North of Wynwood and the Design District, a massive, two-story world-cuisine-inspired restaurant and rooftop lounge filled with lush greenery serves poblano pesto gnocchi ($19) and salmon a la plancha ($26). Created by Roberto and Fiorella Blanco — the husband-and-wife duo behind downtown Miami's Fratelli Milano — the restaurant, whose name means "view" in Spanish and Italian, reflects the owners' goal to introduce Miami to a new kind of world menu. In addition to offering large indoor and outdoor dining areas, Vista boasts the neighborhood's first rooftop bar. Offering a rotating lineup of live music, it's a convenient stop for a predinner snack or a nightcap. Downstairs, Vista serves an all-day menu of items such as a sweet grilled pear salad with stracciatella and toasted pine nuts ($12); an eight-ounce burger made with a blend of sirloin, brisket, and rib-eye that's garnished with portobello mushrooms, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomato spread ($18); and a daily rotating risotto ($18 to $26), as well as Sunday brunch. Summer hours are noon to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. The rooftop bar is open from 5:30 p.m. till closing Thursday through Saturday.

Readers' choice: Ball & Chain

Smokey Trails chef/owner Greg Moody is a one-man machine who doesn't have time to coddle customers. He's tending to his brisket ($16 per pound), that most fickle and unforgiving piece of meat that, when seasoned, smoked, and properly rested, is smoke-ringed sustenance for the gods. Though most of Miami's barbecue options are a hybrid of grilling and smoking that seems to have originated in Georgia, Moody grew up learning to cook in Mississippi and follows the low-and-slow method that's ubiquitous throughout the South. Today, Moody maintains his unwavering commitment to excellence that makes the hulking offset smoker attached to his pickup truck Miami's Holy Grail of smoked meat. If he wants to talk, Moody will talk; otherwise, just enjoy and let the man do his work. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.

Readers' choice: Shorty's Bar-B-Q

Love them or hate them, it's impossible to dispute the role travel shows have played in spreading food obsessions around the globe. Few of those trends are as desirable as the Nordic hot dog. Alchemy Dogs has transported a bit of that magic to Miami, offering topnotch wieners (or smoky roasted carrots) to area farmers' markets. There's the classic Great Dane, with crispy onions, curry mayo, and dill cucumber coins ($7), and the popular Bronx, with onions, purple sauerkraut and pickled mustard seeds ($7). With Alchemy Dogs, you can get a taste of Scandinavia without leaving the South Florida heat. Find them Saturdays at the Upper Eastside Farmers Market in Legion Park on Biscayne Boulevard at NE 66th Street.

Owner Matt Kuscher originally said his Wynwood spot, Kush, was meant to be a beer bar with a few snacks. So much for planning, because nowadays, locals and tourists fill the North Miami Avenue sidewalk outside the restaurant eager to tear into burgers like the Johnny Utah, topped with hot pastrami, sliced tomato, shredded lettuce, diced white onions, cheddar cheese, and a secret sauce ($15), or the gator tacos, with garlic aioli-doused tail meat packed into crunchy corn tortillas with house pico ($15). No need for any guilt here either: All of the meat comes from Fort McCoy Ranch near Ocala and is ground in-house every day. Hours are noon to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, noon to midnight Thursday, and noon to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Readers' choice: Kyu

Preparations for this $23 beast begin about a month before your craving hits. Deep in the underbelly of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach is a chilled, well-aerated room where hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of beef is dry-aged. Among the racks of ribs, a hulking cow shoulder slowly withers. Evaporation concentrates and intensifies the meat's flavor. Bacteria slowly breaks down the tough connective tissues, giving the meat a gentle texture and a deliciously nutty aroma. After a month, the huge slab is trimmed down, run through a grinder, grilled, and finally tucked into a bun with double-smoked bacon, American cheese sauce, lettuce, and secret sauce. Behold the dry-aged steak burger at Pizza & Burger by Michael Mina. Be patient. Perfection takes time. Hours are 5 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 1 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Readers' choice: Kush

Two crucial questions plague Miami. First, when will the sea rise above the sand and sweep our fair city into the ocean? Second, is it permissible to put cheese on a frita? Conventional wisdom says no. The nearly four-decade-old El Rey de las Fritas' namesake sandwich ($4) tastes great without cheese thanks to its beef-and-chorizo patty, a handful of freshly made papitas — a recent improvement — and a squirt of ketchup. But hold your tongue when your Anglo friends feel the need to slap a slab of cheese on top of their fritas here. If they like El Rey enough, maybe you can persuade them to go without the cheese on their next visit. Hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Making Neapolitan pizzas is easy, right? You'd think you'd simply need to stretch out some dough, slap on some toppings, and pop the thing into a blazing-hot brick oven for a few minutes. But at Brickell's Stanzione 87, the process is decidedly more complex. Owner Franco Stanzione orchestrates a carefully choreographed dance inside his mosaic-covered pizza oven, which can cook up to five 12-inch pies at a time, and each spot cooks differently. On a busy night, when dozens of orders for pies are buzzing into the kitchen, accidentally ripping a pie or spilling its toppings can cool one of the oven's five differentiated spots, making it unusable until it reheats. Just think about that the next time you bite into a slice of the carbonara ($17) or sausage and bell pepper ($15) pies. Hours are noon to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Readers' choice: Steve's Pizza

When chef/owner Justin Flit announced the closure of Proof, one of Midtown's most beloved restaurants, customers were desperate for one last fix. But then Flit worked out a semipermanent pop-up inside Taurus Beer & Whiskey House, one of Miami's oldest bars. A wood-burning oven behind the bar churns out some of Proof's most popular items, including a lineup of pizzas and the cheesy, double-patty Proof burger ($15). The restaurant-inside-a-restaurant has become so beloved that the bar actually requires reservations to score one of Proof's burgers. Yeah, they're that good. Hours are 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 3 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Readers' choice: Bombay Darbar

In the past year, more than a dozen food halls have opened across South Florida, but only one has a lineup as stellar as the Citadel's. The mixed-use complex, which also offers shopping, entertainment, and office space, includes concepts from a handful of Miami's most popular chefs and restaurants, including Steve Santana's Taquiza, Richard Hales' Sakaya Kitchen, and Antonio Bachour's Bachour. The owners of Stanzione 87 are behind a wood-fired Neapolitan pizza spot — Ash! Pizza Parlor — while the Wynwood restaurant Palmar serves its take on Chinese cuisine. That means you can get the best of Miami's local food without hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood. Plus, the Citadel also boasts a 5,000-square-foot rooftop bar and lounge that's open Wednesday through Saturday. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Readers' choice: 1-800-Lucky

Guests at Isabelle's Grill Room & Garden in Coconut Grove's Ritz-Carlton frequent the hotel restaurant to sip elegant cocktails with fancy names. The restaurant's eight-ounce filet mignon ($42) and oysters ($18 for a half-dozen) are also divine, but not everyone wants to keep it fancy all the time. Sometimes you're just in the mood for some comforting mac and cheese. When the craving strikes, leave your calorie-counting at the door and dig into Isabelle's Mac & Cheese ($10). This dish is made with a heavy cream-based béchamel, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and its lesser-known relative, Crucolo cheese, which also hails from northern Italy. The pasta used is cavatappi, twisted macaroni that gets its name from the Italian translation for "corkscrew." Each serving is made in an individual casserole dish that comes bubbling-hot straight out of the oven and onto your table. The restaurant's trellised garden patio allows for an alfresco meal if the mood strikes, or choose to stay inside for intimate dinner conversations. Hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday through Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for Sunday brunch.