Best International Restaurants in Miami Beach

Greater Miami and Miami Beach draws people from every part of the world to live and play, and the international restaurant scene in Miami Beach reflects that. Across the island, you'll find Greek seafood blocks from the beach, wood-fired Japanese cooking in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood, French brasserie classics in South of Fifth and Colombian asado on Lincoln Road – with live entertainment built right in. Here's where to find the best international restaurants in Miami Beach.

Estiatorio Milos

Before you sit down at Estiatorio Milos in the South of Fifth neighborhood of South Beach, a restaurant “captain” walks you through an ice display showing off the day's catch, pointing out fish like lavraki (sea bass), Dover sole, pompano and whatever else arrived that morning, before that fish heads to the grill.

Inside, with marble floors, light wood beams and white curtains make the space feel more like a Greek vacation than Miami Beach. Lunch is a great time to visit, offering a three-course menu that lets you experience all the best dishes at a discounted price. Start with the Milos Special, featuring a tower of lightly fried, thinly-sliced zucchini and eggplant, surrounded with saganaki fried cheese and tzatziki. Follow with a grilled daily catch, and wrap the meal with a bowl of rich Greek yogurt topped with thyme honey.

Andrés Carne de Res Miami

Before you even order at Andrés Carne de Res Miami on South Beach's Lincoln Road, you will likely encounter stilt walkers, live music and costumed performers – and that’s just the start of the evening. The space is covered in massive murals that make this Colombian import feel like just as much of a celebration as it is a meal.

The signature dish is the lomo al trapo, beef tenderloin wrapped in a salt-soaked cloth and cooked directly on hot coals. Start your meal with the chicharrones (fried pork belly bites) served with creamy guacamole, or the Island Seafood Ceviche featuring octopus, shrimp, white fish and a tropical leche de tigre (citrus marinade).

For the main course, opt for the Parrilla Andrés for two, a mixed grill featuring pork loin, chicken breast, beef, churrasco, morcilla (blood sausage) and potatoes. If you visit on a weekend, the sancocho (beef stew) is a must-order, filled with short-ribs, yuca, plantain and corn in a creole sauce served over white rice.

Uchiko Miami Beach

A hearth grill is rarely found in a Japanese restaurant, but it serves as the centerpiece at Uchiko Miami Beach in South Beach. Here, the kitchen of James Beard Award-winning chef Tyson Cole features smoke-charred dishes alongside plenty of pristine raw fish.

Start with the sake crudo, which features raw salmon with coconut, green chili and papaya. Follow that with the roasted lobster in tom kha (coconut soup) and umeboshi (pickled plum) butter, or the oak-grilled sea bass served with brown butter dashi (soup stock) and fennel. To round out the meal, try the Milk and Cereal, a dessert of fried milk with chocolate mousse and toasted milk ice cream, and be sure to ask for the somakase (sake tasting menu) if you would like the sommelier to guide your meal’s sake pairings.

AVIV

The James Beard Award-winning duo behind the popular Zahav restaurant in Philadelphia opened AVIV at 1 Hotel South Beach as an ode to the dining culture of Tel Aviv. The meal typically starts with incredibly creamy hummus prepared in several different ways, including a version topped with ground beef, pine nuts and a Middle Eastern spice blend.

You can also expect the classic large salatim (salads) spread filled with beets with tehina, twice-cooked eggplant and Yemenite pickles. For the main course, it offers on-the-grill proteins like pargiyot (chicken thighs) with plum amba (pickled mango condiment) and Moroccan “cigars” rolled with spiced beef and spicy local honey. Plus, every dish is made without seed oils.

Macchialina

Ask a local where to go for Italian food in Miami Beach, and Macchialina is likely to come up very early in the conversation. Building on its reputation for rustic Italian classic dishes and house-made pastas, Chef Michael Pirolo’s Alton Road restaurant has grown substantially over the years from a small dining room with a few seats to a much larger space complete with a courtyard.

Start with the Broccolini al Cesare, a take on Caesar salad with toasted garlic and parmigiano, before moving on to the Cavatelli Macchialina, served with baby meatballs, porchetta and pecorino. The creamy polenta with sausage and sweet-and-sour cipollini onions is the perfect dish to order with a big group. The four-course chef’s tasting menu ($75 per person) is one of Miami Beach’s better dinner deals.

Havana 1957

Miami is home to some of the world’s best Cuban food, and you can find plenty of it right on Española Way at Havana 1957, a restaurant inspired by Havana’s heyday in the 1950s. The menu is filled with Cuban favorites like ham croquettes, crispy pork bites with citrus-and-onion mojo and ropa vieja, a shredded beef stewed in a tomato-based sauce.

Don’t miss the Pollo Havana 1957, the restaurant’s popular roasted chicken marinated in a citrus-and-spice gravy and served with white rice, black beans, roasted potatoes and sweet plantains. For a group, start with the Cuban Combo, an assortment of empanadas, croquettes, pork bites and other appetizers, or try the Cuban Sampler, which combines the house chicken, ropa vieja and pork shoulder with rice, beans and sweet plantains.

Baires Grill

Popular Argentine restaurant Baires Grill got its start in Miami Beach nearly 30 years ago, and it’s still one of the best spots on the island for an Argentine steak and a bottle of Malbec. Grab a seat on the patio or in the art-filled dining room, where the atmosphere is casual enough for a meal after the beach but intimate enough for a date night.

Begin with the Tablita Baires, a platter of crispy sweetbreads, sausage, blood sausage and an empanada of your choice. Then it’s time for some steak, and the most popular cut is the entraña, or skirt steak, available in both an individual portion or a larger version for sharing. To sample more of the grill, split the Parrillada, which adds flap steak, short ribs and chicken. Make sure to finish the meal with panqueques, thin crepes filled with dulce de leche.