subtle nods to his St. Croix heritage. Shareable smoked-meat platters arrive alongside sushi that threads Caribbean soul through Japanese precision, all within a two-story space buzzing with energy, from the open kitchen and graffiti-splashed walls to an outdoor lounge that keeps the night going. And we’re equally excited to check out the new brick-and-mortar of Sealey’s Drinking Pig, which just opened in Coconut Grove.
10. Las' Lap Miami Miami Beach
By embracing both his own Afro-Caribbean heritage and Miami’s multicultural influences, star chef Kwame Onwuachi is giving the city a Caribbean culinary moment worthy of its appetites. Tucked along a quiet South Beach canal framed by mangroves, Las’ Lap hums with the confidence of a place intent on putting down real roots. Tasked with leading the kitchen of this West Indies-inspired rum bar and restaurant, Onwuachi has crafted a menu that spans Trinidadian, Haitian. and Latin influences, delivering bold yet nuanced expressions of Caribbean cooking. The dishes are layered and elevated: escovitch crab claws arrive with a tangy, piquant puree you’ll be tempted to eat by the spoonful, while pimento-smoked sticky wings — messy, sweet, and jerk-spiced — capture the restaurant’s playful sophistication. With a genuinely warm, well-versed team and weekend rooftop programming that keeps the energy going late into the night, Las’ Lap is the kind of South Beach spot worth crossing the causeway.
