MIAGuide
The Best Restaurants In Edgewater
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Finding places to eat in Edgewater among all the highrises can feel like looking for ants in a giraffe dance party. But they’re there, and when you do find them, you can’t help but feel happy they haven’t been crushed by something a lot bigger. This area is growing like crazy but—thankfully—it’s still got some small neighborhood spots. This guide has those places and more, including a classic Cuban diner, one of Miami’s best outdoor restaurants, and a special occasion steakhouse with an unbelievable waterfront view.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Klaw makes you feel sophisticated. And that’s not just because they serve beautiful dry-aged steaks and deshell your king crab legs tableside with a fancy pair of scissors. No, even if this place served chicken nuggets and Easy Mac, we’d still put on nice clothes to come here. The restaurant is inside a gorgeous and historic Edgewater building with waterfront views, both in the indoor dining room and on the bar’s outdoor patio. The spacious dining room isn't so aesthetically busy that you can’t appreciate architecture like the huge arched windows that all point towards Biscayne Bay. Klaw isn’t cheap—you’re coming here for $100-plus steaks and fancy shellfish. It’s a business dinner/special occasion kind of restaurant. But the food is very good, the service is excellent, and the entire experience is worthy of the very dignified building it’s in.
To get to Tanka, you’ll have to step into a ‘90s time machine: The Grand Retail Plaza, a vintage mini-mall with pink mannequins in sequin dresses. Luckily, this Chinese-fusion restaurant is grounded in the 21st century with comfortable leather chairs and roomy green banquets. They serve some really good dumplings. But the reason we’d pull a Bill & Ted and come back to Tanka is for their entrees, specifically the peking duck and baby back ribs that literally fall off the bone. Order the half portion of the peking duck (which serves about two to three) and watch as the crispy skin curls when they flambé it tableside. The meat is tender, slightly sweet, and served with a generous amount of pancakes, chili oil, and housemade hoisin.
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings / @eatthecanvasllc
Aoko is a Japanese restaurant in Edgewater that no one seems to notice. With little to no internet footprint (and not even a sign on the door), this place feels like it was built during the sushi prohibition era, which actually was briefly a thing in early 19th century Japan. Thankfully, sushi makes up pretty much the entire menu here. They have á la carte sushi and omakase options under $100 for nigiri, sashimi, and bara chirashi. To start, order the hamachi carpaccio, which comes with tiny dollops of chimichurri, a few slivers of nori, and yuzu ponzu gel–an unexpectedly delightful trifecta right up there with the Beastie Boys. Then please, for the love of all things with gills, order at least one omakase. You’ll be chopstick fencing with your friends for the otoro. This is the place to go if you’re looking for that sweet spot within the casual to upscale sushi spectrum.
POWERED BY
The waterfront view at Amara is pretty spectacular, but nothing else about this restaurant matches its splendor. The food is solid. They have enough safe dishes like chicken a la brasa, steak, and grilled fish to please your picky family. Yet nothing on the seafood-heavy menu feels worthy of a proposal, which happens so much here that the restaurant actually has a proposal package you can buy. Instead, keep the ring in your pocket and just enjoy the uninterrupted view of Biscayne Bay. Make a reservation for sunset, and request an outdoor table. Make the reservation a little earlier than you think. The outdoor tables tend to linger and you may have to wait. You don’t want to be stuck inside at the bar while the sun sets without you.
photo credit: Tasty Planet
Edgewater has plenty of casual spots serving very good things to eat, and La Latina is at the top of that list. The small restaurant has excellent Venezuelan food, and makes some of the best arepas in Miami, all of which cost somewhere from $5-8. There are also bigger platters that come with rice, beans, plantain, and a protein, as well as sides like the tequeños that you should always order. All of the above tastes significantly better when drowned in one of the house sauces, by the way.
Enriqueta’s is one of Miami’s best Cuban spots—no matter if you’re in the mood for a really good Cuban sandwich or just a few croquetas and a cafecito. The casual diner has been around a lot longer than most of the highrise apartments that are sprouting up around it and the space looks like it hasn’t changed much over the last decade. The menu is huge, with well over a dozen sandwiches, breakfast plates, and daily specials that won’t cost you more than $15.
We’re typically nervous to try restaurants with names from Billy Joel lyrics, but Mamma Leone’s is a lot more enjoyable than the bad barbecue place we just made up called We Didn’t Start The Fire. The small Italian bakery is great for breakfast or lunch. They serve a pretty wide selection of savory and sweet baked things, but we really like their paninis, which come on bread that always tastes like it just came out of the oven. The squares of stuffed focaccia are also delicious and the size of an iPad.
There’s almost always a small crowd of people waiting outside this casual spot, which serves simple, classic Peruvian dishes at reasonable prices. Luckily, things move relatively quick here and, hopefully, you should have your lomo saltado or the big plate of jalea in front of you before you get too irritable. It's a great call for lunch or an easy weeknight dinner.
This Spanish/Argentinian spot is not a place for big groups—even a party of two is going to feel slightly cramped in here. But a lack of elbow room is a small price to pay for food like this. They only have one person working the kitchen, cooking up things like gambas al ajillo (sauteed shrimp), pulpo a la plancha (grilled octopus), and fried goat cheese balls you should absolutely order. It’s very impressive, but it also means you might be waiting a little longer than normal for your food, so don’t come in a rush.
While it’s first and foremost a wine bar, Lagniappe is also a perfectly acceptable place to eat—as long as you’re OK with doing so outside because that’s pretty much your only option. But it works for a fun meal where you can catch up with friends or take a date who's comfortable with crowds. They’ve got a small but respectable food menu with things like churrasco, mahi, salmon, chicken, and sautéed veggies. They also have a not-so-small but equally respectable meat and cheese plate, which you should absolutely order if you have at least two people to help you finish it.
