Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
restaurant · Miami
The Window Is the Point, and It Costs About Two Dollars
Review of Versailles Restaurant
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Share your experienceVersailles on Calle Ocho is the best known Cuban restaurant in the United States and the unofficial civic centre of Miami's Cuban community, which is a heavier sentence than a restaurant usually deserves and in this case is accurate. Elections get contested on the pavement outside. News crews set up here by reflex when something happens in Havana. The dining room is large, mirrored, busy and decent. Ropa vieja, lechon asado, palomilla, plantains, black beans. It is not the best Cuban food in Miami and anybody who lives here will tell you so, usually while naming somewhere smaller. It is, though, reliably good, open late, and it seats large groups without fuss, which matters more on a trip than a food ranking does. The part worth crossing the city for is not the dining room. It is the ventanita, the takeaway window on the side of the building, where a cortadito or a colada costs about the price of nothing and the queue is the actual attraction. A colada is a small polystyrene cup of very strong sweet coffee with a stack of thimble cups, and it is designed to be shared standing up with whoever is next to you. That transaction is the most Miami thing available to a visitor, and it takes four minutes. Go mid morning on a weekday for the window and the neighbourhood. Go late in the evening for the dining room, when it fills with people who are not tourists. Avoid the middle of a weekend afternoon in cruise season, when the coaches arrive.
What was great
The ventanita, which serves the best two dollars you will spend in Miami and is a genuine local ritual rather than a performance. Open late, seats groups, and sits in the middle of Little Havana so the neighbourhood is the rest of the visit. Reliably good, generous, old fashioned Cuban food.
What nearly ruined the trip
It is not the best Cuban food in the city and locals will name three better places. The dining room is large and can feel like a coach stop in the middle of the day. Calle Ocho at peak cruise hours is a queue with a street attached.
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