The best Key Biscayne restaurants to try right now

This wine bar, restaurant and market opened in 2021 and quickly became a go-to for locals on the Key—and a new reason to make the drive in for us unchosen masses who don't live there. Sommelier Allegra Angelo helms the wine program and regularly hosts themed tasting events where you can learn from experts while getting a nice buzz and discovering a few favorites to take home. The menu features approachable contemporary American fare like steamed mussels, grilled artichokes, smoked burrata and braised short rib. Though wine's the specialty here, the cocktails are also potent and well-balanced.

As the name implies, Flour & Weirdoughs takes your usual bakery items and does weird (and delicious) things to them. They top their Danish with smoked salmon, dill, lemon and goat cheese. Pizza is slathered with pear, walnut and gorgonzola. Cornbread muffins are stuffed with chorizo. And perhaps most famously, they cram croissants with brisket, mustard and provolone. Yeah, they put out more traditional stuff, too (shout out to the Basic AF Croissant), but the daily creations of delightfully weird doughs are alone worth a drive out to the Key.

If somebody who has never been to Miami tried to picture what a restaurant here would be, it would probably look like this: a waterfront mainstay with bay views out to the city skyline and a solid seafood-centric menu. Of course, there are tourists, but locals have been celebrating birthdays and honor rolls here for five decades. Crowds descend for the weekend brunch, but it’s the happy hour (4 to 6:30pm Monday through Friday) that feels especially festive when the parade of yachts provides as much entertainment as the people-watching. 

You’ll recognize it when you see it, and you’ll fall in love with it the moment you taste it: María Luisa Benavides’ strawberry pavlova. Her Key Biscayne bakery can’t bake them fast enough, as the large sheet cakes have become somewhat of a birthday staple around these parts. The pavlova, as well as the rest of Piononos’ wonderful pastries, are available for pick-up and delivery across Miami-Dade and parts of Broward County.

The breezy indoor-outdoor restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, Miami serves two very different purposes: It’s a classy spot for a casual breakfast, brunch and lunch with a lobster roll and grouper sandwich. Or fancy it up at dinner with a Mediterranean surf and turf menu with royal red prawns al ajillo and a grass-fed lamb chop.

Pioneering Wynwood bar Gramps expands to Key Biscayne with Gramps Getaway, a campy, authentically Florida joint with boat access, skyline views, freshly caught seafood, tropical drinks and all the funky thrills the bar has come to be known for—with a more "come-in-your-flip-flops" vibe. The kitchen whip out exactly what you’d expect from this kind of place: fresh Florida seafood, battered, blackened or grilled and other dockside classics. New, too, is a raw bar specializing in but not limited to oysters from all coasts: East, West, Canadian, you name it. 

The low-key French-meets-Latin bakery churns fresh treats out of the oven daily. Its menu is pleasantly large (and especially appropriate for breakfast), but we feel confident you’ll fall in love with the formidable open-faced croque madame on a baguette.

It isn’t easy to find Boater’s Grill, a restaurant deep inside Bill Baggs State Park on the waters of No Name Harbor. But make your way through the park’s winding roads and you’ll find a place that feels very much like Old Miami, an open-air spot serving grilled fish and Latin dishes like ceviche, shrimp in creole sauce and seafood paella. You probably won’t find your new favorite conch fritters, but you will discover an ideal spot to watch boats mosy out toward Stiltsville.

This Argentine restaurant with several Miami area locations sticks to the winning Argentine formula: meat, meat and more meat (and wine). The menu covers a lot of ground from sandwiches to seafood, but make no mistake, whether for lunch for dinner, you can still find juicy slabs of beef, rib eye and tenderloin

Kebo is as popular among the tourists sent here by their concierges as much as it is for the Key locals, who know this is a tapas restaurant that feels relocated from Madrid. Expect a warm and friendly staff and paella rice and seafood dishes that could feed the neighborhood.

A classy place with a sprawling menu of the Mediterranean’s greatest hits, Costa Med’s wine list should be enough to please the grape snob in your life. There’s pasta, of course, ranging from stuffed ravioli to homemade black linguini. Or, if this occasion is really special, splurge on the veal chop or the filet mignon. Oh, and don’t forget the wine.

The more casual Mexican option at The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, Miami boasts the kind of Atlantic view that’s surprisingly rare in Miami. This trip to coastal Mexico will cost you—$22 for blackened fish tacos and a $24 burger with guac— but at least you’ll be basking in those ocean vibes.

Sir Pizza has been catering to Key Biscayne sleepovers, soccer games and more since it opened in 1969. Today, it’s still the island’s reigning pie thanks to its convenience and just a hint of nostalgia. The adorable “mini” personal pizza that many of us remember for five bucks is now almost double that, but it’s still one of the Key’s best slices feeling like you just scored the winning goal.

A dispute with the previous landlord nearly led to the demise of this 50-year-old greasy spoon. A new location in 2023 didn’t change much about the classic breakfast and casual lunch items, including the Ted’s Special for $13.25: bacon, ham, cheese, tomato and egg on an open-faced English muffin.