The Best Restaurants In The Design District

LA import Mother Wolf is yet another out-of-town Italian restaurant with a reputation for impossible reservations and famous noodles. But it does make perfect sense in the Design District. A white grand piano (only occasionally in use) greets you at the entrance, and you’ll turn the corner to see a frantically red dining room covered in mirrors, chandeliers, and enough clashing patterns to make your vision go blurry. Even though the Roman menu isn’t unanimously excellent, you can easily build a great meal out of bread and pasta. Get la mortazza, a folded-in-half pizza with a bouquet of mortadella inside. If you can tolerate a $58 pasta, the excellent spaghettini ai ricci di mare comes with a glob of uni on top and enough cultured butter to make each individual noodle shine.

Though it’s always a difficult dinner reservation to find, a meal at Mandolin is still easier than buying a plane ticket and flying to Greece—which is what having lunch here feels like. Mandolin is technically in Buena Vista, but only a block from the Design District. The Mediterranean food is very good, but this place is always crowded because it’s one of the greatest outdoor restaurants in Miami. The tables are shaded by trees and canopies, and the grilled octopus, whole Mediterranean sea bass, and grilled halloumi are exactly the kinds of things we want to eat under the Miami sky.

Some of Miami’s best sushi is being served inside a shiny, casual food hall in the Design District. That’s where you’ll find Sushi Yasu Tanaka, one of MIA Market’s vendors. And if you are looking for a splurgy Friday lunch that doesn't require a reservation, this is it. Everything here is great, but they do a ten-piece omakase platter (plus one handroll) for about $60 that's as good as most of Miami's upscale sushi omakase meals. Plus, spending $60 here is so much more satisfying than buying a pair of socks at one of the nearby designer stores.

Cote should be on your shortlist for any sort of big, celebratory blowout dinner. Especially one you’d like to involve meat. The Korean steakhouse is excellent—both the experience and the food. The staff take turns tending to beef sizzling away on the grill located in the center of the table. You will probably end up ordering multiple rounds of the wonderful cocktails. The restaurant has a sleek design that makes you feel like you’re eating 1,000 years in the future. And when added all together, these things make Cote one of the most exciting special occasion restaurants in the city. If it’s your first time here, definitely start with the Butcher’s Feast, a $74 per person tasting menu that ends with a little cup of soy sauce caramel soft serve.

It’s pretty incredible what Atomica is doing with a kitchen as big as a Manhattan studio closet. This is another spot inside MIA Market, and the Peruvian vendor serves the kind of dishes we usually expect from an upscale, impossible-to-reserve restaurant: tender lamb neck, ceviche with sunchoke-infused leche de tigre, and short rib empanadas that we’re officially declaring a national treasure. It’s a great luxurious lunch, but if you only have time for something quick, you should still pop in for that empanada. It’s encased in a dough that almost tastes like shortbread and is the greatest Peruvian-style empanada we’ve found in Miami.

Like many Design District restaurants, Elastika is consumed with appearances. It’s located in The Moore building, and the first thing you’ll notice when you walk in is Zaha Hadid’s installation, Elastika (where the restaurant gets its name). It stretches above the dining room, looming over guests drinking $22 cocktails. But food is ultimately Elastika’s focus and it demands your attention too. The menu uses whatever’s locally in season to produce beautifully plated dishes with a consistent emphasis on vegetables. The food makes sense with our climate too. This means refreshing flavors in the summer that work better than your car’s struggling A/C. Taking on a space like this is daunting but Elastika's food lives up to the design.

Jass is a Mediterranean restaurant about five blocks north of the Design District, slightly hidden on a residential street. And this place is almost too perfect a date night spot. It has real candles, brick walls, and live music almost every night. But even if you're not trying to woo a potential suitor, you should still come here. The Mediterranean food is good (and reasonably priced). Definitely order the clay pot of lamb, which comes encased in a dome of delicious brioche your server will slice open at the table. And know that the live music usually starts around 8:30, because that’s a big reason why you’re coming here too.

​​L’Atelier is expensive, but also a guaranteed impressive dinner (if you're into fussy futuristic French dishes). Expect great service and very decadent small plates involving lots of foie gras. They have some pricey tasting menu options that won’t disappoint, but if you’re going a la carte, make sure to get some form of raw fish and le foie gras au torchon, which comes with slices of buttery grilled brioche. The menu does change seasonally, so if you don’t see those two dishes—don’t panic. Whatever you have here is going to be some of the most interesting food you’ve eaten all year.

If the USS Enterprise from Star Trek had an exclusive, upscale restaurant onboard, it’d look a lot like Le Jardinier. This French spot directly underneath ​​L’Atelier has a shiny space that’s fitting for the sort of fussy dishes you’ll eat here. Those dishes, like shrimp in parmesan polenta and sunchoke velouté, are expensive and photogenic—but also delicious. There are a lot of phenomenal vegetable-focused things on the seasonal menu, but you'll also find impressive proteins, like a wagyu bavette that looks so perfect that it could be a movie prop. This place is also an ideal day-off lunch spot, with a daytime prix fixe lunch for about $40-$60 per person that's worth making up an excuse to blow off work this Friday.

This little bakery is another Buena Vista spot worth knowing about if you're walking around the neighborhood. Their Italian coffee drinks like cappuccino and shakerato are great. And the baked goods are excellent too. Options rotate often, but if you see the sourdough cinnamon roll, point to it like you just found Waldo on a particularly difficult page. Come early for sweet pastries like apple galette, or closer to noon when the sourdough sandwiches and Roman-style pizza occupy the counter. Just don’t plan on working at the small cafe. There’s no wifi, and the food’s too good to concentrate on anything else anyway. 

Michael’s Genuine was the first restaurant that made people want to eat in the Design District when it opened in 2006, and it’s still one of the neighborhood’s best spots. It’s a great place to sit outside for brunch on a nice day. They do a solid weekday Happy Hour from 4:30-7pm (only available at the bar). But we also like Michael’s for a proper sit-down lunch or dinner. It’s one of the few upscale options in the Design District that doesn’t feel designed for people with yacht brokers, and their mostly American menu includes some reliably good proteins. Seafood is usually the move here.