As the era of supporting your local businesses continues, the food court of the future has emerged: The Food Hall. This unique setup usually consists of six to 10 restaurants serving grab-and-go style food with communal seating throughout like a fancy food court. Always on-trend, especially in their culinary scene, Miami had food halls popping up all over the city in 2017. With six food halls already bustling with young people and baby boomers alike, five more are planned to open in Miami in spring 2018.
1-800-Lucky is Miami’s Asian-themed food hall that looks like a vinyl record store on the outside and houses five vendors serving food as if you’re in an open-air market in Asia. Unless you knew what 1-800-Lucky was, you would probably think it was a record store. The front of the food hall is a functioning record store but, when you turn around the right corner and walk through the right door, you are welcomed into a giant restaurant filled with the smell of soy sauce simmering over meat on a grill. Fluorescent pink and red lights hang on the walls with a simple, modern Japanese vibe settling over the diners. 1-800-Lucky also has a karaoke room with a $10 cover charge and a list with thousands of songs from all over the world. All together, the five vendors in this food hall serve Chinese, ramen, sushi, poke, dim sum, bahn mi, and ice cream. One of the most popular food items to get here is the matcha waffle cone that's shaped like Koi fish and filled with green tea matcha ice cream. A popular drink is the Unicorn Slushie from Taro, and it comes with a unicorn floaty that's perfect for Instagram.
The Wharf is a waterfront food hall that offers spectacular views, cornhole, and seafood. There is a regular rotation of popular local chefs who host one-night special events alongside local food trucks that fill the waterfront each weekend. The atmosphere brings Nantucket to Miami with its nautical theme and Northeast cuisine. You can choose to arrive in style by car or by boat as the hall provides parking for both. Locals like to stop in for drinks while walking their dogs as The Wharf is pet-friendly. This food hall is open Thursday through Sunday and has a happy hour that keeps the line long on most nights with $3 glasses of wine and $1 pints of beer from 4:00 p.m. to close on Friday and Saturday nights. Popular eats at The Wharf include the donuts from Mojo’s and the Ceviche at Garcia’s. Snowbirds enjoy the New England-like atmosphere at this food hall during the day, but, at night, this is the spot to be seen out with your friends in Downtown Miami.
Casa Tua Cocina is an Italian food hall hidden inside the Saks at Brickell City Centre known it's authentic Italian cuisine. The owners of South Beach’s Casa Tua Restaurant have carried over their style of cooking into Brickell's first food hall, which features 10 different Italian and Mediterranean dining stations, a restaurant, and a full bar. Known for their swanky atmosphere and extravagant plates, this food hall keep shoppers coming back for more. There's also a flower shop inside Casa Tua Cocina that creates one-of-a-kind arrangements as well as a cooking accessory store where you can learn to cook like the chefs at Casa Tua Cocina whose fresh, never-frozen pastas are nothing short of amazing, especially their popular Carbonara pasta.
La Centrale - Italian Food Hall
The much-anticipated La Centrale opened last week on February 16 in the north end of Brickell’s City Centre, making Italian food-lovers happy, to say the least. With three stories and 40,000 square feet, this large food hall will host 14 different authentic Italian eateries. There will be five full bars as well as grab-and-go food counters, casual dining, and sit-down restaurants in the hall serving Italian gourmet in-house pastas, salads, pizzas, and desserts. La Centrale had a soft opening for family and friends of the vendors and owners with a fixed menu of samples from each place that attendees raved about online.
Treats Food Hall
Aventura Mall is home to Treats Food Hall with almost a dozen high-quality food stands for shoppers and foodies to enjoy. The food hall takes up the third floor of the Aventura Mall and is has both local and established restaurants. Celebrity Chef Todd English has a gourmet pizza place that serves authentic Italian pizza that is often a fan favorite. Other places to try at the food hall are Hank & Harrys Delicatessen, Poke 305, and Luke’s Lobster, each serving authentic food from around the globe. Hank & Harry’s Delicatessen serves up made-to-order Jewish and Italian cold cut sandwiches. Their most popular are the corned beef, the pastrami and the brooklyn-style hero. Poke 305 was the first taste of poke that Miami ever had with fresh, local seafood. Luke’s Lobster has Maine-bred seafood like lobster, shrimp, and crab that are served with a seasonal salad, ideal for a snowbird that’s missing the taste of home! .
The Wynwood Yard is an outdoor food hall hidden between the colorful and expressive walls of Wynwood where trucks in the area rotate on a roster of 10 at a time. This food hall provides a casual night out in the city with live music and local vendors selling their goods alongside each of innovative food concepts. There is an edible garden where the trucks gather their greens and vegetables from on site, so they serve all kinds of vegetarian and vegan options. A popular vegetarian option is the matcha or veggie bowls from Della’s Test Kitchen. The clam and pesto pizza from Morgan’s and the Jerk Chicken from Fonedood are two that guests rave about. The food trucks rotate often, but if you find one you love, they provide a month-long schedule at the door so you can see when they’ll be back at Wynwood Yard.
Miami is due to welcome five more Food Halls to the city this spring. Two will be located on South Beach and are likely to draw locals in with their homegrown, Miami-style food and award-winning chefs. Time Out Market is going to bring Miami's culture to life in their one-of-a-kind market with 27 local eateries within it. Another food hall that plans to open in 2018 is the Lincoln Eatery within blocks of the Lincoln Road Mall. The Lincoln Eatery will focus on fast, affordable dining options that are high-quality. The Citadel is another food hall that will open its doors in the upcoming year. They have a second location of Myumi Sushi, which is the best sushi place in Wynwood; they also have a Mexican restaurant called Taquezia that will bring blue corn tacos filled with slow-roasted meats and grilled corn to the Citadel. Founders of the Wynwood Yard plan to open Jackson Hall in the Health District with a focus on healthy farm-to-table foods including a hydroponic farm.
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Cover photo courtesy of Pexels
