Discover good food on a food tour in Miami Beach

Explore Miami Beach restaurants on a food tour

We discover good food on a food tour to the best restaurants in Miami Beach. We had been forewarned: Don't let the rip-offs on Ocean Drive lure you into the restaurant with cheap promises! Breakfast for five dollars usually means a meal without coffee, and if you order that with it, you have to pay dearly for each cup. After all, that costs you more than in a good restaurant off the promenade of South Beach. We already had such experiences during our visit to Miami Beach made and were warned. For this reason - and because we wanted to get to know the "good cuisine" of South Beach - this time we let Kelly Woodward of Miami Food Tours introduce us to the secrets of the cuisine of Miami Beach. We discovered restaurants in Miami Beach where the locals eat.

Best Food Tour in Miami Beach

We had a chat with Kelly outside the Café at Books & Books on Lincoln Road January morning in Miami Beach We made an appointment, and there the first taste of Floridian cuisine awaited us: an appetizer plate with guacamole and crispy nachos, a corn salad with herbs, black bean cream and Ceviche. The latter should be us more often on our journey through Florida Ceviche (pictured top right) is a specialty that consists of raw fresh fish marinated in citrus or lime juice and flavored with various spices and herbs. For that we use a lot of different fish: we tried Ceviche from Grouper, from Tilapia and from Red Snapper. A very refreshing dish.

 

 

Food Tour in South Beach

We stroll through the streets of South Beach with its Art Deco houses and just a few steps later make a stop at a street kiosk that advertises "Café Cubano" in large letters. Kelly asks us if we have already tried this. When we say no, she laughs. "It's a good thing," she says. "Because otherwise you would have had a surprise." Curious, I ask her why. And she answers: "Do you like espresso?" Of course, I reply. "Well, imagine a ten times stronger one. This is Café Cubano! ”And she shows us how to drink it like a real connoisseur.

 

 

A Café Cubano can not be missed on a food tour in Miami Beach

We get a plastic cup full of coffee that exudes an intense fragrance. To do this, she takes three tiny cups into which she distributes the coffee. "And now sugar stirs in," she advises us. "Otherwise the coffee is too bitter." We follow her advice and are glad that we only get such a tiny portion. This coffee is a real stimulant. I can imagine that after a whole mug of it you have to deal with circulatory problems.

French crepes on Espanola Way

So strengthened and roused, Kelly leads us to Espanola Way, a street with Spanish flair. She stops at the first bistro and says, "This is where you get the best crepes in South Beach". It's cozy here, and guests sit at their bistro tables and spend a quiet morning - unlike what is usually the case in restaurants in Miami Beach, where you usually pay and leave after dinner. Here you treat yourself to one café crema after the other and talk to friends about life itself. We try the buckwheat crepes with pears, French brie and walnuts and listen to Kelly tell us the story of the Espanola Way.

 

 

Restaurants in Miami Beach - Al Capone already tasted it here

This street played an important role in South Beach history. With its Spanish-style houses, tiled houses and street cafes, it was an early magnet for tourists. However, they weren't always the way the city fathers liked them. Al Capone and his cronies once stayed at “The Clay Hotel” - a hostel on a street corner of the Espanola Way - rather uninvited guests, even if they committed themselves to leave their criminal machinations “on vacation”.

... as well as Crocket and Tubbs

Don Johnson and the Miami Vice film crew were more welcome when they showed footage of this hotel in the opening credits of their television series. Today it is a hostel, whose guests appreciate the neighborhood of the restaurants in Miami Beach and the sidewalk café on Espanola Way.

 

 

Brazilian food in Miami Beach

Afterwards Kelly takes us to a Brazilian restaurant. There we are served Coxinha. These are chicken croquettes stuffed with Catupiry cheese. That's the name of the cream cheese from Brazil. It shows us that we can even recognize the origin of the owners at the establishment of the restaurant. The way the floor and walls of the restaurant are tiled is typical of the region where the family comes from.

Who is our guide on the Food Tour in Miami Beach?

Over a glass of pineapple juice, I asked Kelly how she knew these dishes so well and what gave her the idea to offer her tours of the restaurants in Miami Beach. She tells us about her last trip to Brazil and about leaving Florida during the hottest months of the year and going on a journey of discovery around the world herself. She got the idea for her food tours when she came to Miami Beach herself a few years ago.

At that time she was working in an architecture office and dreamed of her travels through more than twenty countries around the world and the beautiful moments she experienced when she went in search of the local specialties of her travel destination. In 2010 she founded Miami Food Tours and is now offering exactly these experiences to her customers. If you take her on a discovery tour through the restaurants of Miami Beach, you can look forward to an enjoyable and informative tour of Miami Beach, where you get to know the restaurants, cafes and pubs that the locals also like to visit. A discovery tour with friends, so to speak.

 

 

Peru's kitchen in South Beach

Our final culinary stop is finally on our way back to Lincoln Road. This time, Kelly takes us to Peruvian cuisine. Even our tastings close the circle, because here we get ceviche in the Peruvian way. Where this Latin American court originally comes from, argue the connoisseurs. Some say it is a specialty of the Peruvian Moche Indians, others say the Spanish conquerors brought the raw fish dish from Moroccan chefs. It is now considered a Latin American specialty served with corn, avocados and other vegetables.

After many fish and poultry, the head of El Chalan serves us a Peruvian meat dish: Lomo Saltado. It is the most popular food of its guests, he assures us. And we can understand that: the lean beef that is served with onions, tomatoes and French fries literally melts on the tongue. Just delicious!

 

 

A tour of the restaurants in Miami Beach will fill you up

Almost three and a half hours we ate through the kitchens of South Beach. We got insights into the history, the architecture and the anecdotes of the Art Deco District, Then we come back to our starting point on Lincoln Road. We are satisfied and feel that we have not only come to know South Beach superficially. Instead, we discovered it with a new friend.

 

 

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Accommodation in Miami Beach * You can also book here. We have stayed in a family hotel away from the hustle and bustle.
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Trips in and around Miami

 

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Quelle Restaurants in Miami Beach: own research on site for the article Food Tour in Miami Beach with the kind support of the Greater Miami Convention and Tourism Bureau. However, our opinion remains our own.

Text restaurants in Miami Beach: © Copyright Monika Fuchs, TravelWorldOnline
Photos of restaurants in Miami Beach: © Copyright Monika Fuchs, TravelWorldOnline