Royal Palm Grill is worth the journey to Homestead. It's located in a former drugstore that once had a soda fountain counter in the '50s. Today, it offers traditional diner food, with three-egg omelets, pancakes, and biscuits & gravy. Sometimes the chef/owner will offer some fun, off-menu items, like Cap'n Crunch french toast. Bypass the open dining room in front and head to the classic diner counter, where you can watch the specials roll out of the kitchen. It's the perfect way to start any visit to the Redlands, Everglades National Park, or the Florida Keys.

If a coffee cup filled with feathery scrambled eggs topped with peaks of Hollandaise foam and offered with points of Cuban tostada for dipping sounds like the ideal way to begin a Miami morning, then make like Gianni Versace, who used to walk to News Cafe every morning. Reopened after the pandemic shut it down, this historic café offers inventive breakfast fare — think piña colada pancakes with grilled pineapple — and trendy items, ranging from avocado or ricotta toast to chicken and waffles. For thirst-quenching, freshly made juice blends and mocktails abound, as do bubbly and bloody concoctions that hit just right before a day on the beach.

R House takes the brunch experience to new heights with drag queens in six-inch stilettos. R House owners Rocco Carulli and Owen Bale curate one of Miami's most electric experiences every Saturday and Sunday and have even refurbished their restaurant with a huge outdoor patio and rearranged the indoor dining room so everyone can have a prime viewing spot of show producer Athena Dion and her queens being fierce and fabulous. R House offers prix-fixe meals served family-style (with some vegan options) to anyone 18 and older and bottomless mimosas, mojitos, soft drinks, or sangria to the 21 and up crowd. Now more than ever, it's important to support the art of drag, and there's no more enjoyable way than by bringing all your friends to dance, twerk, eat, and enjoy the incredible talent of these fierce performers.

When Mitch Shidlofsky relocated to South Florida from New York, the idea was to make a better life for his growing family. After operating a series of delis in Broward County, Shidlofsky created his concept, Mitch's Westside Bagels, which opened in Weston in 2002. The place would become a local institution, offering locals his take on classic deli dishes, many of which were built on fresh-baked bagels. Nearly 20 years later, Shidlofsky's son Adam joined his dad in the bagel-making arena with the 2021 debut of Mitch's Downtown Bagel Cafe. Here, the Shidlofsky father-and-son duo features an all-new spin on the traditional New York-style bagel shop, with an expanded menu that highlights all-day breakfast sandwiches built on an assortment of fresh-baked, handcrafted bagels that include gluten-free options as well as bialys.

When you ask Robert Sandler, the mastermind behind the Outrageous Bagel Company, what makes his bagels "outrageous," his answer is simple: it's the selection. His Kendall establishment boasts an impressive collection of 25 flavors made from scratch and baked fresh daily. While you can find traditional toppings like sesame, garlic, onion, or that wonderful amalgamation of all three in "everything," bagel aficionados come here for inventive concoctions, like the savory sundried tomato, fruity guava, cheesy cheddar herb, or the indulgent triple cinnamon bagels. But the DIY bagel adventure doesn't end there: Dozens of housemade spreads expand flavor potentials exponentially, including the garden veggie and scallion cream cheese to the more novel flavors like honey almond, strawberry, and decadent honey butter.

Miami native Max Santiago cut his chops helping to open the Salty, but his drive to push the doughnut to the max motivated him to pursue his aptly named venture, Max'd Out Donuts. After years of consulting, pop-ups, and plenty of R&D, Santiago opened the bright and cheery shop earlier this year in North Miami Beach, pedaling nothing but coffee, tea, and the chef's pastry-inspired doughnuts and doughnut holes made from a proprietary 24-hour raised brioche dough that took years to perfect. While the menu offers an endlessly rotating selection of Santiago's ongoing recipe creations, there's always a vegan and gluten-free option to please every palate. You can't go wrong with his "O.G." glazed, prepared with whole vanilla bean and rich buttermilk. Come early for regular menu favorites like the café con leche roll, a deep-fried cinnamon roll with layers of espresso grounds and a glaze made with café con leche topped with a cream cheese glaze, or the key lime pie doughnut, a homage to Florida's unofficial dessert, complete with tangy key lime custard and a key lime glaze-topped torched meringue.

Jesus and Manuel Brazon might be related, but their passion for bread bonded the father and son together with the launch of Caracas Bakery. In 2020, their disparate paths merged when they opened a business allowing them to deliver Doral's Venezuelan community with baguettes and ciabattas that combine the best French baking techniques with Venezuelan recipes. Today, alongside head chef Valentina Rodriguez, the team continues crafting some of Miami's most sought-after baked goods. The menu, which has grown considerably with the opening of its MiMo café location (7283 Biscayne Blvd., Miami), features a variety of bread, pastries, and a list of breakfast- and lunch-inspired sandwiches or small toasts served on fresh-baked baguettes with chewy slices of campesino. But it's the bakery's pastry program that showcases the Venezuelan spin. While the usual suspects like the guava and cheese Danish, apple turnovers labeled as pastel de manzana, and Nutella or pastry-stuffed cruffins are stellar, don't miss their take on the sweet, Latin American-style sticky buns known as golfeados, often accented with tropical fruits, raw sugar, or cheese. Try the popular cachitos, flaky pastries filled with ham, cheese, or both for a savory option. (Note: A third location in Aventura is said to be in the works.)

"From Cuba, with coffee." That's Cortadito Coffee House's motto, and this modern-day ventanita, with three outposts across Miami-Dade, has become a sort of Cuban Starbucks. Don't worry, each location serves all the traditional coffees (americanos, cappuccinos, and lattes) but offers whimsical Cuban concoctions, like the caramel flan- and tres leches-flavored iced lattes; the Cafe Bon Bon, combining espresso and condensed milk; and the Ms. Eva, with espresso and evaporated milk. Stay tuned for a new location opening soon in Brickell.

When it comes to enjoying some ice cream on a scorching Miami day, your treat often resembles a milky, runny mess by the time you take five steps outside. Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream offers another way at their many outposts across South Florida (including Aventura, Coconut Grove, Coral Springs, Fort Lauderdale, Plantation, Pompano Beach, and South Miami). The ice cream is flash frozen at -320 degrees Fahrenheit and keeps itself together longer than the traditional churn method. First, customers pick a base (cream, yogurt, tart yogurt, and dairy-free milk alternatives), add flavor (ranging from classics like vanilla and chocolate to more offbeat ones like biscotti and matcha), toss in the "Mix-N's," fun bits like cookie dough and fresh berries for taste and texture, and then the entire liquid-y concoction is flash frozen and transforms into creamy, solid scoops in a puff of vapor before your very eyes.

Shoma Bazaar gathers a multitude of tastes of Miami in a single convenient Doral location. This sleek culinary hub is where local restaurants and chefs come together to share their own unique dishes and flavors. Founded by the Shoma Group, the grand food hall breaks from the fast-food chains common in other food courts, instead welcoming more than a dozen indies, including Shahs of Kabob, Ash Parlor, and Trattoria Dal Plin. Shoma Baazar is rightly known for the Bar, a marble-topped counter where guests can order over-the-top cocktails for the perfect pre-sipping Instagram photo-op. Once the lights are dimmed and the night unfolds, the space transforms into a nightlife destination with live bands and DJs to shimmy off the calories.