Macchialina – South Beach's handmade-pasta address

On the quieter, residential west side of South Beach, a few streets back from the ocean traffic of Collins Avenue, Macchialina has been rolling pasta by hand since June 2012. Chef and owner Michael Pirolo opened the restaurant with his partner Jen Chaefsky and his sister Jacqueline Pirolo, turning a corner site on Alton Road into one of Miami Beach's most consistent Italian addresses. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a distinction that rests as much on the wine list as on the kitchen: Jacqueline Pirolo, Macchialina's beverage director, was named the MICHELIN Guide Florida Sommelier Award winner in 2025. The restaurant has also been recognised by the James Beard Foundation, and its cavatelli and tagliolini are made in-house using techniques Pirolo brought back from Michelin-starred kitchens in Italy and New York. What began as a casual neighbourhood eatery has grown, over more than a decade, into a genuine destination without losing the feel of a local taverna.

01The room and the setting

Macchialina sits in South Beach's residential west side, the kind of street where Alton Road's traffic gives way to low-rise apartment blocks rather than hotels. The restaurant offers both an indoor dining room and outdoor seating, including a covered garden space the kitchen calls the Giardino, for guests who want their pasta under the Miami sky rather than air conditioning.

The look was conceived to feel transplanted rather than themed. One venue listing describes the dining room's atmosphere as though New York City had been set down on the Amalfi coast, with a sidewalk and garden seating arrangement built for both everyday dinners and larger private bookings. The restaurant underwent a renovation and expansion in recent years, with Pirolo describing the work as staying open through Miami Beach construction so the team could keep building on what already worked rather than chasing trends.

02The chef

Michael Pirolo was born in Queens and raised in Avellino, Italy, a childhood split between two food cultures that shaped everything he has cooked since. He trained at culinary school in Torino and worked in Michelin-starred kitchens across Italy before moving into French technique in New York and Philadelphia, where he met his partner Jen Chaefsky.

Insider tip

Open Mon–Thu 6–10pm, Fri–Sun 5–11pm. Reservations recommended. Garden and indoor seating.

His New York years included earning two Michelin stars at Gilt, the restaurant inside The Palace Hotel run by chef Chris Lee, before he reconnected with Italian cooking at Scott Conant's Scarpetta. That relationship brought him to Miami to run the kitchen at Scarpetta inside the Fontainebleau, where a rare four-star review from The Miami Herald marked him as a chef to watch in the city. In 2012 he opened Macchialina with Chaefsky and his sister Jacqueline, and has been cooking there since.

03The cooking

Pasta is the spine of the menu, and every shape served at Macchialina, from cavatelli to tagliolini, is rolled, cut and shaped by hand in the Miami Beach kitchen using seasonal, local ingredients. The approach draws directly on the techniques Pirolo picked up in Michelin-starred kitchens in Italy and in New York, translated into a menu built around honest, rustic Italian cooking rather than spectacle.

That consistency has brought recognition well beyond South Beach. Macchialina has been a James Beard Foundation semifinalist across multiple categories over the years, including recognition for its wine and beverage programme, and was named one of the best Italian restaurants in Florida by The Daily Meal in 2018.

04What to order

The signature on the pasta list is the Cavatelli Macchialina, dressed with baby meatballs, porchetta and pecorino, the dish most often cited as the kitchen's calling card. For something lighter, the Tagliolini ai Funghi pairs abalone mushrooms with parmigiano. At the bar, the Midnight in Sicily cocktail mixes Woodford double oak with a cacao-infused Martini & Rossi Ambrato vermouth, amaro and black walnut bitters.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list is run by Jacqueline Pirolo, Michael's younger sister and Macchialina's co-owner and beverage director, and it has become one of the restaurant's defining features. It focuses on Italian family-owned wineries, with a current recommendation running to a Cannonau from Sardinia, Giovanni Montisci's Barrosu 2022.

Jacqueline's work has been recognised nationally: a Wine Spectator Award and a place on its Small but Mighty wine lists in 2018, a Pineapple Award for Miami's Best Sommelier the same year, and, most significantly, the 2025 MICHELIN Guide Florida Sommelier Award. Macchialina has also been a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program in consecutive years, a rare honour for a neighbourhood restaurant of its size.

06The neighbourhood

Alton Road threads along the bay side of Miami Beach, away from the Collins Avenue crowds, and Macchialina's stretch of it is residential rather than touristic, which is part of why locals have claimed it as their own since 2012. The Pirolo-Chaefsky team has since expanded beyond this one address: Fluke, a martini and crudo bar tucked inside Macchialina itself, opened in spring 2025 for a playful pre- or post-dinner stop, while Bar Bucce, a casual Italian market, bottle shop and pizzeria, opened the same year across the bay in Little River.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.