billwisserphoto.com

Buttermilk-marinated fried chicken at Whisk Gourmet Food & Catering in Coral Gables

Eating fried chicken is no tidy affair. Golden brittle breading bursts after a gentle nibble. Bits of crust cascade beneath your chin. Juices flow. Fingers glisten. Lips gleam. (Call this gloss pollo frito; it sure as hell beats Chanel.)

In Miami, a city brimming with restaurants of diverse ethnicities, fried chicken goes beyond the realm of American Southern cuisine. Across the Magic City, the epicurean cognoscenti can find Haitian, Jamaican, Dominican, Cuban, Japanese, Korean, and more.

What follows is a list of the ten best fried chicken places in town. Some serve bird on the bone; others do not. Some provide wings; others only breast. Regardless of origin, method or style, this poultry all starts and ends the same way: butcher, season, batter, fry, eat, napkin.

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HCareers.com

A great meal starts with great service.

Let's play a little free association. When you think of Miami dining, you probably come up with terms like fresh, light, daring, and innovative. But what about great service? For years, snowbirds and recent transplants from parts north have bantered about how service was sooooo much better in New York than it is here in Miami.

They are full of baloney. First of all, there are more aspiring actors in the Big Apple who would rather be booking a Listerine commercial than helping you choose between a burger and a salad. Second, there are many people in the restaurant industry -- from chef to server -- who take great pride in what they do for a living, and many of them are in Miami.

See also:
- Azul, Naoe on Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star List
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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

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Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

Please sir we want something, anything, for free.

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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

billwisserphoto.com

Now, that's a meal. To-go platter from West Flagler's El Palacio de los Jugos.

Miami is a city of exceptional things. It's where early-morning coladas are delivered through a ventanita. It's where birthday parties are incomplete without a platter of croquetas de jamón and empanadas de queso. It's where drivers cut each other off by rolling down their car windows and signaling with their hands. Because then, and only then, do Miamians think it's OK to creep up on somebody else's lane.

In other cities, folks are repeating the old adage: Don't discuss religion or politics. In Miami, it's best to keep your thoughts about the best frita to yourself. And if you ever feel like starting a heated argument over a game of dominos, just ask who serves the best moro in town. Or the creamiest batido de trigo.

We don't mind squabbling over preferences for the best pan con bistec. What follows is our list of Miami's top ten Cuban restaurants. (This list includes only restaurants. Joints serving only sandwiches, such as Papo Llega y Pon, El Mago de Las Fritas, and others, did not qualify.) If you take offense to our omissions -- or dislike our inclusions -- let us know. We can always discuss it over a cafecito.

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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

Miamism on Flickr

In addition to croquetas and cigars, Cubans know their way around coffee. Hence Miami's longstanding rep of serving some of the best caffeinated concoctions in the free world, from cortaditos to coladas to the subject of this list --- café con leche.

While America goes Starbucks, we go ventanilla and comedor. So here are the top ten cups of café con leche. Speaking Spanish at any of these joints helps, but you'll survive without it. Repeat after us: "Café con leche, por favor."

See also:
- Best Coffeehouse: Eternity Coffee Roasters
- Miami's Best Coffee Houses: Ten Places to Rev Your Caffeine Engine

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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® 2012 online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

Haven

A cocktail or a car payment? You decide.

There is no doubt at all that Miami is an in-your-face, live-for-the-moment kind of town.

We haven't conducted a scientific research study yet, but we'd bet good money that out of every city in the world, we rank pretty high in the amount of Ferraris, designer handbags, designer dogs, and designer bodies per capita.

Maybe it's the weather..maybe it's all the neon and celebrities, but we sure do like our bling.

So bring on the gilt, the glam, the opulence. Here are the five most extravagant dishes in Miami that would have made Marie Antoinette herself proud.

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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® 2012 online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.

cvanheerden.wordpress.com/

Could unity live inside a savory pastry?

Throughout history humankind has focused on what divides us. Wars have been waged over skin color, land and religion. Despite these differences people from Latin America to Asia all stumbled upon the idea of putting seasoned some meat or vegetables inside a tasty crust and serving them at all hours of the day.

One could argue that in Miami the empanada is the standard bearer for savory pastries. Yet you can also find samosas, a fragrant Indian pastry stuffed with meat or curried vegetables and either baked or fried. Our Jewish friends offer the knish, most commonly filled with potato but sometimes meat. Yet large Jamaican populations in South Florida, particularly in the northern part of Miami-Dade as well as Broward, brought us the patty.

We're happy to take down half a dozen spicy patties for lunch, but recognize all patties aren't created equally. You might have seen them as limp, unnaturally yellow things sitting under a gas station heat lamp. Yet the real thing is far different than the frozen, reheated hockey pucks.

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Jacob Katel

On Eighth Street in Little Havana during Calle Ocho.

Southwest Eighth Street, which runs from the edge of Brickell near Biscayne Bay straight west into the Everglades, is for many reasons considered the heart of Miami. In the latter half of the 20th century Little Havana grew up around it as hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Today, as the Cuban population dwindles in comparison to an influx of new immigrants from around Latin America, Calle Ocho remains an important part of the fabric of Miami. Restaurants and galleries open on the last Friday of each month for Viernes Culturales. The night often coincides with an epic Critical Mass ride that covers about a mile of Calle Ocho, with revelers cheering on thousands of cyclists. While nearly every regional cuisine from Central and South America can be found somewhere along this stretch, there are plenty of noteworthy, non-Latin eateries. If you're ever driving along (probably stuck in traffic) jonesin' for something other than a pan con lechon, arepa, cachapa, pupusa or sancocho, all is not lost.

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​Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of Miami® 2012 online at bestof.voiceplaces.com.


Perhaps it's the closely guarded techniques, sauces and rubs that make rib enthusiasts, whether they're eating or cooking them, so devout. It could be the way smoke and heat transform tough slabs of bone and connective tissue into tender sweet magic. The fact that they're handheld, and supposed to be messy might also have something to do with it.

Miami by geography is a southern city, yet no one we know would say Miami is "in The South." Nonetheless there's no shortage of racks being smoked, cooked and slathered in sauce. Here are a few who do it best.

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