MIAGuide
Miami’s Most Expensive Brunch Buffets, Ranked
photo credit: Miami Chef
The brunch buffet can be a beautiful creature or a hideous beast. It depends on the service, the food options, whether or not the table directly to your left drank enough mimosas to scream along to whatever Dua Lipa song is playing at that particular moment. Some are fancy, some are boozy, and some should just be avoided at all costs. So we visited Miami’s most popular (and expensive) brunch buffets, and ranked them from best to not-worth-giving-up-a-precious-Sunday-for.
THE BUFFETS
Cost: $115-$245 per person.
In terms of food, the brunch at Edge excels in two categories: meat and pastries. In the back patio of the upscale hotel steakhouse, they cut through tomahawk steaks at a pace that would overwhelm a predatory cat. After you’ve had your fill of that, dedicate any remaining room to the great pastry/dessert section—and also take advantage of the small a la carte menu that supplements the buffet (get the ricotta pancakes). Beyond food, we like this one most because of the service, which is fast, friendly, and (unlike your typical inclusive chaos brunch) representative of the fact that you’ve paid them over $100 to be there and not vice versa. No one will harass you about a time limit. Your server might even beg you to have an espresso before you go.
photo credit: Miami Chef
POWERED BY
Cost: $135 per person.
La Mar is one of our favorite Peruvian restaurants in Miami, and their brunch is proudly Peruvian too. Buffet dishes include multiple forms of ceviche, anticucho, a build-your-own sopa criolla station, and snapper jalea that’s good even though it’s cold. There’s no typical waffles or omelette station, but its diversity makes it one of the most exciting buffets in town. Dessert is a random assortment of slightly boring mini desserts and they do take each table’s two-hour limit seriously. But that’s plenty of time to stuff your face with pulpo al olivo (prioritize the seafood), bottomless pisco sours, and lomo saltado topped with a fried egg, which is one of the entree options you get to pick in addition to the buffet. As is always the case at this waterfront spot, sit outside if it’s nice. They have a small army of umbrellas for shade and spontaneous rain protection.
Cost: $99-$199 per person.
In the Great Bottomless Brunch Battle of Downtown’s sceney sushi buffets (a.k.a. Novikov and Zuma), Novikov wins. It’s hard not to compare those two. They’re just down the street from each other, serve a similar Asian-ish brunch heavy on sushi, and target the same Balanciaga-wearing demographic, who are here to pound nigiri to an untz-untz soundtrack. The buffet at Novikov is smaller, but the sushi is better and service is less chaotic. The dumplings are pretty good too. It’s those two things that you should be dedicating 97% of your stomach space to. In terms of atmosphere, Novkov is definitely an acquired taste—you’re equally likely to be sitting next to a professional athlete as someone who’s about to get arrested by the Department of Justice for financial crimes. Still, their basic bottomless drinks package for $99 (you don’t need the $200 one) is a pretty good deal considering the competition.
Cost: $90-$320 per person.
There is effort behind Mila’s very busy brunch. The buffet selection is one of the biggest we encountered, with three distinct food stations (four if you count dessert). Nothing here is wildly impressive—but nothing is bad either—and the options are fairly diverse: steak, sushi, pastries, a robata grill, and an advertised jamón carving station that was mysteriously absent during our visit. Keep Mila in mind when you’re looking for an alcohol-heavy brunch. The cheapest bottomless option is just under $100, and the cocktails are good. Plus, the scene is exactly what you want if you’re the type of person who embraces the bottle service side of South Beach.
Cost: $85 per person.
Cecconi’s is the Italian restaurant in the lobby of the members-only Soho Beach House, but you don’t need to be a member to eat here. Anyone can make a reservation on the see-and-be-seen courtyard. Their buffet situation is respectable, and its highlights include a build-your-own tuna tartare station, rotating pasta options, and a formidable dessert section with good ice cream and enough cakes to distract Paul Hollywood for several hours. Navigating the buffet can get tricky when it’s busy. You’re not only dealing with paying customers, but also the rubbernecking Soho members who are just passing through and seem to be weighing the risk of snatching a shrimp. It’s not much of a party atmosphere or heavy-drinking brunch. More of a “look at me I’m rich and/or beautiful” brunch.
Cost: $98-$328 per person.
Zuma loses points for its unhinged atmosphere. The dining room is a disparate beehive of tourists, families, and folks dressed for the club. The DJ plays unrelenting house music a bit too loudly, and you may have to wait 20 minutes for your table. But the saving grace of Zuma brunch can be summed up in one word: sushi. Skip the mediocre hot dishes and don’t bother upgrading for more expensive a la carte options. Just park yourself in front of the oddly uncrowded sashimi station like a trained sea lion. The fish here is as good as it needs to be, and you can pile your plate with sashimi and ikura while everyone else fills up on bao buns. You can also try to sidestep Zuma’s strange indoor scene by requesting outdoor seating. There, you can sit along the Miami River and enjoy a steady stream of twerking tourists on sketchy rental yachts.
Cost: $105 per person.
All of the least desirable characteristics of a brunch buffet are present at the Setai’s restaurant, Jaya. Food stations—which range from Indian to bagels—look like I-95 at 5:45pm. The mostly drunk crowd is pure chaos (we witnessed a man in an unbuttoned button-down shirt sauntering between tables while puffing on a cigar). There is unlimited champagne, although they don’t replenish the bottle sitting in an ice bucket next to your table between reservations, so you might have to make do with a half-empty one. The good news? There’s live jazz and the huge outdoor space is at least visually interesting. More bad news? The food is not good and the highest value items (like peking duck) are doled out in portions that wouldn’t satisfy a Smurf.
Cost: $120 per person.
Oh, how the once-glamorous Biltmore has fallen. For such a legendary property, the decaying details of the restaurant are sad. Forks have bent prongs, chairs look like they just finished a muddy obstacle course, and no one will hold a door open or fold a napkin when you leave for a new plate. Their exhaustingly spread-out food stations look impressive at first glance—lobster tails, sushi, pasta, meat carving, and a dripping ice sculpture of a dolphin. But when you trek it all back to your table, you’ll discover the seafood is rubber, the bacon is limp, and the caviar is the only thing they haven’t messed up. Biltmore’s brunch makes us feel less like the presidents who once stayed here, and more like their interns who get the leftovers.
