About Me

Hi — I’m Matthew, and I’ve been eating my way through Miami for twenty years.

I was born in New Jersey to a Dominican family and moved to Doral in 2004. Two decades later I’m still here: a financial analyst by day, and the guy every friend, coworker, and out-of-town cousin texts with the same question — “Where should I eat?” I’ve been answering that one for about fifteen years. 305 Tables is what happened when I finally decided to write the answers down.

Why I started this

Here’s what drove me crazy. Search for where to eat in Miami and you get lists that are years out of date — spots that already closed, “hidden gems” everybody knows, roundups written by people who clearly never sat down and ordered. The genuinely current, genuinely good recommendations live on Instagram, buried in stories and reels that vanish in 24 hours and never surface when you actually go looking.

So the real, up-to-date picture of Miami dining existed — it just wasn’t findable. I built 305 Tables to fix that: a neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to where Miami actually eats, kept current, written by someone who’s been to the table.

How I do it

Simple: I eat everywhere I write about. Every place on this site is somewhere I’ve actually gone, ordered, and formed an opinion about — and the photos are mine, not stock, not a restaurant’s press kit. I’m not aggregating other people’s reviews or scraping star ratings. I organize by neighborhood because that’s how people really decide where to eat: you’re in Brickell after work, you’re showing someone around Coconut Grove, you want arepas in Doral. The guide should match the way the city actually works.

Some corners of Miami I know cold. Doral is home, so the Venezuelan and Colombian spots — the arepas, the Latin places — are my everyday. Other neighborhoods I’m still deep in the field on, one meal at a time.

A little about my taste

I take food seriously enough to travel for it. I’ll cross the country for In-N-Out and Coco’s Curry. Closer to home, I’ll happily drive out to Bird Road for an Arbetter’s hot dog. I mention this so you know what you’re dealing with: I’m not a casual diner handing out safe picks. I care, probably too much — and that’s the whole point.

What’s here and what’s coming

Every guide here is first-hand, current, and built to actually help you decide where your next great meal is coming from — sorted the way the city works, by neighborhood. Start with Brickell or Coconut Grove, and dig in.

Pull up a chair.

— Matthew