MIAGuide
The Best Outdoor Restaurants In Miami
Spots for those days when you feel guilty eating inside.
Contrary to popular belief, we have bad weather in Miami, so we really do appreciate those absolutely perfect 72-degree days when we nearly shed a tear every time we open the door. When that happens, eating outside is basically mandatory, and the places on this guide are where you should go to do it. These are the restaurants where sitting outside is the whole point—places that are going to make you look around and mumble a prayer of gratitude that you’ll never have to learn what black ice is.
THE SPOTS
Macchialina is our favorite restaurant in South Beach and one of the city’s best Italian spots. During the pandemic, they took over the hostel next door, scrubbed away the sins of tourists past, and transformed it into an airy garden. It’s as if the vines came alive like Fantasia characters, took up mops and buckets, and decorated the place. Plus, most of the outdoor tables are covered to protect you from the elements. As is always the case here, the service is excellent and the pasta is perfectly cooked. Macchialina is great for so many occasions, but especially ideal for a first date, where you can enjoy a bowl of excellent house-made cavatelli or their chef’s tasting menu over a bottle of wine while speculating about what sort of misdeeds those poor murals have seen.
Though it’s sometimes a little impossible to get a reservation here on a very nice day, it’s still easier than buying a plane ticket and flying to Greece—which is what eating at Mandolin kind of feels like. This classic spot is in Buena Vista, and it’s about 90 percent outdoor seating. The tables are shaded by trees and canopies, and the grilled octopus, whole Mediterranean sea bass, and grilled halloumi are the exact kinds of things we want to eat on a sunny day. White wine is optional, but highly encouraged. And if you really can't find an open dinner table, try booking one for lunch.
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Shore to Door is a fish market that also operates as a restaurant on the weekend for lunch. There’s no menu here. Instead, the chef—who might be in the middle of cleaning a fish—will tell you what came in off the boat that morning. It could be fried corvina bites, whole yellowtail snapper, wahoo fish dip, or a dozen other sea creatures. But it will be delicious, and you can eat it in their fantastic backyard, with mismatched furniture and an atmosphere that feels very Key West. If you want a beer, just pop open the cooler and help yourself. But a head’s up: call first to make sure they’re open. We’ve tried to come here before, only to learn that they sold out of seafood the day prior.
Fried seafood and frozen cocktails in an outdoor space that hosts live music is one of Florida’s greatest food traditions. And Low Key is keeping that tradition alive in Miami. The Little River seafood spot doesn’t really look like a restaurant. There’s no host corralling guests at the entrance. The space consists of tables and picnic benches scattered beneath a banyan tree that’s all lit up with string lights. To place an order, you visit the white pop-up canopy and then grab a seat wherever you like. Feel free to hang out after you’ve finished your snapper and head-bob to the live band or DJ while you consider ordering another frozen piña colada.
Rosie’s is a brunch spot that actually operates from the same Little River patio as Low Key—except during brunch hours, obviously, and only Thursday through Sunday. Rosie’s is hands-down our favorite brunch in Miami. This is both because the food here is phenomenal, and also because eating at Rosie’s never feels like the kind of chore other popular brunch spots do. They take reservations, and while they do have cocktails, this is not the kind of boozy brunch that requires earplugs. The menu revolves around Southern food, and both the sweet and savory sides of the spectrum are well-represented. You can get a gorgeous stack of fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes or fried chicken and biscuits that look like they just came back from a photo shoot.
You can’t eat much closer to Biscayne Bay than at Amara—unless you own a boat or are a manatee. But if you are not a herbivorous marine mammal, then this is a really good choice because both the view and food are great. The menu is pretty much all seafood, with a small raw bar and a great grilled snapper. Come during the day if you really want to see the view in all its glory—and make a reservation if you want a guaranteed outdoor table.
Tigre is a beautiful Argentinian restaurant in the Upper East Side where you can bring a date or a few friends or, really, anyone who appreciates interior design and the color green. The outdoor seating is organized along a little canal that—despite being just a baseball toss away from a hectic intersection—feels peaceful and secluded. The aesthetics are the selling point here, but the food is also good. There are some solid veggie options, like a simple, crunchy hearts of palm salad or tender roasted beets, but you’ll find bigger steak and fish entrees too. Whether you want to eat buñuelos or just have a few apéritif cocktails while looking for manatees—Tigre is a good choice next time it’s so nice out that you feel guilty being inside.
Paradis Books & Bread is an excellent little North Miami spot that straddles the line between wine bar and restaurant. You can certainly come here just to drink, read, and chat. But it’d be a shame if you didn’t order at least something to snack on, like the tinned sardines served with seaweed butter and slices of fresh bread. The square pizzas (which they start serving at 6pm) are outstanding as well, and have a delicious light brown crust that tastes like whole wheat dough that just got back from a delightful vacation with a loaf of sourdough. Inside, Paradis is only one room, with a few tables and bar seating. But there’s a much larger outdoor area with some round cement tables, which is where you want to be on a nice night.
Itamae is located in the Design District and serves the best Nikkei food in the city. They have a small counter inside, but this place is pretty much all outdoor seating. It’s a spacious layout great for Design District people watching and a glass of wine. But as aesthetically interesting as this courtyard is, it's the food—not the view—that's the main attraction. The menu changes almost daily, but every nigiri, ceviche, tiradito, and any other special they happen to be offering that day will be the best thing you’ve eaten in recent memory. You’ll be glad you’re sitting outside so you can look towards the sky and mumble a prayer of gratitude for what just happened to your taste buds.
There aren’t a ton of reliably good restaurants with spacious outdoor seating in Wynwood. In fact, there's really only one and it's Doya. Their patio isn't massive, but it's lush, pretty, and has some umbrellas providing shade. It’s a good place to come with a group because they have a big menu full of very good meze plates perfect for sharing. The octopus in the octopus salad is as tender as fresh mozzarella, the lamb kebab is beautifully cooked, and the huge mussels are served in a perfectly balanced wine and garlic sauce. We really haven't encountered a dish here that we didn't enthusiastically finish.
As much as we like scooting into one of Chug's bouncy booths, the Coconut Grove Cuban diner has a great patio that deserves your attention on a nice day. The big courtyard is filled with shaded tables and plants, and is also located far enough from the sidewalk that you won't have to worry about pedestrians bumping into your table. It's exactly the kind of setting where you want to be sipping a guava gimlet on a 70-degree night or cutting into one of Miami's greatest pancakes on a Sunday morning.
If we were judging Verde only by the food, we wouldn't tell you to sprint here. But this casual spot, which is located on the back patio of the Pérez Art Museum, has one of the best waterfront views in all of Miami: a beautiful, uninterrupted view of Biscayne Bay and the MacArthur Causeway. That is really why you should come here (and why you should never sit inside). The menu is mostly salads, pizza, and sandwiches—and you'll finish whatever you order. This is mostly a brunch or lunch spot, but on Thursdays they stay open for dinner (and occasionally have live music too).
From the street, Naomi’s just looks like a little takeout spot. But after you order from their menu of Haitian and Carribean dishes, walk around to the side of the building and find the garden seating. It’s a casual space with plenty of tables, a couple of loud roosters, a small stage for occasional live music, and a few hammocks you’re welcome to use in case you overdid it with their great jerk chicken. Naomi’s is one of the best restaurants in Little Haiti, but it’s such a relaxing space that we’d come on a pretty day just to read a book and have a passion fruit juice.
Yes, Lagniappe is more a place to drink than eat, but the mostly outdoor wine bar in Edgewater does have a small food menu that’s good enough to justify coming here for dinner even though the silverware is plastic. After you grab a bottle of wine inside, head to the backyard to order something from the grill: churrasco, mahi, salmon, chicken, and sautéed veggies are all solid options in addition to the very good meat and cheese plates. Come on the earlier side and you won’t have to compete for a table with a thousand first dates.
An outdoor table at Ironside is going to be lovely no matter when you come. At lunch, the courtyard is sunny and bright, with lots of trees, plants, and occasional live music during the weekend. At night, string lights hang over the tables and create an ideal mood for a pizza date, which is usually what we end up ordering here even though the pasta is pretty tasty too. This place is BYOB, so pick up some beer or wine before you come.
La Mar is a restaurant on the mysterious millionaire island known as Brickell Key. They serve some of the best Peruvian food in town, and their waterfront view is also stellar—so good that it's almost not even worth coming here unless you can sit outside. It faces west, giving you a wide-open view of Biscayne Bay and the Brickell skyline. When you're not staring at that, you'll be staring at the food in front of you, which includes very good Peruvian ceviche. They also make a great lomo saltado and have rotating anticucho options, including an excellent version with veal heart.
As with pretty much all hotel restaurants in South Beach, you can expect higher-than-average prices and a slightly touristy crowd at Osteria Morini. However, it’s still possible to have a very enjoyable meal here, especially if you sit outside. All the outdoor tables are arranged along a narrow little canal that can make you feel like you’re in Venice, if you squint hard and have had more than two negronis. Pasta is the move here, and it’s solid—especially the torcia nera and cappelletti.
Every table at Shuckers is technically an outdoor table because this place doesn’t have walls. And that is a good thing because it’d be a shame to block this good of a waterfront view. A lot of people come here to watch sports, but we go to Shuckers to just stare out into the blue horizon while occasionally breaking eye contact with the ocean to eat a good chicken wing or some perfectly fine fried calamari.
Doce Provisions serves Cuban fusion food a block north of Calle Ocho, and their Cuban sandwich and arroz imperial are both reason enough to come here if you’re looking for some good food in Little Havana. But if you’re also trying to eat outside, then Doce is absolutely the place to go. They have a very pretty back patio, with string lights, picnic benches underneath a pergola, and some murals you can stare at while you try to decide between that Cuban sandwich or the fried chicken with plantain waffles.
The food at Lido (mostly seafood and sandwiches) is not as good or as cheap as it should be, but these are the sacrifices we make for one of the best waterfront views you can have while eating an OK $20 cheeseburger. This place is located in The Standard Spa, which means you also have an above-average chance of seeing a celebrity or overhearing a conversation about someone’s recent luxury ayahuasca retreat. But that view from the dockside tables is what really deserves your attention.
