Rao's Miami Beach

Had the best time at Rao's Miami Beach. Restaurant is located at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in the St. Moritz Tower. The interior and decor were well appointed. A big shout-out to Carmen, our server, for making our dining experience very fun and enjoyable. After reading other reviews and going with Carmen's suggestions, we decided to try the Fritto Misto, Seafood Salad and Rao's Traditional Meatballs for appetizers. It was hard to choose a favorite because they were all so good. The meatballs come with two huge meatballs where Carmen split them into four pieces and served us. That was really good, but the seafood salad was my favorite. Lots of seafood in this dish. For main dishes, we got the Rigatoni Bolognese, Veal Marsala and Bone-In Pork Chop (one of their specials for the evening). Their pastas are not homemade, but you couldn't really tell as it sure tasted liked it. The rigatoni dish was divided up by Carmen and served to us on our plates. Again, it was hard to pick a favorite, but the bone-in pork chop was one of the best one I've had, and the veal marsala was so good. You can't go wrong with either one.For dessert, we all agreed the Peanut butter tart was the best dessert and a great way to end the evening. For cocktails my brother and I enjoyed their Pleasant Ave. Negroni and the Venetian Old Fashioned.Will come back next time we are back in Miami!

Rao's Miami beach is a swanky welcome addition to one of my fave hotels on the beach - the Loews.I went recently with two friends and we enjoyed a delicious dinner with great service. I've loved Rao's sauce since I tried it years ago, so I was excited to try this NY staple at home.We started with the meatballs and calamari. We also had Chicken Parm, Penne a la vodka and rigatoni bolognese. Honestly, this is like your nonna cooked sunday supper all day but you're eating it on a white tablecloth with swanky service. With dinner, I also enjoyed a divine dirty martini. We ended the meal with a peanut butter tart.Overall - if you want great Italian food heavy on the red sauce, in a beautiful setting with great service, make a resi at Rao's! It was fabulous.

We loved everything from the moment we sat down and we are so happy that this NYC classic finally open its door here in Miami and it's much much much more accessible than the one in NY. Everything in this restaurant is perfect. From the food to the environment to the services it is impeccable. We ordered a several dishes off the menu I would have to say the meat ball and the seafood salad is our favorite !!! They do not shy away from their portions. The salad was packed with seafood. The 2 pasta that we ordered was on the slightly saltier side of our preference but it doesn't stop us from love it. You MUST order the classic cheese cake for dessert. It is simple but amazing. We can't wait to comeback to the restaurant again. It lived up to the hype and it's worth the visit!!

Upscale dining in a great location. We snagged a seat at the bar right after they opened. Otherwise you probably want to secure a reservation. Delicious food and amazing service! Recommend the penne vodka sauce and the veal parm. The bread was really good too. Service was great at the bar.

Raos did NOT disappoint. We ordered an assortment of entrees to share, they are "family style" so the portions are nice and big. We started off with Caesar salad , warm bread and meatballs. For the main we had the chicken parm, fiochette, and Penne vodka. So so so delicious. Food, drinks , service and atmosphere was wonderful. Definitely will be going back again!

There is a new old fashioned restaurant on Miami Beach at the Loew's Hotel, Rao's. A beautiful big restaurant that harkens back to a past New York atmosphere. Lots of red and tables with white tablecloths and servers in white dinner jackets. Good old traditional Italian food - meatballs, lasagna, parmigiana, lamb cutlets! All delicious. Service is absolutely perfect. Go for a superb old style Italian dinner!

The Italian food game is competitive in Miami. If you were craving sub par pasta, you'd hit up an Olive Garden. Rao's is a good meal, but does it stand out from some of Miami's top Italian competitors? The Meal No bread. Every other table around us received bread. Halfway through our meal, a servers assistant offered us bread. The seafood salad stuck out to us the most. This was a must-try fish. Loved the meatballs. They were juicy and cooked perfectly. All of the pastas were good. They just weren't WOW dishes. More on the simple side. The cocktails were nothing crazy creative. I think they need to level up their espresso martini. You've got too many big dog restaurants out here getting creative with espresso martinis and Rao's is just coming in blasé. I get it. The menu is supposed to be more traditional and basic, but if you're going that route, then I expect TOP TIER traditional. The pasta dishes were pretty small. We ordered 3 for 5 of us and truthfully I think we needed to order more. The ServiceThe service was mid. We made the comment that it seemed like because we were a party of 6, our server knew the automatic gratuity was locked in and didn't need to put in effort. The dining room was not chaotic. At one point all of the servers were standing in the corner staring at our table and snickering. I'm going to give them a pass and maybe they were staring as a compliment, but it was a LITTLE ODD. Was I blown away? No. Atmosphere was nothing spectacular. I could've been sitting in any hotel lobby restaurant. The same celebrity headshots are repeated throughout the restaurant. Come here for a casual nice dinner with family or maybe for a third date, but it's truly not the end of the world if you can't snag a reservation. I'm not going to do them dirty and mention other Italian places in my review, but do a little research on other Miami Italian restaurants first.

From the moment we sat down our waitress Jennifer made our dining experience so great! She gave us wine & food recommendations that we loved! The bread & focaccia were a yummy start to the meal then we got our appetizers!If order get anything please get the Caesar salad, it was one of the best Caesar salads I've ever had. I would come back to just to order this as my meal. It was crunchy and had the perfect amount of dressing! I also loved the Mozzarella Carozza, the Mussels were good but didn't stand out compared to the other 2 appetizers we ordered. For our pastas we ordered the Fiochette, Penne Vodka and Gemelli Veal Ragu. My favorite was definitely the Penne Vodka! It was creamy and had tons of flavor. I also really liked the Fiochette! It was very different from any pasta I've ever had, it was sweet with a touch of salty. Our waitress was amazing and brought us bread to dip into the sage brown butter that was leftover & which I HIGHLY recommend doing if you order this dish! I was not the biggest fan of the Gemelli Veal Ragu but my boyfriend really liked it. We also ordered the Chicken Milanese, it was nothing special and would definitely want to try the bone in Veal Parmesan over this. We saw the table next to us order the Veal Parm & it looked amazing! We really enjoyed our dinner at Rao's, the vibe, service and food made it a great place to celebrate a birthday!

Loved eating and drinking at the bar.The design was beautiful.I highly recommend trying the meatballs :)

So so happy I got to experience Rao's. One can only dream of getting a res at the NY location so of course I had to pay the Miami location a visit!!! And it did not disappoint. The restaurant vibes are cozy, sexy, and luxe. There are photos of all the celebs that dined there all over the walls. Really tells the history and legacy of the restaurant. The service was incredible. We had the best waiter who was so sweet and congratulated me on my birthday. He added a complimentary dessert for us which was so kind. The food was just simply amazing. No frills, nothing crazy but the simple and high quality ingredients shined through every bite. The penne was perfectly alden te and not too much cream in the sauce. The clam linguini was perfect and not fishy at all. They also gave such a generous amount of clams. The infamous meatballs were simple and delicious. You MUST get the meatballs. Can't wait to be back, till then, I'll keep dreaming of a reservation at the NY location