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What started as a quest to bake better bread for Miami-born Mediterranean-Israeli restaurant Motek turned into the best bakery in Miami. Sesame Bakery, tucked inside North Miami’s SoLé Mia, blends European technique with bold Israeli flavors. The menu ranges from pistachio financiers and flaky croissants to Jerusalem bagels and bourekas stuffed with potato or spinach. It’s an all-day brunch dream, with shakshuka, schnitzel sandwiches, and avocado toast that go way beyond basic. Inside, rattan chairs and soft pink hues make the 5,000-square-foot space as much of a vibe as the food itself. While it’s kosher-style, there’s nothing buttoned-up about the menu, which is bright, modern, and wildly flavorful. Whether you’re here for a morning pastry and latte or a full Mediterranean brunch, Sesame has quickly proven it’s more than Motek’s side hustle. It’s a bakery destination in its own right.

A good mall is a centralized location for a wide variety of stores. But a great mall supplies all the consumer goods one’s heart could ever desire. With more than 300 retailers, Aventura Mall is a great mall — to the point where leaving empty-handed often feels like Mission Impossible. High-end designers? Gucci, Valentino — check! A spot for local sneakerheads? Kick Essentials — check! Fast fashion? There’s a two-story Zara — check! Even if you felt like you’ve lapped the mall enough times to know its blueprint by heart, new stores are constantly added to the roster, including the popular women’s boutique Aritzia (which opened this past spring) and new athleisure brands Vuori and Alo Yoga (coming soon). With sit-down and fast-casual restaurants, such as Toku Modern Asian, Pubbelly Sushi, Motek (and its street-food offshoot Yalla Motek), “shopping till you drop” is no longer a worry. Be sure to check out the Aventura Slide Tower before you leave — no trip to Aventura Mall is complete without a 93-foot glide down German conceptual artist Carsten Höller’s steel-and-glass structure. (Editor’s note: The slide is closed for the summer, but a spokesperson for the mall assures us it will reopen in November.)

When most of us think of malls, we think of grabbing an Auntie Anne’s to stave off hunger pangs before shoe shopping. But Aventura Mall is home to a plethora of delicious, locally based restaurants. One of the most delightful of those is Motek Café, where you can enjoy brunch all day. The menu is so tempting that it’s hard to choose — creamy hummus, kebabs, an Israeli salad, avocado toast — but the “don’t miss” is Motek’s shakshuka, a tangy dish of baked eggs, tomatoes, and peppers served in its skillet with an oversize Jerusalem bagel. Fuel up on hibiscus tea or a mimosa and you’ll leave all fueled up for your shopping. (Note: Motek operates a location in downtown Miami and a third is on the way in Miami Beach.)

It’s been a long morning. First there was the guy who brought back his Rolex Presidential complaining about a scratch. You saw his pictures on Instagram. What did he think was going to happen wakeboarding? Then there was the couple who wanted Cartier love bracelets, the ones with diamond, but didn’t want to pay for them. Some days it’d be easier to hawk lychees on the side of a road. Thankfully, beloved Israeli chef Einat Admony’s Motek Café sits on the ground floor of the Seybold Building and in this bright (but not jewelry-case-bright) space, you can relax with the flaky Yemeni flatbread called malawach ($9.95), a simple plate of hummus with pita ($8.95), or the heftier Arayes burger ($16.95) in which juicy Lebanese spiced beef is given a hard char on the grill, then packed into a pita. Eat slow, because afterward it’s back to the diamond mines.