Estiatorio Milos – Greek simplicity by the sea in South of Fifth

On the quiet southern tip of Miami Beach, in the low-rise grid known as South of Fifth, Estiatorio Milos opened for a soft launch in May 2012, with full service following that August — the fifth restaurant in a Greek seafood group Costas Spiliadis began on Montreal's Park Avenue in December 1979. It carries forward the same idea that made that first one-room taverna known across Canada: a market of whole fish laid out on ice, chosen by the guest and priced by weight, then grilled, baked in salt or served raw with little more than olive oil and lemon. That approach has turned Milos into a reference point for Greek seafood far from the Aegean, with dining rooms that now run from Montreal and New York to Athens, Las Vegas, London, Dubai and Singapore. In Miami Beach, the restaurant is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, and sits a short walk from Joe's Stone Crab, in a neighbourhood built for long, unhurried meals near the water.

01The room and the setting

Jeffrey Beers International designed the dining room around white linens, natural wood and a run of large windows that keep the space bright through service. The kitchen stays open to the room, and the marble underfoot and along the walls was quarried from the mountains of Dionysus in Greece, a material that ties the Miami room back to the brand's origins. The restaurant also runs its own small market on site, selling the oils and other ingredients that turn up on the plates.

For private events, Milos keeps a dedicated room with a wall of windows, high ceilings crossed by exposed wood beams and a bookshelf-lined wall, built to seat up to sixty guests for dinner or seventy for a standing reception — a space pitched at business meetings as easily as celebrations.

02The chef

Costas Spiliadis was born in 1947 in the port city of Patras and left for New York in 1966 on a student visa, later continuing his studies at Concordia University in Montreal. He spent five years running the Greek-language programming at a Montreal community station, Radio Centre-Ville, before opening his first restaurant — a one-room taverna called Milos on Park Avenue in December 1979 — despite having no background in business, cooking or restaurants.

Insider tip

Lunch noon–3pm daily; dinner from 5:30pm. Valet parking. Reserve by phone or online.

He built the group on the Greek idea of philoxenia, hospitality extended to a stranger as though to a friend, carrying that same instinct into every opening that followed, Miami Beach included, as the brand grew from Montreal into New York, Athens, Las Vegas and beyond.

03The cooking

Service in South Beach still runs on the same display that defined the original Montreal room: a daily-changing arrangement of fish, chosen by weight and left largely to speak for itself, whether charcoal-grilled, baked in a crust of sea salt or served raw as sashimi. Octopus comes charcoal-broiled and finished with the family's own olive oil, the Greek salad is built on vine-ripened tomatoes, and the housemade yoghurt is thick enough to hold its shape — Milos's case for simplicity over spectacle in Mediterranean cooking.

04What to order

The three-course lunch menu, served daily from noon to 3pm, moves from oysters, a salmon and loup de mer sashimi platter, or sashimi-quality octopus to a second course of Dorade Royale with Santorini capers, grilled Hiddenfjord salmon with piazzi-style beans, or prime lamb chops with Greek fried potatoes and tzatziki, before Greek yoghurt topped with walnuts and thyme honey, or baklava. Two additions worth the supplement are the bigeye tuna sashimi with Swiss chard and heirloom beets, and the Astako-Makaronada, Bay of Fundy lobster pasta cooked Athenian-style.

At dinner, the Milos Special — paper-thin zucchini and eggplant, fried and stacked around tzatziki — remains the dish the kitchen is best known for, alongside the grilled whole fish chosen straight from the ice.

05When to go and booking

As read on Miami Beach's tourism board in October 2026, lunch runs daily from noon to 3pm, with dinner served Sunday to Thursday from 5.30pm to 10pm and Friday and Saturday from 5.30pm to 10.30pm. Valet parking is offered at the door, and the private dining room can be booked separately for groups up to sixty. Reservations are taken directly by phone or through the restaurant's own booking page.

06The neighbourhood

Milos sits in South of Fifth, the quieter southern tip of Miami Beach where low-rise apartment blocks give way to the sand, a short walk from Joe's Stone Crab and the open stretch of South Pointe Park — a setting that suits a restaurant built around long, shared meals rather than a quick plate before the beach.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.