One of the best feelings in the world is that moment you walk into a bakery, at least if you’re the kind of person who reacts to the word “bread” the way a dog reacts to the word “walk.” The air smells like the inside of a baguette and it’s completely acceptable to stare into the display case like a cat watching goldfish swim around in a tank. The places on this guide range from Chinese bakeries serving incredible pork buns to Haitian bakeries selling delicious patties—but they’re all worth a trip next time you want that bakery feeling.
THE SPOTS
If you have to pick between the Caracas Doral and MiMo location, go with MiMo. Because this Caracas outpost feels more like a proper cafe, with an expanded menu, sleek dining room, and the same great cachitos. The new stuff on Caracas MiMo's menu includes sandwiches like an excellent BEC on a sweet potato bun, a crispy broccoli and cheese sandwich, jambon beurre, and mushroom toast. It works well for any and all laidback breakfasts, brunches, or lunch plans. You can also come here alone with a laptop to get some work done, and by “get some work done” we mean “eat several cachitos.”
This former pandemic pop-up made the transition to a small brick and mortar in Little River, but one thing hasn’t changed: they’re still making some of the most delicious baked goods in Miami. Just know that Oori doesn't do walk-ins—you have to order in advance online for pick-up. Options here range from sweet to savory. The black sesame cinnamon rolls and phenomenal black sesame shortbread cookies are great choices if you’re in a dessert mood. If you’re not looking for sugar, go for the charcoal everything rolls and what has to be Miami’s best shokupan.
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Tropical Corner is a Brazillian bakery on the excellent eating strip of 163rd Street. They’ve got lots of sweets like pastel de nata, brigadeiros, and huge slabs of Brazilian cakes. But their savory items are what makes us want to hire one of those banner planes and advertise this place to all of Miami-Dade County—specifically the pastels. The ones at Tropical Corner are thin, crispy little envelopes of pure joy. They have different filling options, including one with a creamy heart of palm mixture. In case it wasn’t clear, we think you should order one of those, but this place also has sandwiches, coxinha, and pão de queijo (which often sell out by lunch). It’s small and takeout-friendly, but there’s some counter seating inside.
Throw a library, a wine bar, some tinned fish, and a glob of sourdough starter into a cauldron, stir a few times, and you get Paradis Books & Bread. The excellent little North Miami spot is part wine bar, part bakery. They have a great rotating menu that mostly revolves around bread, like crispy rye crackers with fermented scallion dip or an assortment of tinned fish served with seaweed butter and slices of fresh bread. The pizza is outstanding as well, and really unlike any slice you’ll find in Miami thanks to a delicious light brown crust that tastes like whole wheat dough that just got back from a delightful vacation with a loaf of sourdough.
If you are in dire need of dessert—and a lot of it—then go to Cindy Lou's Cookies. The Little River dessert shop is known for its huge and wonderful cookies. We like them a lot—especially the one with Snickers and potato chips. But some of the best things here aren't cookies. The rotating selection of pies are excellent and the fudgy brownie has a crispy top layer of Rice Krispies. There are a couple seats in the small storefront, but this is mostly a to-go operation—which is good because whatever you order here will make you produce noises no stranger should hear.
Of all the Haitian bakeries in Miami, this place stands out for its amazing Haitian-style bread and savory pate. You can find it just west of North Miami on 441, and while the bakery can only accommodate about two people at a time on weekday mornings, you’ll regularly see the overflow of customers forming a line into the parking lot. They seem to constantly have fresh loaves of dense, rich Haitian bread coming out of the oven, and it’s hard to not tear into the warm loaf while walking back to your car. Their beef pates, however, are the real draw here and perhaps the best and most consistent in Miami. The thin puff pastry is so fragile that it comes apart in delicate shards as soon as you go in for a bite.
For decades, this North Miami Beach bakery has been one of Miami’s only sources for Cantonese baked goods. There are no tables inside the small space, just a display case full of pastries and baked goods we’d like to propose to. There are things like curry beef puffs, egg custard tarts, and some of the best barbecue pork buns in Miami. Plus, the mildly sweet swiss rolls made with delicate angel food cake and filled with whipped cream are great to bring to parties when the thought of having to eat another Publix cake makes you want to move to Nebraska.
Flour & Weirdoughs is an excellent bakery in Key Biscayne home to some interesting creations, like a brisket croissant that is shockingly good. The rest of the bakery is full of more pleasant surprises, like guava and cheese babka, huge cinnamon rolls, and a great pan con lechón sandwich. They also make all kinds of specialty bread here, like an awesome cacio e pepe sourdough loaf. This place is definitely an essential stop to pick up picnic supplies before your next Key Biscayne beach day, but it’s also worth a trip on its own.
True Loaf is a South Beach bakery that’s a reliable place for some great pastries, including one of the best almond croissants in town. They also sell sandwiches, which are good, but we come here for their sweet pastries. There’s that massive and delicious almond croissant, but also great fruit tarts here as well as a dulce de leche monkey bread. This place can get crowded on the weekends, and there’s not much seating, but there’s also a lovely little waterfront park with picnic benches (Maurice Gibb Memorial Park) just a block away.
Majestic specializes in Portuguese baked goods. But this casual spot is also a Portuguese-by-way-of-Venezuela bakery, so you can also find great Venezuelan things, like some of Miami’s best cachitos. But there is one thing you absolutely get at this Coral Way bakery: the pastel de nata. Majestic Portuguese Bakehouse does an excellent job with the famous pastry. It’s creamy, flaky, with little charred spots along the top. You’ll probably want to get at least two—unless you also want to get one of the big sandwiches they make here. If that's the case, save some room.
DBakers is a tiny bakery in Edgewater that makes desserts that are perfect for bringing to a party or inhaling on the couch in the company of your cat. This takeout spot has some really pretty cakes, decorated with all sorts of colorful sprinkles and icing. But if you're just getting a few things to eat at home, focus on the cookies, pastries, and pies. They make cream puffs the size of water balloons, really good cookies big enough to share with someone, and also one of our favorite key lime slices in town, which comes with a towering layer of meringue that’s bigger than the pie itself.
Taste Rite is a Jamaican bakery that has five different locations scattered around Miami and South Florida. They make one of our favorite Jamaican patties in the city, as well as fluffy coco bread, hard dough bread, gizzadas, and more. But the patties should be your focus. They come in nine different versions including lobster, shrimp, ackee, and beef.
Zak The Baker is a kosher bakery, and one of those places that we write about so much it’s getting hard to find new things to say about this Wynwood institution. So just trust us when we say that everything here is amazing. The babka, various sandwiches, bagels, cookies—it’s all worth accidentally driving through a music video while looking for parking in Wynwood. Crowds can be intense during tourist season, but we've never had to wait much longer than 30 minutes for a table.
We're typically nervous to try restaurants with names from Billy Joel lyrics, but Mama Leone’s is proof that a great restaurant and a Joel lyric aren’t mutually exclusive. There’s lots of good things to eat at this small Edgewater bakery (they have a Little River location now too), like prosciutto paninis with warm bread, stuffed focaccia, and Italian donuts filled with Nutella. Now you can feel free to open up a barbecue place called We Didn’t Start The Fire.
Here’s how a visit to Sweet Delights Key Lime Pies goes: you walk into a small storefront and are greeted by baker/literal angel Debra Allen. After welcoming you, she conducts a brief interrogation about your pie interests, then returns with a big tray of samples—like banana key lime, guava key lime, mamey key lime, and coconut key lime. There are about a dozen more options, and they’re all, in our opinion, the best key lime pies in the state of Florida, which is why we're including this place even though it’s in Florida City. Sweet Delights is an essential stop for anyone who’s even remotely into key lime pie or just wants to hang out with Miss Debbie.
Breadman is one of the best Cuban bakeries in Miami, and that’s saying something considering how many Cuban bakeries there are in Miami. They have locations in Hialeah and Westchester, and they make excellent versions of classics like croquetas, pastelitos, and Cuban bread. They also invented the croqueta cake, which, depending on your personal preferences, is either a brilliant or terrifying idea. We've never had one, but we also wouldn’t be mad if someone got it for our birthday.
La Parisienne is a French bakery in a big warehouse in North Miami. It’s a pretty neat space, especially if you enjoy watching professional bakers in action. The narrow dining room has big windows on both sides that give a great view of the bakers kneading, scoring, and rolling. The best part, though, is that you get to eat the result of all that kneading, scoring, and rolling, which is some really great French bread. Stop by and pick up a baguette to-go, or come for a quiet lunch and eat a simple, excellent ham and butter sandwich.
Buon Pane is a small, casual Italian bakery in South Beach that we love for a pre- or post-beach snack. There are a few chairs in here, but the space is taken up mostly by a counter full of freshly baked Italian food, including but not limited to: decent pizza, very good panino napoletano, fresh ciabatta, and bomboloni. It’s all pretty affordable, and easy enough to eat while walking five blocks to the beach.
If you are in Coral Gables and in the mood for bread in any form, get in the car and drive to Madruga Bakery. There isn’t necessarily a speciality here. It’s one of those places that just does everything deliciously, and you should leave with at least three things you didn’t plan on ordering. Those things could include a guava and cheese danish, ham and cheese croissant, or a couple of onion poppy seed rolls.
Piononos is a Key Biscayne bakery where there’s almost always a line out the door. And, as far as we can tell, that line is mostly because this place makes a pavlova the way Prince ripped a guitar solo: flawlessly. If you come here and don’t leave with at least one slice of that pavlova, you have erred. It’s made from thinly sliced strawberries, dulce de leche, whipped cream, and a walnut meringue that melts in your mouth. So order one, please. But also don’t ignore other good things here, like their titular pionono, a sponge cake rolled with dulce de leche. Or, their chocolate volcano pound cake with a ganache center.
