MIAGuide
The Best Lasagna In Miami
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
If you love lasagna the way only an orange cartoon cat could understand, then this guide is for you. And what’s not to love? It’s layers of flat pasta, cheese, meat, and sauce baked together. The perfect comfort food. But it’s just as easy to mess up as it is to make. So after eating our fair share of soggy and frozen lasagnas, we found Miami’s best—the lasagnas capable of raising the leeriest cats out of bed.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Walrus Rodeo does things differently than most restaurants. And their mustard green lasagna is no exception—it has about as many layers as a suppressed Miami archeological site. We counted fifteen vertical green columns of pasta sheets that enclose rich lamb ragu, salty grana padano cheese, and creamy stracchino. It’s cooked in their wood fire oven and flipped over when plated, so the top is browned to a crispy crust and finished with a mustard green sauce. The green pasta sheets get their color from spinach and are sturdy enough to hold everything together but still keep their bite. It’s unlike any other lasagna in the city—and our current favorite. But this is an off-menu item, and they make a limited amount every night (which tend to sell out), so get here early.
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Macchialina's lasagna is slightly sweet, creamy, and salty. It’s also a full meal, so prepare to share it with others or ask for a digestif (they have an excellent amaro list). It arrives in a shallow pool of a rich orange-y sauce that adds flavor to the layers of tender short rib, pasta sheets, bechamel, and rich taleggio fonduta. There’s also a sweet touch from caramelized onions and texture from a small addition of cabbage. The braised short rib is tender enough to cut with a fork. Just be sure to drag every bite along the bottom of the dish to get at that sauce.
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Borti, a vendor inside The Citadel food hall, is our favorite place to go for a huge, delicious bowl of pasta for under $20. And their lasagna is ideal for that kind of mood, too. Borti’s could be a centerfold for Lasagna Digest, with its defined sheets of noodles hugging layers of bolognese ragu, bechamel, and parmigiano. It’s worthy of the word “slab” and could probably feed two. Of all the options on this guide, this is the one you want if you’re on the hunt for a standard, recognizable lasagna that will satisfy any and all cravings after stumbling upon an old Garfield comic.
Pastamarket is the Italian restaurant equivalent of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. With most of the pasta options at the casual spot, you get to customize your noodle and preferred sauce. But not with the lasagna—they only serve one version with a meat sauce, bechamel, and globs of mozzarella hiding in every few bites. It is not the most visually appealing lasagna. It’s sort of vertically challenged. But like all the pasta here, its flavor is so good that it catches you off guard, and will have you lobbying for this place any time you find yourself in a “Where should we eat tonight?” conversation with pasta-appreciating friends.
photo credit: Tasty Planet
The lasagna at Luna Pasta is confusing. At first glance, it looks like a tall, impressive lasagna. But what gives this lasagna its height are fluffy layers of a solidified substance that has the consistency of a soft cheese. They call it “bechamel” on the menu, but it does not look like any bechamel we’ve ever encountered. There are also generous ratios of beef bolognese and a shallow puddle of basil pomodoro sauce. It’s a version that might send a lasagna purist into an existential tailspin, but it’s also really good, and still delivers all the creamy, beefy, cheesy flavors we look for in a lasagna. If you’re after a traditional version, look elsewhere. But if you’re down to expand your lasagna horizons, give it a try.
