The 12 Best Lunch Spots In Miami - Miami - The Infatuation (2024)

photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC

Most days involve a rushed lunch break that spans the length of a Youtuber’s apology video. These lunches generally consist of sad cobb salads and factory-made mini muffins. But lunch deserves better than that. And whether you have the day off or your boss is getting their wisdom teeth extracted, you deserve an obnoxiously long and overindulgent lunch. We’re talking dozens of oysters, fancy French pastries, and getting on a first-name basis with your server. Here’s to a little food vacation in the middle of your day.

THE SPOTS

Cote for lunch is a lot like Cote for dinner—just not as dark. You can do the $74 butcher's feast prix fixe menu for lunch, which is the best way to eat at this Korean steakhouse for under $100 per person. But there are also dishes exclusive to lunch, like a Korean crudo, black truffle shrimp salad, and something called a "shicken" sandwich, which consists of a fried patty of chicken and minced shrimp (it was sold out when we went, but we are very curious). The other perk of Cote's lunch is easier reservations. You can roll out of bed at 9am and find an open table at noon.

When Miami’s road ragers, rising rent prices, and wet air start to irritate us more than usual, La Viña reminds us why we put up with this city's nonsense in the first place. This Cuban strip mall restaurant in Hialeah probably hasn’t changed since it first opened in 1983 and that’s a great thing. It’scash-only and makes our favorite versions of Cuban classics like ropa vieja and pollo empanizado at ridiculously low prices. Come with a few friends, order more than your hearts can handle, and spread chisme until your butts start to ache.

Sushi Erika is only open for lunch, and if you don't want to deal with a long wait, show up 10 or 15 minutes before they open. Erika has a big menu and we endorse all of it. If you want singular pieces of outstanding nigiri, look at the whiteboard on the wall to see the day's specials. Otherwise, an order of squid leg karaage and a few rolls are the way to go. We really love the marie roll, with spicy tuna, shiso, and roasted garlic crumbles. Same with the spicy scallop roll and pretty much everything we've ever eaten in this small, bright dining room. There's a reason those people in the corner are waiting for a table.

If you want really good sushi, but do not want to deal with the Sushi Erika wait, then go to Yasu Tanaka. There are two locations in Miami now: the original in the Design District and one in Downtown. Both are great places for fancy sushi with zero dress code or need for a reservation. They sell nigiri by the piece, but the best options are the omakase platters that range from $40 to $60. Get one—plus a hand roll—if you're in the mood to spend a little too much money on nigiri for one.

Caffe Abbracci looks like a scene from a cult Italian movie, and lunch here should run the length of two of those movies (rolling credits included). For an afternoon that feels like a micro holiday, sit outside and order a bottle of wine for the table. Start with the razor-thin beef carpaccio then move on to pasta. Each is good and portioned to feed you for the next two days. After finishing a rich square of tiramisu, make friends with the people next to you, who are also having a Tuesday afternoon for the books. Invite them to a nearby cigar bar to keep the opulence going.

You’re having lunch at Yann for the same reason you’re getting an expensive manicure or purchasing literally anything from the Design District—to indulge and pretend your father is a count and your last name is Hermès. The fox-obsessed Wynwood café makes good and dainty French food like finger sandwiches, avocado toast, and a crab mille-feuille—all elegant (and expensive) enough for tea time. When you’re done having several little bites, turn your head to the beautiful display of pastries for dessert. They make an excellent merveille with a hard chocolate shell of decorative foxes and a hazelnut and meringue filling (it’s a glorified Ferrero Rocher).

If you’ve exhausted all your vacation days by Q2, then you might have to settle for a long lunch at Mandolin, which is the closest you’re coming to Mykonos this year. The beautiful (mostly) outdoor restaurant has lots of delicious shareable plates and a white sangria that’s appropriate to drink before 5pm. Between the baba ghanoush and the restaurant's blue and white color scheme, the only thing that’ll remind you you’re not vacationing in Greece is the notification on your phone to extend your parking.

If it wasn’t already obvious by the glass cloches, abundance of microgreens, and monogrammed ice cubes, L’Atelier is an expensive tweezer restaurant that makes beautifully delicate food at severe prices. But if you come for lunch, you can get a three-course meal for $89 per person (with the option to add entrees from the regular menu, like a $73 pigeon stuffed with foie gras). It’s the cheapest way to experience this restaurant, and it’s very good if you’re into fussy fine dining. Though the menu changes with the seasons, expect things like sea bream with mushroom ragout, lobster ravioli, or perfect strips of chicken with a side of mashed potatoes that are mostly butter.

Le Jardinier is downstairs from L’Atelier. The menus are different, but they're spiritually alike—both are fancy special occasion French restaurants. Le Jardineir also has a prix fixe lunch menu that we actually enjoy more than the restaurant's pricier dinner. You've got two options: a two-course menu for $39, and a four-course one for $85. The $39 won't leave you stuffed, but it's satisfying and a tremendous deal for the kind of meticulous trust fund dishes you'll encounter. Options change seasonally, but you can expect beautiful crudo, gazpacho, and we've never been disappointed by a steak here. They also have a tremendous co*cktail menu, with drinks that somehow deliver on an ingredients list the size of an amicus brief.

Edan Bistro is the closest we plebeians will ever come to having a personal chef prepare our lunch. The dining room, with its mostly bare walls and empty deli case, isn’t glamorous. But the Basque restaurant in North Miami has an all-day menu that includes foams, caviar, and truffles in fancy dishes you’d expect from a chef toiling away in a billionaire’s home. Your chances of seeing that chef are high. He’s the one in the white coat taking your order, bringing you croquetas filled with smoked shiitake mushrooms, and compelling you to order Miami’s best steak as rare as you can stand it (listen to him).

Brickell is full of overpriced restaurants that leave both your wallet and stomach empty. But this reliably great seafood spot isn’t one of them. The oysters are fantastic—and a great chaser to the salty tears you cried in the bathroom stall this morning after your boss called you an incompetent turkey. But forget work and take the rest of the day to eat giant crab cakes and seared scallops with your unemployed friends who will probably expect you to pick up the check. Service here is friendly and, because this is Brickell, pretty nonjudgemental. They’ve seen it all. So if you want to have another good cry in their bathroom, have at it.

You want to get the hell out of Miami and take a last-minute trip to New York or Paris. But you don’t have a private jet or even enough vacation days to make it to Epcot. What you do have is a singular day off and enough gas to get to Pastis in Wynwood. The French bistro is the fraternal twin of New York’s Pastis, except ours comes with an outdoor patio where you can drink a miniature martini and watch designer dogs beg for crispy fries. But if the weather is feeling swampy, head inside, rest your arms on the cold zinc bar, and make sure you finish lunch strong with profiteroles.