South Florida is a food-lovers’ dream. Over the last several years, the food culture here has exploded. More and more options are added every time you turn around. But while South Florida, and Miami in particular, is mostly known as a hotspot for Latin cuisine, it also has lots of Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida.
In South Florida, you can, of course, try dishes that have become popular in the West like butter chicken. But you’ll also find lesser-known dishes in the States like marbar beef, bhujia, gujar halwa, and laal maas. You can find many of them in the Miami area. It makes this tropical paradise the perfect place for an Indian food fanatic like me! When you visit South Florida, you should check out the Indian food scene here, too. These are the 7 Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida!
Located in an unassuming strip mall at 57th Avenue and 74th Street in South Miami, Bollywood Masala is a hidden gem in South Florida. This small establishment is big on authentic Indian flavors and has become a favorite of mine and my family! It’s located just blocks from my home and I pay them a visit at least once a week!
The owners, Sundeep Chalwa and his wife Tina, are from Mumbai. Tina, the chef, whips up classic Indian street food favorites using fresh ingredients and exotic spices to replicate the flavors of the one country I just can’t get enough of. But best of all, they make you feel like family the moment you walk in.
The menu at Bollywood Masala is simple yet flavorful. From the tender goat curry to the creamy saag paneer, you can’t go wrong. I highly recommend their butter chicken, veg masala dosa, and mini thali. They make my mouth water every time I have them. Their amazing daal is packed with tender, tasty lentils. And their butter chicken is so unreal, sometimes I swear it came straight down from the heavens. The crunch, sweetness, and spiciness of their aloo samosa is to die for, while the slow-simmered goat curry is so rich in spices, which tastes even better when you eat it with your hands! After such a rich meal, finish up with a sweet mango lassi!
The food at Bollywood Masala will make you feel like you’re eating on the streets of Mumbai instead of Miami. With food this good, it’s easily one of the top Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida!
To say that I’ve fallen in love with the food at Taste Buds of India’s location in Coral Gables, Florida is an understatement. This fantastic restaurant along Ponce de Leon Boulevard offers a wide variety of Indian dishes from all over the country. If you’re not in the Coral Gables area, never fear, as Taste Buds of India also has locations in South Miami and Miami Beach. Their founder, Arvind Kumar, strives to serve tasty and authentic dishes using only the freshest ingredients to deliver the highest-quality Indian food possible.
Nowhere is the astounding quality of their food as apparent as it is at their Sunday buffet. For only $14.95, you can enjoy a sensational spread of Indian favorites including samosas, dal makhani, chicken tikka masala, tawa vegetables, goat curry, garlic naan, palak paneer, tandoori lamb, jalebi, and much more!
The food is rich in flavor and full of contrasting textures. You can taste the freshness and high-quality ingredients in each bite. Combine that with the beautiful décor and you have one of the top Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida. Just one meal there is enough to get you hooked!
When you talk about Indian restaurants in South Florida, there’s no way you can’t include the four restaurants that make up the Ayesha Group. Founded by renowned restauranteur Mike Hussain succeeded in fulfilling his dream to marry South Florida’s famed seafood with his Indian roots. One of the four is Ayesha Midtown, a colorful fine dining establishment in a new, pedestrian-friendly area in Midtown Miami. If you’d like to try Ayesha’s food in other locations around South Florida, you can check out Ayesha Key Biscayne, Ayesha Palmetto Bay, and Saffron @ Grove in Miami. Check out my entry on Saffron @ Grove further on in this article!
At Ayesha Midtown, I recommend starting your meal with a creamy, piping hot Bombay Chai, which contains milk and warming spices like ginger and cardamom. One of my favorite things to get there is their massive Super Dosa. It’s a two-foot-long plain dosa served with coconut chutney, tomato chutney, and sambar.
You also should not miss their pani puri, crispy, hollow, puffed-up flatbreads containing a mixture of potatoes and masalas. It transports me right back to the Indian state of Maharashtra every time I have it! But their best menu item is the Marbar beef. It’s bathed in a delicious curry containing chilies, tomatoes, onions, and lots of spices. Eat it with a flaky paratha to get as much flavor in your mouth as possible!
For a slightly different take on Indian food, you’ll need to head north from Miami to Moksha Indian Brasserie in East Fort Lauderdale. This unique eatery on Oakland Park Boulevard serves up elevated Indian cuisine in a sophisticated and luxurious atmosphere. The ingenuity of the menu alone puts it among the top Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida.
The grilled scallops moilee, which contain ginger, poppy seeds, turmeric, and moilee sauce, are a succulent flavor bomb of an appetizer. The curry alone is good enough to drink! The delightful crab sagoo is a mix of flaky, chunky crab meat, peas, and corn. Eat it with crunchy chips for an extra crispy texture. The spicy paneer flambe is another fantastic starter.
As far as main courses go, it’s hard to beat the zaffran lobster, which contains saffron and a flavorful butter reduction. It’s served inside a coconut and comes with an amazing, briny curry that contains pureed coconut meat! For a spicy kick, try the angarey tandoori chicken, which contains Kashmiri chilies. And if you’re a lamb fanatic like me, be sure to order their incredible lamb shank. After just one bite, its creamy, spice-filled curry will have your taste buds clamoring for more!
Top off your meal with a sweet strawberry lassi for a fruity and creamy finish!
If you head slightly northwest from Fort Lauderdale, you’ll find yourself in the town of Sunrise. There, you’ll find another of my top Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida, Rasa Dosa and Indo-Chinese. This restaurant, founded by Sunny Corda in 2017, specializes in South Indian and Indo-Chinese cuisine.
Idli is a fairly bland, if not slightly nutty, rice cake that’s popular in South Indian cuisine. But the kind at Rasa Dosa and Indo-Chinese is spicy and bursting with signature South Indian flavors. For a mix of Indian and Chinese flavors, try the Szechwan shrimp. They contain chilies, green and red peppers, and Szechwan sauce. But to fully dive into South Indian cuisine, you must try a dosa.
Rasa Dosa and Indo-Chinese offers a dozen or so different dosas, so I recommend trying at least a few of them during your first visit. One of my favorites is the rava masala dosa. It’s like a crispy, thin crepe served with aloo (potatoes) with curry leaves and mustard seeds. You also get a ketchup-like tomato chutney, coconut chutney, and tomato-based sambar on the side. The cheesy jinni dosa, which also contain vegetables and house sauce, is a doughy, flavorful explosion in your mouth!
The most eye-catching dosa on the menu is the three-foot-long paper dosa, which comes coated in a clarified butter called ghee. It’s meant for two people and comes with sambar, coconut chutney, and tomato chutney. It is crispy Indian perfection. Finish up your meal with a dessert dosa that contains chocolate, bananas, and nuts. The bananas get nice and mushy and almost melt with the chocolate, creating a texture and flavor combination that cannot be beat!
No list of the top Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida is complete without Saffron @ Grove. This restaurant on Grand Avenue is part of the Ayesha Group, so the quality of the food is on another level. To try the food at the other three Ayesha Group restaurants in South Florida, visit Ayesha Midtown (check out their full entry above), Ayesha Key Biscayne, and Ayesha Palmetto Bay. Saffron @ Grove’s tandoor oven infuses their bright red tandoori shrimp and lamb chops with the smoky, signature flavor you only get from a tandoor. There’s also a buttery yet smoky, tender, and juicy mint chicken tikka.
I also recommend the chicken tikka masala, which is barbecued chicken in a tangy tomato sauce. The sag paneer, a cottage cheese dish in a creamy spinach sauce, is also phenomenal. You also must try laal maas, a tender Rajasthani lamb dish with a thick, pasty red sauce. It’s one of my favorite lamb dishes of all time! Enjoy them with some goat biryani and mix it with the sauces!
Have some mango kulfi—a type of Indian ice cream—and shahi tukda, or Indian bread pudding, for dessert. Or, if you’re like me, add some falooda as well! The rose milk with the rice noodles and caramel ice cream make for a refreshing way to beat the South Florida heat. But the best dessert is the gujar halwa, a bright red, milky dessert with rice. It’s piping hot and so yummy! It helps make Saffron @ Grove one of the best Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida.
Last but not least, you have to check out the food at Kebab Indian Restaurant in North Miami Beach. This spot on 167th Street offers modern interpretations of Indian classics and is a cornerstone when it comes to delicious Indian cuisine in Miami. Like many Indian restaurants in Miami, they offer a buffet-style lunch, which I advise everyone to take advantage of.
You must dig into their vibrant and scrumptious chicken tandoori, which is smoky and rich in flavor. Their crisp, fried vegetable balls, called bhujia, go well with their fantastic mint chutney. The lentils in the dal are perfectly cooked, and the goat-potato curry called goat vindaloo contains a flavorful sauce that pairs nicely with the meat. But I must say, their butter chicken is on another level.
It’s full of mouthwatering flavors that coated my tongue and took me right back to Delhi! Kebab Indian Restaurant is one of the best Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida if you have a hankering for butter chicken!
Those are the 7 Indian restaurants you must visit in South Florida! Miami may be over 8,000 miles from the Subcontinent, but you don’t have to travel that far to get a feel for its sumptuous flavors. The restaurants here specialize in the cuisine’s varying textures and warm hospitality I’ve come to associate with India. Whether you’re looking for butter chicken and naan, or want to expand your palate to other exciting dishes, South Florida is the place to do it. Book a trip to Miami today to begin your Indian gastronomical adventure!
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