Cooks argue about burgers the way other people argue about football. We do it on the line, between tickets, usually with grease on our forearms. So here it is in writing: our honest list of the best burgers in Miami right now — nine of them, spread across Westchester, the Grove, South Beach and one that technically isn't even in Miami-Dade.
We're a burger shop. Obviously we're biased. But we eat out on our days off like everybody else, and a city with this many good patties deserves a list that actually says what each place does well instead of ranking them one through nine like it's a sport.
No freebies, no deals, no one paid to be here. We paid for every burger on this list, most of them more than once. We judged four things:
Prices below are ballparks from our own receipts. Miami being Miami, they move. Check before you go.
If you've never eaten a Cuban frita, start here and start hungry. Thin, paprika-and-chorizo-spiced beef, griddled hard, piled with a bird's nest of shoestring potato sticks on a soft roll. It's not a smash burger and it isn't trying to be — it's its own thing, and it's one of the most purely Miami plates in the city.
Order: two fritas (one is never enough) and a batido. Ballpark: under $10 a frita.
Grand Avenue, small room, grass-fed beef, a beer list that takes Florida brewing seriously. What we respect most is the sourcing — they've been fussy about where the beef comes from since long before it was a selling point. Their take on the frita is the move: the Cuban toppings on a proper thick patty.
Order: the Frita Burger. Ballpark: high teens to low twenties with a side.
Tucked in the clubhouse at the Granada Golf Course, with a griddle that's been seasoned by decades of service. No branding, no concept, no playlist. Just a flat-top burger cooked by someone who's cooked ten thousand of them. Lunch hours only — turn up late and you'll be eating somewhere else.
Order: cheeseburger, grilled onions, fries. Ballpark: low teens.
The 3am burger. Washington Avenue, griddle running, a queue of people who've made questionable decisions and are about to make one great one. It is not a refined burger. It's hot, salty, oniony and exactly right at the hour you need it.
Order: double cheeseburger with grilled onions, add bacon. Ballpark: low-to-mid teens.
This is the steakhouse patty on the list. Big, coarse-ground, cooked properly medium, served with the kind of confidence that comes with the Ocean Drive address. It's a fork-and-knife burger and the price reflects the room as much as the beef — but if you want to taste what good dry-aged-adjacent grind does in a bun, this is the education.
Order: the burger, at the bar, early. Ballpark: $30 and up, more once drinks land.
Put the snobbery down. The reason Shake Shack is on a list of the best burgers in Miami is the potato bun and the discipline — squishy, slightly sweet, steamed-soft, and the same every single time whether you're in Brickell or Coral Gables. We've learned more about bun-to-patty ratio from eating these than we'd like to admit.
Order: SmokeShack, crinkle fries. Ballpark: around $10–14 for the burger.
Homegrown, and they lean into it. Latin toppings done with intent rather than as a gimmick — potato sticks, cilantro sauce, plantain where it makes sense. The tostón burger, with the patty pressed between fried green plantains instead of bread, is the one people bring out-of-towners for. Fast-casual pricing, better-than-fast-casual beef.
Order: the tostón burger if it's your first time. Ballpark: low-to-mid teens.
Yes, it's Broward. Yes, we're counting it, because half of Miami has made that drive up A1A at least once. A hand-formed sirloin patty the size of a softball, cooked slowly over charcoal while you sit on the Intracoastal watching boats go by. It takes forever. That's the deal. Go on a weekday, go early, bring patience.
Order: the big sirloin burger, medium. Ballpark: north of $25.
Our turn, and we'll keep it honest. We don't do thick pub patties, we don't do fork-and-knife, and we're not going to tell you we're number one in a city this good. What we do is one thing, hard: grass-fed and American Wagyu beef, smashed to order on a screaming flat-top and crisped in wagyu tallow until the edges go lacy and dark.
The OG Smash is the one to judge us on — double patty, cheese that's actually melted into the crust, nothing on it that distracts from the beef. If you want the richer version, the Truffle Wagyu is there. Tallow fries on the side, every time. Then a shake, because a smash burger without something cold alongside it is half a meal.
Order: OG Smash double, tallow fries. Ballpark: see the full menu and current pricing here.
Here's the thing people get wrong. A smash burger isn't a smaller version of a steakhouse burger. It's a different food. The steakhouse patty is about the interior — juicy, pink, beefy, barely handled. The smash is about the surface: thin beef pressed onto hot steel so that most of the patty becomes crust. Two patties, two sets of crispy edges, cheese fused into the lot.
So when someone asks which is better, the answer is neither. They're answering different cravings. The Le Tub burger is a two-hour Sunday. Ours is a twelve-minute Tuesday that still makes you stop talking for the first three bites.
If you want the deeper version of that argument — the ones worth queuing for and what separates a real crust from a sad grey puck — we wrote a whole guide to finding the best smash burger in Miami. And if you've never understood what the smashing actually does to the beef, here's the science, from our flat-top.
We've left places off. We know. Miami's burger scene turns over fast and there are counters in Hialeah and Little Haiti we haven't got to yet — tell us about them, genuinely. We'll go.
In the meantime, we're on Biscayne, the flat-top's hot, and there's beef waiting to be pressed. Find us, our hours and the address here, come in hungry, and order it the way we'd order it: double, cheese, fries fried in tallow.
Grass-fed and American Wagyu, cut fresh in-house daily, smashed to order and crisped in wagyu tallow. 2925 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33137. Open from 11am every day, late on Friday and Saturday.
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