The best burgers in Miami: a field guide for the hungry meat lover

From its spot within the Citadel food hall, United States Burger Service (USBS for short) delivers top-quality ingredients, unique combinations and names you can’t help but giggle at. You can’t go wrong with the classic burger—the juicy patties sit between house-made potato buns—but the rotating specials with different kinds of cheeses and fresh sauces are really something else.

Apocalypse, the barbecue joint on a West Dade golf course that combines Miami flavors with traditional Southern recipes, does some seriously great burgers. There’s one with thick, smoky chunks of bacon and another that’s frita-like, with potato strings. But start with the Boss Burger, made with a smoky, juicy patty of brisket and rib meat that’s richly flavorful, to get an idea of what the place does best. Sure, the bun, pickles and cheese are all spot-on, but the patty is the real star.

There was a time when Ted’s was infinitely hard to find. They’d pop up somewhere, like at Eleventh Street Pizza, just for a night, and we’d all swoop in to devour the burgers like wolves. They do a great frita and an Oklahoma City fried onion burger, but the classic is king. It’s ultra smashed, the patty wafer-thin so that its edges get all crisp and caramelized prior to the cheese application. These days, you can score a Ted’s burger from 2 to 10pm on Sundays from a tent outside J. Wakefield Brewing.

The tropical influences run deep at this Downtown bar, where the drinks are frozen, the decor is lush and the staff frequently sports a floral print. The menu is simple yet thoughtful, with dishes made from ingredients sourced in Florida—including a flavorful Jamaican jackfruit patty veggie burger. If you’re into real meat, the cheeseburger is excellent, especially when you pair it with an order of french fries and a refreshing Paloma slushie. 

You might know Michael Beltran from his tasting menus and pressed duck and other incredible things he puts out at Ariete. So then it’ll come as little surprise that this talented chef also puts out a stellar double-patty burger, which you can order at his diner Chug’s or from his bar Taurus. At Taurus, they’re actually made in the kitchen at Ariete, whipped up by some of the finest line cooks in town and whisked next door to your table at a whiskey bar. How perfect is that?

Blue Collar is like Pavlov's bell. Just hearing its name makes our mouths water. It’s tough to pick from the menu but no one will ever shame you for going with the dry-aged cheeseburger, which is served atop a Portuguese muffin and made with prime NY strip. Trust us, you can taste the difference.

Winner of the People’s Choice award at the 2022 South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s Burger Bash, the Golden Burger is a simple-sounding burger overall: two four-ounce patties, American cheese, diced red onion and "secret" mayo. But the fact that it’s so good speaks to what La Birra does so well: nail every ingredient and combination, from the buttery and fluffy house-baked buns to meaty patties reminiscent of the ones dad would grill up in the backyard. 

Perhaps you’ll trust us that this is among the best burgers in Miami, you’ll head to this tiny Little River brewery to order one, and you’ll be a bit astounded when it arrives. It doesn’t initially look like much, just a simple patty sitting nearly alone on a sesame seed bun. Taste it, though, and you’ll see that there’s something special in every single ingredient. The bun is fluffy and fresh and perfect. The patty below is umami-packed, thanks to a flavor-fatty mix of brisket, short rib and koji-cured chuck. There are pickles, a special sauce and a slice of American, none of it looking overly fancy but also just somehow damn good.

An arayes is one of those brilliant cross-cultural combinations: a burger with Middle Eastern spices, stuffed in a pita and baked until the whole thing becomes a little burger package. Motek chef Einat Admony’s arayes is so good the cafe won the SOBEWFF’s Burger Bash People’s Choice Award. It’s made with kofta kebab spices and then slathered with harissa aioli—a combo worthy of all the awards.

Eat enough burgers, or sausages, or any cut of meat really, around town and you’ll notice a trend: Many of the best restaurants in town source their stuff from Proper Sausages. At the Miami Shores butcher shop, cut out the middleman by going to the source. There are two burgers on the menu, a special that changes weekly and then this simple creation: lettuce, tomato, special sauce, fluffy Cuban-style bun and a wagyu burger patty that shows why Proper Sausages have simply become Miami’s go-to meat suppliers.

This cool little whiskey joint taken over by Michelin-starred Michael Beltran is one of Coconut Grove’s longest-standing locales, serving an extensive selection of scotches, bourbons and all sorts of caramel-colored spirits. Come in for happy hour (daily 5–7pm) to order the Taurus Happy Meal ($15), which comes with a juicy Scrap Burger with fries and a 12oz Monopolio beer. 

It’s the grill that makes the burgers at Le Tub something special. It’s just a charcoal spit no bigger than your average serving platter, so small that the servers will often urge patience since there’s little room on it for all the people beckoned here by all the talk of this being the best burger in the country. The grill in question is well seasoned from all those thick, 13-ounce patties that have been flame kissed over the years. They arrive tableside on a poppy seed bun with nothing more than lettuce, tomato and onion, throwaway plate below. It doesn’t hurt that you're sitting in a slice of salty old South Florida, an open-air restaurant made of driftwood and old tubs and, thankfully, that glorious grill.

At Wynwood’s Le Chick, they’d have you believe that the main event is the rotisserie chicken. And it is good. But the real star of the show is a sneaky little burger called the Royale with Cheese: two juicy smash-patties buried in cheddar cheese sit between a fluffy house-baked bun. It sort of reminds us of an In-N-Out burger and it’s absolutely inhalable.

Nothing is more Miami than the frita, that combination of an American burger and Cuban ingredients, an amalgamation like the city itself. El Mago is among the oldest old-school frita makers in town, and it puts out what should be your baseline Cuban burger: crispy potato skins, spiced beef patty and a fluffy Cuban-style bun. This is the frita you should use to judge all others.

Silverlake is that bistro you wish you had in your neighborhood, and it serves up the burger you wish was just down the street. Two patties are downright oozing with cheese between a toasted bun and a big ol’ pile of fries. This isn’t overly fancy. It’s just the burger you want near you at all times.

It’s won many awards and also won over many a carnivore with its complex flavors and clean ingredients. You can chow down on an entire veggie burger and fries from Love Life without ever feeling weighed down. The reason? A healthy superfood patty, homemade guacamole topping, plant-based cheddar cheese.

Skinny Louie is a smashburger concept designed it seems to feed the drunken masses spilling late-night out of Wynwood bars, and in that endeavor it excels. But we wouldn’t disparage you for grabbing a Double Classic any time of day. With its double smash patties, cheese, tomato, onions, lettuce, ketchup and yellow mustard, it’s reminiscent of a Whopper, albeit the entire affair smashed thin, a wonderfully greasy disc of burger ready to help erase your night’s mistakes.

The namesake classic Pinch Burger is an eight-ounce custom beef blend patty that’s nestled between a brioche bun. Add swiss cheese, caramelized onions, aioli, fries and—poof—you’ll have yourself the perfect burger. Bring your vegan friends along and they can order an Impossible burger with guac and potato skins on a pretzel bun.

The burgers at Kush are a big reason owner Matt Kuscher is now overseeing a mini Miami restaurant empire. The burger menu here includes everything from a pastrami burger to a mouth-burning jalapeño barbecue number. But it's the Kush version of a frita that you'll need to try before declaring your favorite Miami burger, with its potato sticks, bacon, swiss, special sauce, and a bit of a sweet surprise from guava jelly.

Folks love the burgers over at Pincho Factory. With a handful of South Florida locations, Pincho has become known for some pretty crazy specialty burgers but the staple Pincho burger, topped with crispy potato sticks, is probably the best thing on the menu. Adventurous eaters, go for the Pipo’s Choice Burger, the winner of 2019’s SOBEWFF Burger Bash. It’s got an Angus beef patty topped with fried plantain bits, smoked gouda cheese, applewood smoked bacon, grilled onions, papitas and guava ketchup served between a buttery toasted brioche bun. It ain’t light!