Ariete – Cuban verses, cooked on Main Highway

On a tree-shaded stretch of Main Highway in Coconut Grove, Ariete is the restaurant that convinced Miami a chain-bar strip could support serious cooking. Chef-owner Michael Beltran opened it in 2016 in a 2,400-square-foot space, an eleventh-hour wager on a stretch of the Grove then ruled by chains such as Fat Tuesday, Wet Willie's and Señor Frog's. Ten years on, Ariete holds One MICHELIN Star, a distinction it earned the moment the guide reached Florida in 2022 and has kept in every edition since, making it the neighbourhood's first starred dining room. Beltran, born in Hialeah and raised in Little Havana, cooks Cuban memory disciplined by French technique, running the kitchen with the same team spirit that built Ariete Hospitality Group alongside business partner Andrew Falsetto. What started as one dining room on Main Highway has since become the anchor of a small Coconut Grove empire, with the flagship still the one guests cross the city for.

01The room and the setting

Ariete's interior refuses to settle into one mood: tiled walls meet timber floors under industrial ceilings hung with exposed pipework, a deliberate friction between materials that makes the room feel lived-in rather than designed to a brief.

The resolution happens outside. The covered terrace sits under tropical greenery strung with subtle twinkle lights and antique lanterns, the kind of courtyard diners have described as cooled by a trickling fountain against Miami's heat, shaded and quiet just steps from Main Highway's traffic.

02The chef

Michael Beltran was born in Hialeah and raised in Little Havana, where he first cooked alongside his mother, father and grandfather before culinary school gave the instinct a name. He trained under Norman Van Aken, seeking out the chef he calls his culinary godfather until he was hired at Norman's 180, and later ran the opening kitchen as executive chef of Michael Schwartz's Cypress Room in 2013 before striking out on his own three years later.

Insider tip

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays; reserve ahead for the tasting menu, Versos Sencillos.

The apprenticeship still shows in the plating. Beltran has since been named a StarChefs Rising Star in 2021 and remains a repeat semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South, most recently among the 2026 class, recognised for cooking the Foundation calls soulful and Miami-rooted.

03The cooking

The tasting menu carries the name Versos Sencillos — Simple Verses — a direct nod to José Martí's 1891 poetry collection, a title Beltran chose when he revived his tasting-menu dinner series in 2020 as an ode to the Cuban independence hero. The format has run nightly ever since, built around three courses of choices that move between crudo, tamal and venison before landing on flan or sorbet.

The à la carte menu runs on the same logic in miniature: Cuban reference points — boniato, calabaza, sour orange, yuca — rebuilt with classical French technique and seasonal, local ingredients, the house philosophy stated plainly on its own menu as a celebration of seasonality and local sourcing.

04What to order

The dish that still defines the restaurant is the Canard à la Presse, a 14-day dry-aged duck breast served with roasted calabaza tamal, wild mushroom foie gravy and duck fricassée pastelitos, a large-format plate built for sharing. The Caviar Pastelito — farm eggs, wagyu tartare and osetra caviar — opens the à la carte with a flourish, while the Foie Gras arrives with plantain canelé, duck fat maduro and a sour orange caramel that nods hard toward Cuban marinade. Rabo Encendido pairs braised oxtail with boniato gnocchi and Meyer lemon tapenade, and the Turbot is set over mushroom escabeche, pil pil and guarapo turnips.

05When to go and booking

Ariete serves dinner from 5:30pm Sunday to Thursday, with last seating at 9:30pm, and until 11pm on Friday and Saturday, with last seating at 10:30pm; from October 2026 the restaurant closes on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Versos Sencillos tasting runs nightly at $165 a head, $315 with wine pairing, and a three-course Miami Spice menu returns seasonally at $65. This is also the year of the restaurant's tenth anniversary, marked with ticketed events revisiting dishes and cocktails from its opening years — reservations are worth making well ahead.

06The neighbourhood

Main Highway looks little like the strip Beltran gambled on in 2016. Ariete is now one of two Michelin-starred addresses within a few blocks, alongside the Mexican kitchen Los Félix, and the hospitality group it spawned — Chug's Diner, The Taurus and others — occupies much of the same three-block radius Beltran has worked for a decade.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.