Serafina Miami: A Look Inside the Newest Italian Hotspot
Written by Eric Barton | Photos by Kenneth Lesley | May 29, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
Serafina opened today at Miami Worldcenter, and from the looks of it, Miami is getting exactly the kind of Italian restaurant it’s used to: loud, shiny, packed with brightly colored booths and people ordering truffle pasta like they’ve got a tech company expense account.
The vibe seems clear: This is not your quiet little trattoria on a side street in Florence. This is where downtown Miami goes when it wants to feel a little European and a lot seen.
The New York-based brand already has outposts in 11 countries and a backstory that involves two founders getting lost at sea and dreaming up the perfect pasta. Serafina’s South Florida debut lands at 652 NE 2nd Avenue in a cavernous 8,000-square-foot corner of the Miami Worldcenter development, a place where restaurants bloom like they’ve been sprinkled by seed.
They’ll be serving the hits: truffle tagliolini, thin-crust pizza from a Marana Forni oven, chicken parm, creamy burrata, and plenty of rosé. The menu is designed executive chef Pedro Valdes, who knows how to take crowd-pleasers and Miami-fy them—meaning you can expect mangoes to show up in places they’ve never been invited before. There’s also a sprawling outdoor patio along the Seventh Street Promenade, which seems genetically engineered for Instagram stories captioned “La dolce vita 🧡.”
Design-wise, the photos reveal a riot of pop-art portraits, plush seating, and a central bar begging for someone to film a Negroni tutorial. It’s a mix of Milan runway chic and South Beach influencer, a look that says, “We paid a lot of money for this furniture and we’d like you to post about it.”
By the time opening night rolls around, downtown will have itself a new power lunch spot, a happy hour contender, and the kind of dinner reservation that doubles as a social status update. Serafina didn’t come here to blend in. It came here to take over. Reservations can be made on OpenTable.
