MIAMI
Who’s Cooking in Miami’s Best Kitchens? These 16 Chefs Are Defining the Red-Hot Scene
By Eric Barton | June 24, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
You used to go out in Miami and have no idea who was behind the food.
Most likely it was a Cuban grandma who never left the kitchen, or a guy who learned to grill in his backyard in Hialeah. You didn’t ask. You just ate.
Then came the chefs—the ones with tasting menus, farms, brand deals, and Michelin ambitions. Now, knowing who’s behind the pass is half the point. We follow them on Instagram. We watch them torch meringue tableside. We order the dish they only make on Wednesdays because it feels like part of the sport.
So yes, Miami is one of the best restaurant cities on the planet right now. But it’s not because of real estate developers or TikTokers. It’s because of these chefs—the ones who made it matter who’s cooking your pasta, plating your omakase, or fire-roasting your oxtail gunkan in a Wynwood smokehouse.
These are the chefs making Miami one of the best restaurant cities in the world—some quietly, some with blowtorches. You don’t need to memorize their names. But chances are, if you’ve had a dish lately that made you stop mid-conversation, one of them was behind it.
Shingo Akikuni
Shingo
Shingo Akikuni’s omakase counter in Coral Gables feels more like a shrine than a restaurant. There are 14 seats, a slab of rare Hinoki wood flown in from Kyoto, and a sense of reverence that settles the moment he begins slicing. Akikuni trained in Michelin-starred kitchens in Tokyo and Miami (and now has a star of his own), and it shows—each course feels like a word in a poem you don’t fully understand but can’t stop reading. His nigiri is clean, deliberate, and somehow emotional. It’s sushi that makes you sit quiet, take a moment, and take in a master at work.
Michael Beltran
Ariete | Brasserie Laurel | Chuggie’s | Chug’s Diner | The Taurus | El Vecino Miami
At whatever restaurant he’s opening next, and he has several around town, Michael Beltran manages to build a menu that reflects his background. There’s always the traditional fine-dining techniques, sure, but then there’s also dishes that tell his story, that Cuban heritage and Miami-against-the-world spirit that he brings to his kitchens. At Ariete, that’s best exemplified by the duck press, one of the most unique and special dishes in Miami. At Chug’s, that’s represented on his Chef’s Breakfast plate (white rice, three eggs, sazón completa, herbs), which is what any good chefs needs to start the day. Whatever he’s opening next, his restaurant will be pure Michael Beltran.
Aaron Brooks
Sunny’s Miami
Aaron Brooks might’ve come to Miami via Australia, but he gets this city in a way few outsiders do. At Sunny’s, he’s built the kind of modern steakhouse where nothing feels overwrought, but everything is on point—from the marbled ribeyes to the martinis. He’s got that rare ability to cook for both the die-hard carnivore and the pescatarian date trying to pretend this isn’t a steakhouse. It’s the kind of place where you plan to split one bottle of wine and end up ordering three, where the vibe and the dishes that arrive will turn dining here beyond dinner and into a full-fledged night out.
>>>READ ALSO: Sunny’s Steakhouse: Martinis, duck lasagna, and killer backyard vibes>>>
Janice Buraschi and Juan Manuel Umbert
PASTA
Janice Buraschi and Juan Manuel Umbert, the husband-and-wife duo, brought PASTA from Lima to Wynwood in late 2024, setting up shop in a 77-seat space that somehow feels intimate, thanks to warm wood, a glowing canopy of rattan lights, and a silky quartz chef’s counter that doubles as the best seat in the house. From there, you’ll see everything: the stracciatella being pulled by hand, the sourdough starter getting its daily stir, the ragù bubbling behind the line. Their pastas are focused and deceptively simple—pappardelle with beef cheek ragù, agnolotti filled with mushroom broth that bursts like soup dumplings. Even the desserts stay grounded: lúcuma gelato, a sharp and creamy gorgonzola cheesecake. There are other pasta specialists in town. But none feel this personal.
Valerie Chang
Maty’s
Until 2024, Valerie Chang was one of Miami’s up-and-coming chefs, this name we were all watching to see what she did next. But then she opened Maty’s, the Midtown restaurant that’s an homage to, and also an entirely original recreation of, her grandmother’s traditional Peruvian dishes. Then in 2024, Chang’s status as soon-to-be changed when she took home the regional James Beard Award for Best Chef: South. Chang recently announced she’s stepping away from Maty’s, and while that’s a shame for fans of the place, there’s little doubt that what’s coming next from Chang will be even better.
>>>READ ALSO: Chef Nando Chang Brings Itamae Back to Life with Residency at Maty's>>>
Danny Ganem
D’s | Daniel’s Miami | Daniel’s Steakhouse Fort Lauderdale
Danny Ganem is that rare chef who understands restraint. At Fiola Miami, he let Italian food dress itself—sharp, tailored, and perfectly measured. His menu has just enough flair to feel fresh, never theatrical. Soon, Fiola will reopen as a new concept, mirroring the one Ganem helped bring to Fort Lauderdale, Daniel’s, where Ganem brought a new polish to the steakhouse concept.
>>>READ ALSO: Goodbye Fiola, Hello Daniel’s: Fort Lauderdale Favorite Expands to Coral Gables>>>
Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer
Boia De | Walrus Rodeo
Boia De is the kind of place that’s barely marked, hidden in a strip mall, and somehow still always has a waitlist longer than a TSA line. That’s because Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer are doing high-wire acts with Italian food that don’t feel showy—just quietly brilliant. They’ll hand you cold tagliolini nero with king crab, and you’ll start wondering why pasta ever needed to be hot. The room is boisterous, the dishes just simply never miss, and the vibe is that rarest thing in Miami: unforced cool.
Masayuki Komatsu
Hiyakawa | Midorie | Ogawa
Masayuki Komatsu isn’t just preparing sushi—he’s conducting a ceremony. At Ogawa’s 12-seat omakase counter, Komatsu watches his guests as closely as he watches his knives, adapting in real time. When he noticed my wife didn’t eat her uni, he swapped her next course without a word. That kind of attentiveness isn’t common, and neither is his pedigree: a Michelin-starred background and the calm precision of someone who knows he’s at the top of his game. Watching him work is like seeing a calligrapher draw with fish.
>>>READ ALSO: Wabi Sabi Becomes Midorie, Adding a Temaki Bar and Luxe Omakase To-Go Boxes in Miami>>>
Michaël Michaelidis
AVA MediterrAegean | Casa Neos | Claudie | MILA
You don’t work in kitchens that earned 26 Michelin stars by accident. Michaël Michaelidis brought his precision from Paris to Miami in 2024 and immediately began upping the city’s game. At MILA, he created what is simply one of the country’s most financially successful restaurants. At Claudie, it’s Riviera nostalgia done with restraint—spiny lobster, heirloom tomatoes, truffle vinaigrette, and not a single note out of place. Even Casa Neos, his waterfront stunner, feels less like a clubstaurant and more like a studied seduction. Miami’s not short on sceney restaurants. Michaelidis just makes sure they serve plates that taste as good as the surroundings are pretty.
>>>READ ALSO: Claudie Miami Review: Escargot, Loup de Mer, and the South of France in Brickell>>>
Bernardo Paladini
Torno Subito Miami
Bernardo Paladini has one of those résumés that sounds like the origin story of a kitchen legend: seven years with Massimo Bottura, a Michelin star in Dubai, and now running the show at Torno Subito Miami. The guy trained in Rome but cooks with a kind of childlike joy—one minute you’re eating shrimp cocktail under a cloud of shrimp-head foam, and the next you’re wondering why more chefs don’t make whimsy taste this good. And while they’ve recently announced Torno Subito is on sabbatical for the summer, I’m optimistic it’ll come back this fall even stronger—just like we all do after a good, long holiday.
>>>READ ALSO: Inside Miami’s Most Inventive Zero-Waste Kitchen>>>
Niven Patel
Erba | Ghee | Paya
If you’ve been following Niven Patel since the early days of Ghee, you already know the guy can pull intensity from turmeric the way Miles Davis did from a single note. He grows the ingredients on his farm, yes, but the story is bigger than that—he translates them. Paya, his latest, folds in Caribbean spice and Florida sun with Patel’s Indian instincts, creating something that doesn’t fit into any box but still feels familiar. It’s his best yet, and that includes a hell of a track record.
>>>READ ALSO: The Best Miami Beach Restaurants: Here’s How to Avoid the Tourist Traps>>>
Tam Pham
Tâm Tâm
At his downtown restaurant, Tam Pham crafted a menu inspired by his childhood in Saigon's Chinatown, combining Vietnamese flavors with the Cantonese dishes his mom made at home. That means Cantonese-style grouper, crispy wings in caramel fish sauce, and a wagyu tartare topped with citrusy fire ants. With Harrison Ramhofer handling the front-of-the-house vibes, they’ve created one of the more fun restaurants at the moment in Miami, and it’s also a place where everything on the menu reflects the chef cooking it.
Michael Pirolo
Bar Bucce | Fluke | Macchialina
Born in Queens, raised in Italy, Michael Pirolo’s food is the beautiful result of that split identity, with a deep understanding of the old-school rules of Italian regional dishes but also willing to break them to make something more delicious. One moment you’re eating spaghetti pomodoro so traditional it might as well have a Vatican stamp; the next, you’re spooning into creamy polenta that feels like it was invented in Miami Beach last week. His cavatelli with baby meatballs doesn’t just hit—it lingers. Pirolo isn’t trying to reinvent Italian cuisine. He’s just reminding you how good it tastes when someone knows what they’re doing.
Raheem Sealey
KYU | J&C Oyster | Shiso
Raheem Sealey is that chef whose résumé reads like a Miami dining who’s who—and he’s only getting started. He’s Global Executive Chef for KYU, overseeing locations from Miami to New York, Las Vegas, and soon Los Angeles. He co-chefs at J&C Oyster in Hollywood, bringing a pedigree from Zuma, KYU, and Drinking Pig BBQ. Most recently, he opened Shiso in Wynwood, an Asian smokehouse where wood-fired BBQ meets Japanese precision and Caribbean soul—think smoked Cornish hen and oxtail gunkan under Wynwood street-art vibes. Sealey cooks like he’s built every plate around joy and community—this isn’t fusion. It’s synthesis, and it hits like home.
Michael Schwartz
Amara at Paraiso | Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink
You could argue Michael Schwartz invented modern Miami dining—or at least gave it permission to be seasonal and smart without being fussy. Michael’s Genuine still feels like a Design District anchor, the place you go to remember why anyone ever got excited about locally grown radishes, still served as bar snacks. It’s the kind of restaurant that spawned a dozen imitators, but none of them have managed Schwartz’s mix of discipline and looseness. He made casual fine dining cool before it was a marketing term.
Pablo Zitzmann
Zitz Sum
Pablo Zitzmann once yanked ramen off the menu at Zitz Sum because too many people were ordering it. That tells you nearly everything. He refuses to be pigeonholed, and if that means denying the masses their comfort bowls, so be it. What he offers instead is a shape-shifting menu that zigzags through Asia, South America, and back to Coral Gables, but never lands in one place for long. His food is maddeningly hard to define, and that’s precisely the point.
