This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Miami
In Miami, we like to eat standing up.
Our favourite coffee spots are little window counters cut into the sides of restaurants. You might find the best Cuban sandwich pressed inside of a laundromat. Some of our most iconic foods — empanadas, croquetas and pastelitos — are designed for maximum flavour on the go.
Eating like a local in Miami means embracing these kinds of dining experiences. They’re informal. You’ll end up in conversations with the abuelo waiting for his cafecito, and the Colombian woman frying your crispy empanada.
We gather around food to trade chisme, to spill tea. It’s how we build community.
What I’ve learnt in more than a decade writing about food in the city where I was born is that our fine-dining restaurants are special, yes — but for special occasions. The casual, unexpected places where we eat most of our meals out are the heart of our culture.
Miami’s personality is embedded in these rituals. Here you’ll find immigrant traditions transcending their origins to become something new, something uniquely Miami. These places tell you about how we eat and how we live. They tell you about us.
If you want to feel like you’ve experienced Miami like a local, these are my five rites of passage.
Order coffee at a ventanita
It’s a hallmark of Miami life to order your daily dose of Cuban coffee from a tiny walk-up window.
All over the city, you’ll see ventanitas built into the side of restaurants — the word means “little window”, and the tradition is an import of Cuban coffee culture. This is not a coffee shop playing alt-rock and serving pour-overs, or matcha lattes (you can get those elsewhere). Instead, locals gather at ventanitas for a quick breakfast, a lunchtime business meeting or a sobering pick-me-up at 3am after the club. They grin, grouse and drink Cuban coffee, a version of espresso with sugar whipped into the first few drops. Miami happens at a ventanita.
The ventanita you choose may not have a detailed menu, so here’s what you need to know. I’ve long said there only four coffee drinks you can order from one:
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A cafecito is two ounces of sweet, life-giving dark roast, which is high in flavour and surprisingly low in caffeine. The sugar does the heavy lifting. The crema leaves a foamy moustache.
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Order a colada and the window waitress will hand you four ounces of coffee in a styrofoam container with a stack of thimble-sized plastic cups (she’ll probably also call you ‘mi amor’). Resist the urge to gulp it like a latte or, as the late comedian Ralphie May joked, you’ll see into the future and ruin your guts. Instead, bring it to your next meeting to share and make friends.
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If all that coffee seems like too great a palpitation risk, order a cortadito. It’s a cafecito-sized pour of half Cuban coffee and half steamed milk. Ask for evaporada, steamed evaporated milk, and it stands in for dessert.
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A café con leche is a meal. It’s a full cup of steamed milk and the waitress will ask if you want it oscuro or claro, dark or light with more or less coffee. The coffee’s sugar is usually enough to sweeten it. Add a pinch of salt to bring out the flavour and the locals will nod in approval.
What to eat at the ventanita? Some full-service ones will press you a hot Cuban sandwich. All will offer two other basics: deep-fried croquetas de jamón, made with minced ham and béchamel; and a selection of pastelitos, Cuban puff pastries filled with either guava, guava with cream cheese, spiced minced beef or sweet coconut.
Some of my favourite ventanitas are Islas Canarias, popular among locals in Kendall, Sergio’s on Coral Way in Miami, and, of course, the iconic Versailles on South-west Eighth Street. At all of them, you’ll get the full Miami experience.
Visit a frita shop
When a Netflix film crew wanted to know about Miami street food, I took them for fritas.
These Cuban smashburgers, which date back to 1920s Havana, are all-beef patties seasoned with the kinds of spices you’d find in Spanish cuisine: cumin, garlic and paprika. They’re smashed on a plancha, squirted with a red sauce that infuses with those flavours while cooking and sprinkled with diced onions.
Finally, they’re topped with a cloud of papitas (crispy fried potato strings) and served on a Cuban bread roll. Hit it with a squirt of ketchup and a dash of barely spicy Crystal hot sauce.
The late “Benito” Victoriano González was a Miami frita legend. He opened what went on to become the longest-running frita shop in Miami and named himself the frita king: El Rey de las Fritas. He taught the trade to his brother-in-law, Ortelio Cárdenas, who founded his own shop as El Mago de las Fritas — the magician. Visit both. You can find El Mago every day at the end of his West Miami counter, overseeing the grill and drinking a glass of wine. He loves to say hello and take photos.
Try that other Cuban sandwich
I’m not talking about the Cuban sandwich you know. I’m talking about the other one, which is a secret among Miamians: the Elena Ruz.
Named for the teenage socialite who first ordered it at her local sandwich shop in Vedado, Cuba, the Elena Ruz lives at the other end of the flavour spectrum from the traditional Cuban. Instead of ham, roast pork, tangy yellow mustard and pickles, it is made with sliced, roasted white-meat turkey, whipped cream cheese and chunky strawberry preserves, served on a challah-like egg bread. It’s the unofficial favourite sandwich of Cuban moms everywhere, including my own.
A version of the Elena Ruz that I love is the Francesita at Tinta y Café.
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Tinta y Café, 315 Ponce de Leon, Coral Gables and 9840 NE Second Ave, Miami Shores
Eat at a laundromat
Dining like a local in Miami means finding great food in unexpected places: Spanish tapas in a gas station, churrasco at a car wash and maybe my favourite: steak sandwiches at a 24-hour laundromat.
The pan con bistec at Mary’s Café and Coin Laundry is the stuff of Miami legend. Order at a ventanita on the side of a busy road. Thin-cut steaks are marinated in mojo, topped with lettuce, tomatoes and potato sticks, then pressed on buttery toasted Cuban bread. It’s open 24 hours a day, making it a go-to lunch spot, a favourite of journalists and politicos after late-night commission meetings, and a refuge for the vampire-hour crowd.
Mary’s is unironically cool. That’s what makes it so beloved. The Miami DJ Josh Baker spun there during the Ultra electronic dance music festival, and posted about it for his 149,000 followers.
Try every kind of empanada
Every country in Latin America has its version of an empanada. In Miami, you can find bakeries that specialise in just about all of them.
At Rincón Antioqueño, crispy deep-fried Colombian corn empanadas are served traditionally with aji picante salsa (the pro move is to bite one end and drop in a little sauce). Graziano’s markets focus on baked, two-bite Argentine empanadas stuffed with things like prosciutto and creamy cheese.
In Doral, La Uchireña makes arguably the best classic Venezuelan pabellón empanadas, with shredded beef, country white cheese and sweet plantains. Also, it happens to be next door to Caracas Bakery, which combines classic Venezuelan flavours with French techniques to make it one of the best bakeries in South Florida (there are three locations).
My favourite shop might be Empanada Harry’s in the far western suburbs. There, third-generation baker Harry Coleman and his wife, Michelle, regularly make 23 kinds of empanadas from around Latin America on any given day. Among them are the hard-to-find Chilean empanadas, stuffed with ground beef, hard-boiled egg, black olives and dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Daily specials feature guava and goat cheese.
Empanada Harry’s is a solid 30-minute drive from the tourist areas. But you can pair it with a stop at the Colemans’ next-door Latin barbecue spot Smoke & Dough, which combines Texas barbecue with Miami flavours like cafecito-rubbed brisket. Finish the night at Amelia’s 1931, a Cuban-Peruvian-Asian restaurant and cocktail bar with Latin jazz and an entrance disguised as a dry cleaners.
That’s as Miami as it gets.
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Rincón Antioqueño, 6521 SW Eighth St, Miami
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La Uchireña, 7880 NW 52nd St, Doral
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Caracas Bakery, 7884 NW 52nd Street, Doral, and two other locations
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Graziano’s, several locations including 2301 Galiano St, Coral Gables
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Empanada Harry’s, 4009 SW 152nd Ave, Miami
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Smoke & Dough, 4013 SW 152nd Ave, Miami
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Amelia’s 1931, 13601 SW 26th St, Miami
Carlos Frías is a journalist, author and two-time James Beard Award-winning food writer. He was born and raised in Miami
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