Miami Food + Drinks Worth Seeking

City Florida

Miami is a scenic South Florida city with endless waterfront and Latin flavor.

GUIDE CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Learn about 11 places you should eat and drink in Miami, the flavor bridge between the U.S. and Latin America and a hotbed for NYC imports, based on my visit from July 1-4, 2016. Featured selections appear in alphabetical order.

7. Fireman Derek’s Bake Shop


Bakery Miami

Fireman Derek’s coffee flan was impressive, straddling a beautiful bittersweet line.

Sweetness sometimes arises from tragedy. Such is the case with Fireman Derek’s Bake Shop. When Patrick Murdock passed away in 2013, wife Kim Murdock stayed true to her husband’s word, investing in a Wynwood bakery with fellow Miami firefighter Derek Kaplan. The colorful bakery features red tables and chairs, a pie mural on an alley wall, and blackboard menus. Cases contain chicken pot pies, pies, donuts, quiche, muffins, coffee cake, and croissants. Since I was in South Florida, I opted for a textbook Key lime pie with Graham cracker crust and coffee flan.

MUST ORDER: Key Lime Pie, Coffee Flan

8. Mignonette

Seafood Miami

Mignonette’s popcorn conch stars tender mollusk meat marinated for 24 hours in buttermilk and lightly battered with flour.

Miami native Daniel Serfer built on Blue Collar’s success by opening Mignonette in Miami’s emerging Media and Entertainment District in 2014. This glass-fronted former gas station features brown cushioned banquettes, marble tables and bar, and a school of fish on the back wall. Daily specials and oysters appear on movie theatre-style marquee. You’re probably smart to order a seafood tower, which looked good to my left, but I focused on individual plates. Sweet chilled South African lobster tail left a large carbon footprint, but paired well with cocktail sauce, lemon, and chives. Lightly battered popcorn conch arrived in a mountain. Skip red fish with beurre blanc, which was sadly overcooked. However, sautéed spinach & watercress was a worthy supplement. Inquire about “today’s pie” and you may be rewarded with a slice of buttermilk pie with raspberry compote that was served too cold, but not too sweet.

MUST ORDER: Popcorn Conch, Sauteed Spinach & Watercress, Today’s Pie

9. Panther Coffee

Coffee Miami

Panther Coffee pairs house-roasted coffee with tantalizing pastries.

“The tiger cannot change its stripes,” as an adage says, but a panther can clearly change its coat. Joel Pollock and wife Leticia Ramos co-founded Panther Coffee in Miami’s then-burgeoning Wynwood neighborhood in 2010. The couple now operates three coffeehouses around the city, and they’ve revamped the look and feel of this original cafe in a hotter-than ever neighborhood. Their red, white, and green color scheme is gone, replaced by a brown coat. They continue to roast in-house, resulting in tantalizing espresso drinks and cold brew.

MUST ORDER: Espresso Drinks, Nitro Black

10. Vice City Bean

Coffee Miami

Vice City Bean plays on Miami depictions and serves serious coffee drinks like Spro Tonic.

Miami, a city that was glamorized in “Miami Vice” and “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” inspired Eva Baker and husband Roland to open Vice City Bean this spring in Miami’s Media and Entertainment District. The airy space from two entertainment industry vets features a giant Erneste Maranje mural starring a tropical bird with fetching green plumage. A white two-group La Marzocco espresso machine and MadCap Coffee beans both contribute to their excellent Spro & Tonic. A fresh-pulled double shot joins punchy East Imperial Burma Tonic over ice in a Collins glass with an orange peel garnish. Vice City Bean also makes satisfying espresso drinks and has Chemex at their brewing disposal.

MUST ORDER: Spro & Tonic, Espresso Drinks

11. Zak the Baker

Bakery Miami

Zak the Baker serves fantastic versions of Jewish baked goods like babka.

A basic BAKERY sign lines smooth coat stucco, belying the ambition of Zak Stern, the impressively bearded chef-owner of Zak the Baker in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. Stern runs the humble bakery-cafe with wife Batsheva Wulfsohn, drawing lines out the door by baiting customers with pastries from the reclaimed wood counter and a butcher paper menu. Latke is especially epic, with a crusty coat and buttery, creamy core, plated with savory country-smoked tuna, fried egg, and tarragon. Creative toasts on crusty slabs of house-baked bread come topped with combos like ricotta, orange curd, and lemon; and sunflower seed & sesame butter with local fruit conserve. Swing by the counter for sweets like rugelach with raisins and cinnamon.

MUST ORDER: Latke, Ricotta Toast, Sunflower Seed & Sesame Butter Toast, Babka

Tags:

Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

Leave a Comment