Brickell is the kind of place to take out-of-town guests to wow them with eye-catching spots like Komodo and Delilah Miami. It's also the kind of place to take those with a global and refined taste palate, like Zeru Miami, a Mediterranean-Basque restaurant that hails from Mexico City, or La Mar by Gastón Acurio, a Nikkei-Peruvian restaurant that sits beautifully overlooking the bay on Brickell Key.
Whether you're craving French cuisine, Asian fusion, Italian, or something in between, Brickell has a restaurant that will satisfy anyone.
In alphabetical order, New Times has listed the ten best restaurants in Brickell.
Casa Tua Cucina
70 SW Seventh St., Miami305-755-0320
casatualife.com/cucinaCasa Tua Cucina offers an array of choices for hungry shoppers craving Italian-style sustenance. The 300-seat space includes ten dining stations, each with a different chef at the helm and all sharing a kitchen. It's also family-friendly, with a casual atmosphere and affordable prices. Throughout the market, visitors can also find artisan products available to take home. All of the items were carefully chosen from smaller producers, including coffee imported from Naples, Italy, and an abundance of Italian olive oils and jars of honey from Key West.
Delilah Miami's dining room features light pink, teal, and gold mixed with the restaurant's luxurious style.
Delilah Miami/The H.wood Group photo
Delilah Miami
301 Brickell Key Dr., Miami305-400-4657
hwoodgroup.comThe h.wood Group from Los Angeles' famed Delilah restaurant and supper club has officially opened its doors in Brickell. It's so notorious, in fact, that Drake himself has mentioned the restaurant in a song. The waterfront restaurant and lounge has an outdoor terrace overlooking Biscayne Bay and a moody dining room with a custom stage that transitions into a lounge for bottle service, signature cocktails, and live entertainment. Led by executive chef Daniel Roy, Delilah Miami serves elevated American fare, such as its famous chicken tenders and "Kendall's Slutty Brownie" (named after Kendall Jenner). The menu also infuses Latin-inspired flavors and ingredients such as coconut and lychee, paying homage to the Magic City.
Edge
1435 Brickell Ave., Miami (located inside Four Seasons Hotel Miami)305-381-3190
edgerestaurantmiami.comQuality food that looks and tastes great will fit most folks' bill, even more so if it's fairly priced. Understanding this concept is what gives Edge the edge over competitors in the steakhouse and hotel restaurant games. The seafood and steaks are offered in small, medium, and large cuts, with prices to match. Delicious dishes range from Hokkaido scallop risotto with spring peas, pickled pepper, and salsa verde to grilled Rohan duck with maduro glaze, Caribbean curry, spring onions, and coconut rice. Desserts and cocktails are equally as delicious, such as the "Chai Flip" cocktail made with cognac, chai tea syrup, Orgeat, cardamon, and lemon.
Kaori
871 S. Miami Ave., Miami786-878-4493
kaorimiami.comWithin the chaos of Brickell's traffic and drawbridge, Kaori offers a serene escape embellished with clean wood accents reminiscent of a modern art museum with thought-provoking dishes in lieu of abstract paintings. The Asian-inspired menu is visually complex and ingredient-driven, including the Wagyu and foie gras gyoza with doubanjiang sauce, goma sauce, and leeks; the beef tenderloin paired with Japanese sweet potato; and the bluefin tuna sashimi, which is served with crisp sunchoke, coconut-lime sauce, spiced coconut gel, and Thai basil oil. Come for the restaurant's happy hour, which runs Tuesday through Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m., for elevated cocktails and $1 oysters served with a shiso mignonette.
Komodo
801 Brickell Ave., Miami305-534-2211
komodomiami.comIn the late 1990s and early 2000s, Miami Beach's China Grill was the place to see and be seen. Paparazzi swarmed the restaurant for snaps of the city's heavy hitters like Sly Stallone and other former Star Island residents. Fast-forward to today, and China Grill honcho Jeffrey Chodorow partnered with David Grutman, the mind behind the insanity at clubs like LIV and Story, to turn the once-dormant ground floor of a Brickell office building into a thumping Asian-fusion oasis. At Komodo, you can find truffled beef tartare, miso Chilean sea bass, and king crab lo mein. Yet the high is the restaurant's Peking duck — the apple of Grutman's eye and the first thing you see as you approach the crimson-and-black restaurant. The kitchen took out ads in the city's Chinese newspaper to find its duck masters, and today a trio undertakes the perpetual, painstaking process that gives these birds their crisp skin and succulent flesh. If you ever become a famous DJ, the owners might even invite you into the kitchen to create your own dessert (like they did with EDM wunderkind Kygo).
La Mar by Gastón Acurio has been serving Peruvian-Nikkei cuisine in Brickell for ten years.
La Mar by Gastón Acurio photo
La Mar by Gastón Acurio
500 Brickell Key Dr., Miami (located inside the Mandarin Oriental)305-913-8358
mandarinoriental.comPeruvian culinary ambassador Gastón Acurio has his Miami outpost at the chic Mandarin Oriental on Brickell Key, a restaurant that merges the humble cevicherías of Lima with the elegance of fine dining and the bold flavors of Nikkei cuisine. Orchestrated by Acurio protégé Diego Oka, who has honed his career at restaurants around the globe, the menu elevates Peruvian classics — such as the cold casseroles known as causas and the grilled, skewered meats (anticuchos) — to heights of refinement that make even the most squeamish first-timers swoon.
LPM Restaurant & Bar serves delicious dishes like this veal ragù pappardelle.
LPM Restaurant & Bar photo
LPM Restaurant & Bar
1300 Brickell Bay Dr., Miami305-401-9133
lpmrestaurants.com/miamiLPM Restaurant and Bar features a relaxed restaurant atmosphere with a Cote d'Azur feel serving a mix of southern French and Italian cuisine. The French-Mediterranean restaurant's curated menu selections are delivered to you in sustainable canvas totes, hand-painted by the staff, and containing the LPM's trademark table setting: a bottle of olive oil, a tomato, a lemon, and a freshly baked baguette. We recommend adding signature dishes such as burrata with tomatoes and basil, grilled lamb cutlets with smoked aubergine, slow-cooked duck legs with orange glaze, and vanilla cheesecake.
The River Oyster Bar is a classic Brickell restaurant known for its seafood.
The River Oyster Bar photo
The River Oyster Bar
33 SE Seventh St., Ste. 100, Miami305-530-1915
therivermiami.comLocated in the heart of Brickell, the River Seafood & Oyster Bar is one of Miami's top happy-hour destinations for busy professionals. The cuisine offers a modern twist on classic seafood and a reprieve from the Miami heat in a sleek yet comfortable dining room. The restaurant is known for its ice-packed selection of hand-shucked, cold-water oysters, hand-selected local produce, and fresh cold-water fish brought in from Alaska.
Stanzione 87
87 SW Eighth St., Miami786-360-1852
stanzione87.comEven as many schmancy restaurants keep popping up in Brickell, Stanzione 87 manages to continue to deliver on its promise of a top-quality meal, in this case, pizza. The wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pies arrive with their crusts perfectly blistered, their centers impossibly molten. Opt for classic Margherita if you're a purist, or top it with sausage and peppers for a flavor bomb. Those who are feeling more adventurous might opt for the decadent truffle white pizza. (More of a subs and wings type? Stanzione's fine if you skip the pizza altogether.) But whatever you do, leave room for the Nutella calzone.
Zeru Miami
1395 Brickell Ave., Miami786-809-1395
zerumiami.comSure, Zeru Miami serves Basque cuisine, ranging from tasty pintxos (snacks) to socarrats (rice dishes that mimic the burned, stuck-to-the-pan part of paella). And we know how a separatist Vascongado might feel about getting lumped in with anything that says Spain, even for an award. But since Zeru offers a range of the country's cuisine, with most of the main courses and side dishes cooked on a very Spanish Josper grill, we figure it fits within the parameters just fine. That said, while Zeru mines inspiration from Spain, it takes its cue from quality and sources proteins from all over the world, including a don't-miss Alaskan king crab with miso glaze, a Wagyu tomahawk, and Japanese Kobe strip loin.
