The Best Sandwiches In Miami

Unrated: Restaurants we want to re-visit before assigning a rating. We only rate spots where you can eat a full meal. We won’t rate a coffee shop, bar that only serves peanuts, or dessert shop.

THE SPOTS

Frankie & Wally’s suffers over the fine print of its sandwiches. This is why you should stick it out even if you walk in here on a Saturday at noon and the place looks like a freshly stepped-on ant hill. As people who can not be within 25 yards of mortadella without ordering an Italian sub, our pick from the menu is the Il Padrino. Despite how many layers of mortadella, salami, and ham are in this, it’s not an overwhelming meat tornado, because they slice it all so miraculously thin. If you’re more of a morning person, come for the intensely cheesy BEC (served from 9am to 10:30am).

Anything involving Stand’s springy shokupan is fantastic (including their toasts), but the katsu sando is the sandwich to prioritize. It comes with two whole craggly chicken cutlets stacked on top of each other with sweet tonkatsu sauce and shaved cabbage for extra crunch. Every bite sounds like a good knuckle crack and feels like one, too (emotionally speaking). Just know that Stand is very small, and everything is served in to-go boxes. So we prefer to treat it like a takeout situation.

This springy housemade english muffin—the true hero of this sandwich—is generously stuffed with fluffy eggs, cheddar, and smoked bacon still hissing from the oil. It’s baffling to think that a microscopic bakery trailer could birth the best breakfast sandwich in Miami, but Ophelia has the line to prove it. They usually sell out by 11am, so get there early. Even if you miss this sandwich, you’ll still walk away with something you love, like a coffee-glazed cinnamon roll.

When we talk about sandwiches, we usually focus on what’s inside, but at Flagler St. Bakery, the bread is just as exciting as what’s sandwiched in between. Our favorite one is an expertly stacked mortadella sandwich lathered in pesto with enough cold stracciatella to get some in every bite. Obviously the meat and cheese has a lot of do with why we enjoy it so much, but it’s the dimpled focaccia that really makes it a top Miami sandwich.

Unsurprisingly, it’s all about the dough at this Italian bakery in Buena Vista. So the highlight of the sandwiches (which rotate daily) is the schiacciata bread. It’s sort of a thinner version of focaccia, which Baker & Barista pries open like an envelope to stuff with simple combinations of ham, mortadella, turkey, or whatever else they feel like making that day. Just know that they won’t hit the counter until about noon. The mornings here are reserved for pastries.

Chances are, if you’re longing for a fried chicken sandwich, Pluma has exactly what you want. The four sandwiches at this casual MiMo spot are simple, and the chicken is yanked from the fryer at precisely the right second to remain crunchy and juicy. The finest example of this is the O.G. 2.0: pickles, buttermilk ranch, and a brined, crunchy chicken thigh that’s incredibly juicy. They really made a great decision in sourcing their brioche milk bread buns from the local Oori Bakeshop, too.

Every sandwich that comes out of this Peruvian food truck is made on crisp pan francés. And while they’d all make Peru proud, this one, with its shiny pork chunks and sweet potato slices, is by far the best. It delivers salt and fat from the chicharrón, acid from the salsa criolla, heat from the side of rocoto sauce, and a pinch of sweetness from the sweet potato. It’s available till midnight on Friday and Saturday, and thick enough to sober up a drunk squad of Pedal Pub riders who’re in danger of crashing into the Wynwood Walls.

To be clear: every sandwich at Proper Sausages is amazing. But we have a particularly strong love affair with the BLT. Like all of life’s great pleasures, it’s simple. Bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo. And yet, it doesn’t taste simple at all, because the tomatoes are fresh and local and as plump as a water balloon that’s about to pop. The bacon is absurdly good and cut nice and thick. This sandwich is a testament to the power of quality ingredients, and if we don’t eat at least one a month, we’ll start being mean to our loved ones.

This is a rare opportunity to have a soft-shell crab sandwich for breakfast. It’s shatteringly crunchy, and comes with some local flair: a mango pico de gallo with tartar sauce. Don’t be alarmed by the claws sticking out. Those are the best (and crispiest) parts. Just get there early. It sells out fast and who knows when you’ll have another chance to eat fried crab for breakfast.

You’re doing The Golden Hog wrong if you just come here to shop for expensive groceries. The Key Biscayne gourmet market is best for picking up excellent deli sandwiches for the beach. Our favorite is the miguelito. At $16, it’s one of the most expensive ones. But you won’t care once you bite into the toasted baguette stacked with the sort of fancy deli meat your mom would never let you buy. It has honey smoked turkey, bacon, and avocado. Pair it with fancy chips and an artisanal soda to really blend in with the key rats.

Miami has a staggering number of milanesas per square mile. The steak milanesa from Sur, though, would rank number one on the Family Feud trilon. Somehow, the exterior is golden but the juicy steak inside isn’t overcooked. They stack two milanesa pieces into the sandwich so you never have to suffer through a bite that’s just bread. It’s excellent with the mayonnaise it comes with, but ask for a little mustard. It works.

Everything between bread at this nano-brewery is excellent. After some tough deliberation, we’ve settled on the pastrami cheesesteak as our favorite. They recycle the scraps of their housemade pastrami and mix it in with steak and gooey cheese. It’s heavy, so don’t eat it before an important meeting, but it makes perfect sense for a soothing halftime meal when the Dolphins are getting crushed.

Maybe not what you immediately imagine when you think of a barbecue restaurant, but this sandwich is amazing. The turkey is smoky and so much juicier than the Thanksgiving birds we’ve consumed over the years. It’s served on Tempur-Pedic soft pullman bread and comes with an avocado mayo that is one of our new favorite condiments.

This broccoli and cheese sandwich answers the question on everyone’s mind, “What would happen if broccoli cheese soup saw a shooting star and made a wish to become a sandwich?” It has chunks of roasted broccoli, white cheddar, and mozzarella between two crispy slices of bread. There’s also a sun-dried tomato pesto that acts as a condiment. It is crunchy, cheesy, and also a good way to trick yourself into eating broccoli (even if you think you hate broccoli).

This casual Doral sandwich shop has a menu inspired by literary characters from 17th century Spanish novels and, much like a good book, you can inhale their sandwiches in one sitting. El Cid—their massive take on a pan con bistec—is made using half a loaf of cuban bread. It’s the sandwich equivalent of the Bayeux tapestry and it tastes fictitiously good. Cuento also makes more excellent sandwiches, croquetas, lemonade, and half-baked brownie cookies. But if it’s your first time, get El Cid.

On the days when we are lucky enough to place an online order while supplies last, we get the King Guava from El Bagel. If you prefer something more savory than sweet, go for the EB Original. But if you’re like us, you will love the sweet/salty contrast of the guava marmalade, bacon, potato stix, and slightly runny egg. If you are also like us, you’ll get half this sandwich on your face while inhaling it over the sink.

All four sandwiches on Grover Grocer’s menu are small (think middle school lunch box), cold, and made on either milk bread or True Loaf’s sourdough. The leader of the pack is the chicken salad sandwich. They’ve nailed the chicken-to-mayo ratio so it’s creamy without sogging up the pillowy slices of milk bread. There’s a thinly sliced cucumber for crunch, which makes it feel like something Londoners might have alongside their afternoon tea. We like to pair it with the iced coconut matcha for a perfect light lunch.

There are few places in the city that do sandwiches as deliciously as Tinta Y Cafe, a small shop with locations in Coral Gables and Miami Shores. You should make it your goal to try every sandwich on the menu here, especially the Patria, their version of a Cuban sandwich. They bend the rules here just a little by adding mortadella and using a baguette rather than Cuban bread. But rules are meant to be broken, especially when they taste this good.

Ask them to cut it in half so you can appreciate that cross-section. On the top half, there’s acidic cabbage, green tomato, and onion. It complements the juicy chorizo like a Papyrus birthday card. The pan de agua is made in-house and it’s crunchy outside and fluffy inside. You can order it to go (which most people do), but we like to have it at the outdoor counter and listen to the owner tell us the history of the chimi.

We tried (and failed) to pick a favorite sandwich from Babe’s. But we just can’t. They’re all too good: the bacon bánh mì, Montreal smoked pastrami, Italian roast pork, Cuban sandwich, BLT. Please, do us a favor and order them all. Just maybe not at once. Start with the cuban—which is outstanding—and then venture into the smoked pastrami and bánh mì. And after you’ve tried them all, don’t feel bad if you, too, simply can’t hurt the feelings of Babe’s sandwiches by picking a favorite.

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