Where to Find the Best Cocktails in Miami Right Now

Many of the city’s hottest spots are serving excellent drinks.

I recently spent a few days in Miami, using my evenings to eat and drink my way around the city. For reasons both personal and professional, I focused on the places with top cocktails, whether they be restaurants, bars, or something in-between.

Even just a few years ago, a list of Miami’s great cocktail spots would have been awfully short. These days, it’s considerably longer, with options that will appeal both to true cocktail nerds and to casual enthusiasts. Still, the top spots can all be visited in the span of a long weekend—if your liver function is high and your need for sleep is low.

These are the places I recommend right now.

Bar Kaiju

Despite gaining national acclaim in the two years this small bar has been open, it’s still kind of an “if you know, you know” spot. Even if you know about the bar, you also have to know, for instance, that it’s in the Little River building that houses a food court, and that you have to take the elevator to the second floor, and that once there you need to look around until you spot the noren curtains, and that once through those, you have to continue down the long, long hallway to reach the bar itself, with perhaps 16 bar stools (plus a few low tables down that hallway).

Once you’re there, though, it’s magic.

I first visited around this time last year, a few days away from the bar’s first birthday, and immediately decided it was the best new bar in the US. After this repeat visit, I stand by that appraisal. It’s a place for utter geeks, of both the monster/manga/anime/fantasy card game type and of the cocktail variety.

The drinks, some of the most creative and well-conceived cocktails you’ll find anywhere, are all named for various monsters from cultures around the globe; the illustrated menu is a delight to peruse. Most of the cocktails on offer are recognizable spins on classics, but dressed up in ways you’d never expect; no flavor is too esoteric to be employed here. (A gin sour might also incorporate Calpico and flavors of shiso, cucumber, and coconut, and be dusted with furikake, for example.) Housemade infusions are the norm, not the exception. You’ll almost certainly have questions, and the staff is unfailingly generous with their answers.

Note that the bar is a quick Uber ride from Sunny’s, below; a perfect evening out might involve dining there and then grabbing a nightcap (or three) at Kaiju afterward.

To drink: I found the Tuyango, an americano spin made with Italicus, Savoia, house red bitter, strawberry, and mate soda, to be the most crushable cocktail I’ve had all year. I also loved the Muki, an earthy manhattan riff with clay-infused pisco, porcini mushroom-infused rubino vermouth, palo cortado sherry, and rababaro zucca. But really, you can’t go wrong with any of the drinks here. Pick a monster that speaks to you and go for it.

Sunny’s

I was crushed to hear of the closing this past summer of Miami institution Jaguar Sun. I adored that cozy spot with great pastas and even better drinks. And I’ll confess that until I dined at Sunny’s, I’d felt slightly bitter toward the new spot, which started as an early-pandemic pop-up in the Little River neighborhood before evolving into its current, permanent incarnation in the same space: Jaguar Sun closed so that its team could put its full energy into this restaurant.

The good news is, several of Jaguar Sun’s famed pastas and other dishes (welcome back, kouign amann ice cream sandwich) have made the transition to the menu here. The restaurant is nominally a steakhouse, but its offerings display a much wider range than what that title might imply.

The better news is, Sunny’s is simply a truly great restaurant.

It’s located in a sprawling indoor/outdoor space. The courtyard, the more casual area, flows around a fairy-light-trimmed Banyan tree; the more formal indoors, with its white tablecloths and art deco-tinged tropical-colonial architecture and decor, is perfect for special occasions. (The bar, in a separate room, is a tropical art-deco haven.) There’s barely a physical division between the areas, though: Vast windows let the outside in, and vice versa.

I tried dishes from all sections of the menu (my dining companion and I shared 10 dishes in total; this is not a place for restraint), and I genuinely don’t have a favorite. I loved them all. You should try them all, too. It’s a place for indulging in excess, a place to order a little too much, have a little too good of a time, stay a little too long, leave a little too full. The food, the drinks, the space, the service, the vibe: all impeccable. It’s delicious, it’s elegant, and it’s genuinely fun—an uncommon combo, and a winning one.

In short, it's what I would consider a perfect restaurant.

To drink: The Living Dead is a spiky tiki mix of clairin, passion fruit, ginger, lime, spices, and tabasco—it’s a weird combination, for sure, but it somehow comes together perfectly. With your meal, a martini is a great option, of course: You can personalize your own from the plethora of options, or instead opt for the Fino Martini with, yes, gin and fino sherry, plus clarified passion fruit; it was one of the first drinks on the menu at Jaguar Sun, if you’re still feeling nostalgic. If you’re going with a group, there’s a deer-antler drinks candelabra of sorts that holds mini-shakers for six, of which I was terribly envious.

ViceVersa

If you’re missing the general vibes of Jaguar Sun—a casual, cozy downtown room with good food and even better cocktails—this is your new spot.

It’s an aperitivo bar with neapolitan-style pizza, as authentically contemporary Italian as it gets, with the cozy, casual feel of a neighborhood spot but the precision and service of a place that’s gunning for a spot on national and international “best” lists.

The food menu, I’m told, comes from the Jaguar Sun team; in addition to various creatively topped pizzas, there are raw bar offerings, salads, and other treats on offer.

The drinks are by Valentino Longo, whose CV includes top spots in Rome and London. His cocktail list can be divided into three roughly equal sections: negroni variations, martini riffs, and a few signature cocktails. The negronis use as their base a mixture the team refers to as MiTo; the Milano-Torino is usually a simple one-to-one combo of Campari and sweet vermouth, but here it comprises two sherries, three bitters, three vermouths, and a bit of osmanthus water. Everything else is equally as precisely perfected.

To drink: You simply must try the house negroni at some point during the night. To pair with your pizza, I’d suggest the Martini Doppio, a cross between a 50-50 and a gibson. And I loved the “lambrusco spritz” that contains no lambrusco, instead employing Savoia, palo cortado sherry, Barolo, carob, and cedrata soda to do the trick. Cap off your evening with a pour of one of the less-common amari on offer; there are plenty here I’ve never seen elsewhere.

Medium Cool

This subterranean Miami Beach lounge is decked out in speakeasy-chic—which is to say, dark wood, low ceilings, velvet everywhere, a general 1920s vibe—and, in a fun twist, has live jazz from 7 to 10 pm, after which a DJ comes on and the space morphs into a full-on nightclub, with a velvet rope and a dress code and all that. Social media tells me that celebs the likes of Diplo have spun there. And yet, in my experience, the staff were all sans the attitude you sometimes encounter at clubs elsewhere in the city; laid-back excellence seems to be the operating mode here.

I can’t comment on the party portion of the night, but the jazz is outstanding, and the happy hour (which runs a generous 6 to 8 pm) offers a wide selection of cocktails at exceptionally reasonable prices. The cocktail program is from ex-Dante bar star Naren Young, so the drinks are world-class.

Is it cool? More than medium.

To drink: The two most Miami cocktails I’ve ever had in the city were here, and were also diametrically opposed to each other. The Pina Colada Daiquiri is exactly what it sounds like, all fruity tropical vibes, while the Champagne Martini (made with, I can confirm, Lallier, not prosecco) is closer to a French 75 riff than a martini, with the extremely South Beach touch of a hefty sprinkling of gold sparkles.

Sweet Liberty

It’s neither the newest nor the hottest spot in town, but this Miami Beach fixture, popular with both tourists and locals, is consistently solid. Since Medium Cool is a quick stroll away, you might as well stop in here as well.

I’d actually suggest starting your night here on the earlier side (it’s a large, high-ceilinged, industrial-feeling space; it can get uncomfortably noisy when it fills up later in the evenings) with a cocktail or two and some bar snacks (oysters are popular, but I’m personally fond of the cauliflower nachos) before moseying down to Medium Cool for the jazz session.

Naren is in charge of the drinks program here, too, although you’ll see that a few cocktails from John Lermayer, the bar’s founder, remain on the menu.

To drink: The Tropical Negroni, adding pineapple, banana, passionfruit, and mango flavors to the usual mix, is a fun spin on the classic cocktail, while the Giant’s Milk, a Lermayer original, has extreme tiki vibes with both rum and rhum, condensed milk, passionfruit, lime, and cinnamon (served ablaze).

Mac’s Club Deuce

It’s far from a cocktail bar, but you’ll more than likely end your night here anyhow, so I might as well include it on this list. It’s the diviest of dives, apparently the oldest bar in Miami, and an industry spot where, as one industry person told me, “You intend to stop in for ‘one final drink of the night’ and before you know it you’ve had four more beers.”

It’s cash-only, open from 8 am until 5 am. It has a pool table, a lot of neon, air that’s perpetually thick with cigarette smoke, and a jukebox that will more than likely be playing David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and the like. Each time I’ve set foot in the place, I’ve immediately been adopted by a 60-something-year-old local who spent the night regaling me with stories of his “wild Miami youth.”

It is an objectively perfect dive bar.

To drink: The champagne of beers and a shot.

Bonus: Zebra Club

I’m told this upcoming spot, another Naren Young venture, will open in the new year. The concept is still being finalized, but it’s expected to be an upscale supper club, geared toward the city’s deepest-pocketed residents and visitors, with cocktails employing vintage spirits. I hope to be lucky enough to check it out.