Miami Spice 2026: The Dining Experiences Worth Dressing Up For

Every August, Miami’s dining scene does something most cities never quite manage: it makes the slow season interesting. Miami Spice returns August 1 through September 30, 2026, and for two months the city’s best tables trade a bit of exclusivity for accessibility, offering prix-fixe lunch, brunch, and dinner menus that let diners try restaurants they might otherwise save for a special occasion.

This year’s lineup covers a lot of ground. There’s steakhouse theater and Mediterranean restraint, Japanese precision and Peruvian heat, Northern Chinese spice and Riviera ease — plus a handful of rooftops where the room is as much the draw as the menu. Haute Living narrowed the citywide list down to twelve: Daniel’s, Maple & Ash, Serafina, Jaya, Hutong, Queen, MAMO, Estiatorio Milos, CATCH, Osaka, Claudie, and MILA.

Prices span a wide range — a $35 Northern Chinese lunch in Brickell on one end, a $115 Mediterranean Reserve dinner on the other. Here’s where to book.

Photo Credit: Louis Collection

Daniel’s Miami

$40 Sunday Brunch | $40 Weekday Lunch (Tue–Fri) | $65 Bar & Patio Dinner (Fri–Sat) | $95 Dinner (Sun–Thu)

No restaurant on this list works harder for its spot than Daniel’s, which runs four separate Miami Spice menus out of its Coral Gables dining room.

Sunday brunch ($40) opens light — strawberry gazpacho, cobia ceviche — before pivoting to Belgian waffles, Florida Keys red snapper, and trofiette pasta, with steak and huevos rancheros available as an upsell. The weekday lunch, also $40, follows a similar arc: burrata and Wagyu empanadas give way to grilled Canary Island branzino, a heritage burger, and mezza rigatoni pomodoro, with a Demkota Elite filet mignon au poivre for anyone who wants to treat lunch like dinner.

Dinner splits in two. Friday and Saturday, a $65 bar-and-patio menu keeps things casual — French dip, that same heritage burger, branzino, coconut flan. Sunday through Thursday, the $95 dining room menu turns the dial up considerably, with Mayura Station Wagyu carpaccio, pappardelle Bolognese, braised Wagyu short rib, and a Demkota Elite prime filet leading the way.

Photo Credit: World Red Eye

Maple & Ash Miami

$95 Dinner | Wednesday–Sunday

Maple & Ash is new to Miami Spice this year, and the three-course, $95 dinner doesn’t dial back the steakhouse bravado that’s made the restaurant a fixture of Miami’s fine-dining conversation.

Starters lean seasonal — bluefin tuna tartare with watermelon, white soy nikiri, and crème fraîche; a grilled summer salad with peach, manchego, and basil — though the real opener, for those willing to pay up, is the Fire Roasted Seafood Tower, stacked with king crab, oysters, clams, and prawns.

From there it’s filet mignon medallions with pomme purée, Mediterranean branzino, crispy chicken Milanese, or a spicy rigatoni alla vodka. Dessert is chocolate cake with coffee mousse or a mango tres leches — unless you’re going for the Sundae Tower, which is exactly as much as it sounds.

Serafina

$40 Lunch | Mon–Fri | $65 Dinner | Sun–Thu

Serafina’s version of Miami Spice sticks close to what the restaurant does best: Italian food that doesn’t try too hard.

Lunch ($40) opens with eggplant rollatini, gazpacho, or an Amalfi salad, then settles into chicken Milanese, Calabrian mussels, or penne vodka, closing with gelato or tiramisu. Dinner ($65, Sunday through Thursday) widens the field — Parmesan arancini, burrata and prosciutto, chicken piccata, bucatini cacio e pepe, filet mignon, branzino — and adds a martini cheesecake to the dessert list. It’s a menu built for repeat visits rather than a single showstopping dish, which is part of the appeal.

Photo Credit: Jaya at The Setai

Jaya at The Setai

$40 Lunch | Mon–Fri | $50 Dinner | Sun–Fri

The setting does a lot of the work at Jaya. The Setai’s open-air courtyard, with its nightly entertainment and unmistakable architecture, would make almost any menu feel like an occasion — but the Pan-Asian food holds its own.

Lunch ($40) runs through Japanese leaf salad, shrimp har gau, pad Thai, and panang curry. Dinner ($50) adds weight with smoked butter chicken, Singaporean noodles, and Korean BBQ galbi short rib, plus truffle dumplings as an add-on. For diners who want atmosphere and value in the same reservation, this is one of the strongest matches on the list.

Photo Credit: Hutong Miami

Hutong Miami

$35 Lunch | Mon–Fri 12–4pm, Sat–Sun 11:30am–4pm | $60 Dinner | Nightly from 6pm

Hutong’s Northern Chinese menu is the spiciest, most theatrical entry on this list, and Miami Spice barely tones it down. Lunch, at $35, is the most affordable menu among the twelve restaurants here. Dinner, at $60, runs nightly starting at 6 p.m.

Expect dim sum, Peking duck, and — for those who want it — genuinely fiery ma la chili prawns, alongside a pan-seared beef tenderloin for anyone hedging their spice tolerance. Between the Sichuan heat, the presentation, and Hutong’s glamorous Brickell dining room, this is one of the more distinctive reservations of the season.

Photo Credit: Queen Miami Beach

Queen Miami Beach

$65 Dinner | Tue–Sat

Housed inside the historic Paris Theater, Queen pairs cinematic surroundings with a contemporary Japanese-inspired menu — and it’s exactly the kind of restaurant Miami does better than almost anywhere else: a little theatrical, a little indulgent, built for an evening rather than just a meal.

The $65 dinner opens with a choice of Queen Caesar salad or yuzu salmon roll (hand-cut beef tartare is available as an upgrade), followed by a Japanese wild truffle mushroom risotto included with every order. Mains run to roasted branzino or a six-ounce skirt steak, with a barbecue miso lamb chop available at extra cost. Dessert closes with a matcha raspberry finger or mango coconut pavlova, or a chocolate tarte soufflé for those upgrading.

Photo Credit: MAMO Miami

MAMO Miami

$40 Lunch | Daily | $65 Dinner | Daily

MAMO splits the difference between Italian tradition and South of France ease, and it’s the only restaurant on this list running both lunch and dinner Miami Spice menus seven days a week.

Lunch ($40) opens with a Julius salad, fried artichokes with cacio e pepe, seared tuna, or a tomato salad with cucumber, bell pepper, mozzarella, and oregano, before moving into cacio e pepe, rigatoni alla Bolognese, cavatelli with branzino, baked seabream, skirt steak tagliata, or cotoletta alla Milanese (truffle ravioli available as an upgrade). Dinner ($65) trades some of those dishes for red shrimp with burrata and mango and a Wagyu beef tartare. Daily availability alone makes MAMO one of the more flexible bookings on the list.

Photo Credit: Estiatorio Milos

Estiatorio Milos

Miami Spice Reserve: $115 per person | Daily

Milos plays a different game entirely. At $115 per person, it’s the most expensive menu on this list, but it’s also the only one built around a sommelier-guided Greek wine flight — which changes the math considerably.

First courses include smoked fish with caviar, a maroulosalata with romaine, dill, scallions, and feta, or a Maryland crab cake with Piazzi-style beans. The mains are where Milos justifies the price: whole grilled Mediterranean sea bass for two, finished tableside with ladolemono, capers, and parsley; Bay of Fundy lobster prepared Athenian-style with pasta; or prime lamb chops with Greek fried potatoes and tzatziki. Baklava, Greek yogurt cheesecake, and pistachio ice cream round out dessert. For diners who treat Miami Spice as an excuse for a genuine splurge rather than a bargain, this is the reservation.

Photo Credit: CATCH Miami Beach

CATCH Miami Beach

$65 Dinner | Sun–Thu

CATCH brings its usual South-of-Fifth energy to a $65 dinner that moves easily between seafood, sushi, and steak — and the open-air rooftop terrace does its part to turn a prix-fixe dinner into a full night out.

Starters include a crispy chicken bao with wasabi avocado ranch, the restaurant’s signature crispy shrimp, and a poke roll with chu toro. Mains split between herb-roasted branzino with vegetable basmati rice, angry lobster mafaldine in citrus garlic butter, or a selection of chef’s sushi and maki. Dessert stays playful — coconut mousse cake with roasted pineapple sorbet, or CATCH’s take on s’mores with toasted marshmallow and white chocolate ice cream.

Photo Credit: Osaka Nikkei Miami

Osaka Nikkei Miami

Miami Spice Reserve: $95 per person | Sun–Thu

Osaka’s $95 Reserve menu is built for sharing, which makes it one of the more social options on this list. The Japanese-Peruvian format moves through courses rather than a single fixed plate: from the Nikkei Bar, expect hamachi tiradito with leche de tigre, a carpassion of salmon and passion fruit honey, ebi mentaiko with smoked rocoto, katsu nigiri with salmon belly and white truffle oil, and the restaurant’s signature makimono.

The Peruvian Izakaya section gets heartier — a Nikkei salad, tumbo shrimp, shiromi brasa with grilled white fish, and niku kabayaki, an American Wagyu skirt steak served over a hot stone with tare and yuzu. Dessert, chirimoya ureshi, layers citrus tres leches with chirimoya ice cream, kumquat confit, shiso, chulpi praline, and kinako tuile — a lot of components for one plate, but it works.

Photo Credit: CLAUDIE

Claudie

$40 Lunch | Mon–Fri | $65 Dinner | Daily

Claudie leans into Côte d’Azur cooking without overdoing the theme, and the Brickell setting suits it. Lunch ($40) opens with heirloom tomato gazpacho, heirloom tomato salad, or zucchini carpaccio (black Angus beef tartare as an upgrade), then moves to branzino filet with tomato marmalade, rigatoni arrabbiata with ricotta, or chicken Milanese — hanger steak and frites available at extra cost.

Dinner, offered daily at $65, adds crab croquettes and a black Angus tenderloin upgrade to a lineup that includes ricotta ravioli, rotisserie herb chicken, and Faroe Island salmon. It’s a menu that rewards diners who like their Mediterranean food a little more composed than rustic.

Photo Credit: MILA Miami

MILA Miami

$40 Lunch & Brunch | $50–$65 Dinner

MILA’s rooftop on Meridian Avenue has always sold as much on atmosphere as on food, and Miami Spice doesn’t change that formula. Lunch and brunch run $40 per person; dinner ranges from $50 to $65 depending on the night, before tax and gratuity.

The three-course menu leans into MILA’s MediterrAsian identity — Japanese technique meeting Mediterranean ingredients — but the bigger draw is still the room itself: the design, the music, the general sense that dinner is about to turn into something later. For anyone who wants their Miami Spice reservation to double as a night out, MILA is the closer.

Where to Start

What makes Miami Spice worth planning around isn’t any single restaurant — it’s how much range the twelve above cover between them. Daniel’s and Maple & Ash approach steakhouse indulgence from opposite directions. Jaya, Queen, Osaka, and MILA carry the city’s Asian-dining strength across several different traditions. Serafina and MAMO handle the Italian craving; Milos and Claudie split the Mediterranean into two very different registers. Hutong brings real heat to the list, and CATCH delivers the rooftop-and-seafood combination Miami Beach does so well.

There’s no single correct way to work through it. Book a weekday lunch, splurge on a Reserve dinner, or build out an entire August-into-September calendar. With twelve restaurants this different from one another, the only real decision left is where to start.