For restaurant lovers living in the times of COVID-19, a good takeout meal at home has become a comforting routine. While restaurants in Miami-Dade County with outdoor seating are currently able to remain open for dine-in service, these summer storms and humidity don’t always bode well for outdoor dining, and takeout or delivery might be your best bet.
Here are eight Miami restaurants – four old favorites and four new pop-ups – operating on a takeout and delivery-only basis right now that are sure to satisfy for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Miami Restaurants Doing Takeout And Delivery-Only
Whether for health and safety purposes, financial reasons, or lack of outdoor seating, these Miami restaurants are closed for dine-in service for the time being – but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy your favorite eats and support them from home.
El Bagel (MiMo)
The food truck famous for its fresh-baked, hand-rolled bagels finally opened its brick-and-mortar location in Miami’s Upper East Side in March, only to close it again 13 days later. They’ve been operating as a pre-order and pick up-only operation since, so the only way to get your El Bagel fix is to visit their website, el-bagel.com, when orders go live for the day at 8 a.m.
If you’re an El Bagel first-timer, don’t miss out on one of the specialty bagels they’re best known for, like the EB Original (thick-cut bacon from Proper Sausages, scallion cream cheese and roasted jalapeños) or the aptly named King Guava (guava marmalade, plain cream cheese, papitas and fried egg). For an incredibly well executed classic, we also recommend the Lox Supreme with locally smoked lox, English cucumber, dill, pickled onion, tomato and capers (on an Everything Bagel, if you know what’s good for you). You can also order individual bagels, schmears, and smoked fish salads to-go.
Be warned, these bagels go fast and don’t expect to pick yours up within 15 minutes. Once your order is placed, you’ll get a time estimate for same-day pick-up. The El Bagel team does their best to space out orders throughout the day, so that means pick-up time could be three hours from now.
El Bagel is currently open Thursday through Monday from 8 a.m. to noon, or until sold out and closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Navé (Coconut Grove)
The coastal Italian concept from chef team Michael Beltran and Justin Flit has transitioned to offering takeout and delivery-only in response to the shifting demands presented by COVID-19. Navé’s takeout selection is a shortened version of its regular menu, featuring some of its most popular pizzas, pastas and salads. That includes items like the chef’s daily oyster selection; Bucatini with ‘nduja and clams; Rigatoni with beef, veal and pork bolognese; Snapper Milanese with arugula and san Marzano tomato compote; and Oxtail Pizza with shaved fennel, tomato sauce and mozzarella.
Pre-batched cocktails serving two to four can also be ordered to-go, and the restaurant will offer rotating themed menus such as Proof Burger nights, so guests can enjoy Flit’s fan-favorite burger from his former Proof restaurant, from the comfort of their homes.
Navé will be open Wednesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., and orders can be placed online at navemiami.com or by phone at 786.615.3747. Navé’s Ariete Hospitality Group sister restaurants – Ariete, Chug’s, and The Taurus – are all continuing to offer outdoor seating in addition to takeout and delivery. (Note: Chug’s will close for renovations in August.)
STK Steakhouse (South Beach)
STK South Beach’s dining room may be closed, but you can still order your Lil’ Brgs – those crowd-pleasing wagyu beef sliders with special sauce – for takeout and delivery from 3 p.m.-11 p.m. daily. (And when we say can, we mean should.) A full menu of hearty steaks including the Cowgirl Ribeye, Dry-Aged Delmonico and 14-oz. Bone-In Filet, are all available for ordering, as well as Giant Wagyu Meatballs with linguine, Buttermilk Fried Chicken Thighs with honey BBQ sauce and coleslaw, and Surf ’n’ Turf combos. STK’s side dishes may be the most note-worthy indulgence, however. You can’t go wrong with Parmesan Truffle Fries, Tater Tots, Jalapeño Cheddar Grits or Sweet Corn Pudding.
The South Beach restaurant is also offering STK @ Home meal kits for two to four people so you can prep your own steakhouse dinner at home. They come with cryo-sealed filet mignons with STK steak rub, STK bold sauce, and sides of mac and cheese and asparagus that are ready to heat.
To place your order online, visit stksteakhouse.com/venues/south-beach. Delivery is also available via Postmates, Grubhub and DoorDash.
Takeout or Delivery-Only Pop-Up Restaurants In Miami
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case, that’s how these takeout-only pop-up restaurants were born out of the pandemic. For some, moving to a new takeout and delivery-friendly menu and developing an entirely new concept was necessary to bring in business. For others, the timing might not have been right to open up their own restaurant space, so local chefs have collaborated by popping up a new concept in a fellow restaurant owner’s kitchen.
Lil’ Laos (Operating out of Fooq’s)
While Fooq’s has innovated for its guests over the last few months, with offerings such as at-home Fooq’s Bazaar grilling kits and a prix fixe dinner series of its greatest hits, the restaurant decided to pause service and invite in husband and wife duo Sakhone Sayarath and Chef Curtis Rhodes for a two-month pop-up highlighting Laotian cuisine. (For the uninitiated, Laos is a Southeast Asian country, and steamed sticky rice, spicy green papaya salad, and cold meat salads are a few Laotian food staples.)
Featuring spicy and aromatic Laotian fare with bold flavors, Lil’ Laos will be operating out of Fooq’s Downtown Miami restaurant through the end of September. The menu includes $8 street snacks, cold salad plates like sliced beef laab and shrimp glass noodles, as well as large entrees such as fried whole fish with chilies and lemongrass herb sauce and chicken red curry soup with coconut milk.
The Lil’ Laos pop-up is available for takeout or delivery via UberEats and GrubHub on Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 8 p.m. Follow @LilLaos on Instagram for updates.
Old Greg’s Pizza (Operating out of Kaido)
The Instagram-famous pizza pop-up has joined forces with James Beard Award semifinalist Brad Kilgore and his Kilgore Culinary Group, finding a home in Kaido’s kitchen (making their elusive naturally leavened pizza only slightly less impossible to get your hands on). Old Greg’s square pie pizza – with its simultaneously crisp yet fluffy sourdough crust – was created by Greg Tetzner, who previously made the naan at Ghee, bagels at El Bagel, and pizza at Michael’s Genuine.
It’s available for pick-up only from Kaido in the Design District, with pre-orders required and new time slots typically only opening on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. All takeout orders must be reserved for a specific time slot and paid for in advance, but these slots can run out in minutes – so this isn’t for the faint of heart.
Make sure to get the O.G. Roni Pie with pepperoni, local hand-pulled mozzarella, and hot honey, and the Shroomz, topped with mozz, ricotta, Florida mushrooms, and a salsa verde made of wild ramps. There’s also a handful of apps on the menu that’ll make your at-home pizza party complete, like sourdough garlic knots with umami garlic-butter hollandaise and polenta-crusted chicken wings with buffalo and blue cheese, plus spiked slushies you can take to-go or drink while you wait for your order.
Visit oldgregspizza.com the next time Wednesday comes around, or stay tuned to their Instagram @OldGregsPizza for additional announcements.
Red Sauce (Operating out of Mignonette)
Danny Serfer’s seafood spot Mignonette has closed for now because “things got weird in Miami,” but he’s taken this opportunity to launch an Italian comfort food pop-up called Red Sauce – a concept that was a long time coming. (Serfer and his partner had the restaurant idea in their back pocket for a while but, with business declining at Mignonette and Vinaigrette, they decided now was the right time to make it happen.)
The Red Sauce menu consists of red sauce-laden Italian American classics that were made to hold up to delivery, like chicken parm, baked ziti, spaghetti and meatballs, and a crispy eggplant stack. There are also cheesy red sauce hoagies of all kinds (meatball pam, chicken pam, veal parm and eggplant), a long list of the hearty veggie sides Serfer is known for, and a nostalgic French bread pizza appetizer that’ll remind you of Stouffer’s frozen version. Rest assured there are non-red sauce dishes, too, like veal marsala, grouper francaise, and orecchiette pasta with sausage.
Open Wednesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Red Sauce is taking orders online at mignonettemiami.com, which can be picked up from Mignonette in Downtown, and also doing delivery via UberEats. Serfer’s Blue Collar restaurant is open for dine-in with a new outdoor beer garden, so the chef says you can even order Red Sauce delivery to Blue Collar if you still want to gather and eat outside.
Rosie’s (Operating out of Copper Door B&B)
Does hot chicken and waffles or shrimp and grits sound more your style? When their historic Overtown bed and breakfast The Copper Door had to close due to the pandemic, co-owners Jamila Ross and Akino West found a new outlet for serving up their chef-driven soul food. The duo launched Rosie’s, a pop-up operating out of their hotel’s kitchen based on a restaurant concept they hope to eventually open next door. Prior to that, the chef’s gourmet breakfast dishes were only available to the B&B guests waking up each morning at The Copper Door.
The Rosie’s pop-up is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m.-noon, and menu items can be ordered to-go or delivered via UberEats, Postmates, GrubHub or DoorDash. Whether you want to make it a light breakfast or hearty brunch, choices include chocolate croissants with guava glaze, cheddar omelet, or a breakfast plate of country sausage, egg and grits, plus comfort food like hot chicken and waffles or buttermilk biscuits.
Hours may change, and they continue to launch new menu items and specials, so stay tuned to their Instagram at @RosiesMIA.
