Cowy Burger was worth stalking when they were a pop-up, and now that they have a permanent home, they’re worth enduring the Wynwood chaos. This spot makes smashburgers as thin as your patience after waiting in line at the DMV. Their new baby blue home is casual. And the burgers have only gotten thinner, crispier, and more delicious. The Cowy burger (our favorite) oozes chunks of their housemade bacon jam, which should be sold in jars at your neighborhood farmers market.

Before we get into it, a quick lesson in burgers. Before burgers, there were hamburg steaks in Germany, and before that there was steak tartare in France, and before that your guess is as good as ours. Edan takes its burger back to its French roots (even though this is a Spanish restaurant) with beef that tastes and looks like a patty of lightly grilled tartare. There are two kinds of cheese on either side: brie on top and cheddar on the bottom. Plus, crunchy house pickles on a brioche bun.

An Italian apertivo bar that makes outstanding pizza is not a place we'd normally look for a cheeseburger. But the chef here used to have a restaurant called Proof that served a burger people freaked out over. That restaurant closed, and the burger people of Miami mourned. But now those same people show up here on Mondays, when it returns from the burger graveyard. It’s easy to see why people have stalked this thing for the last decade.

Lately, it feels like Blue Collar has been missing from the “Miami’s best burger” conversation. We will simply not stand for this. So let us say loud and clear: Blue Collar’s dry-aged cheeseburger is one of the very best burgers in Miami. It’s not new or trendy. There is no special sauce or smashed patties. It’s just a thick, unbelievably good blend of NY strip and brisket covered in american cheese and served on a golden Portuguese Muffin.

You go to The Louvre to appreciate classic works of art. And you go to Off Site to appreciate bar food. They both take their respective works just as seriously, as evidenced by this cheeseburger. It might not immediately grab your attention when it hits the table, but as you bite into it, you will be greeted by all the essential cheeseburger flavors, dialed up to 11. This is mostly thanks to the super flavorful patty—a mix of koji-cured chuck, brisket, and short rib.

The menu at this Downtown restaurant and bar changes often, but their cheeseburger has been there since day one. If it ever leaves, we might cry a little. There isn’t an aspect of this burger we don’t love: thin, deeply charred patties with american cheese, jammy onions, pickles, shredded lettuce, and 1000 Island Dressing (a burger condiment we don't see as often as we’d like). Pair it with a classic dirty martini or their shell-tini, a briny martini with oyster shell-infused gin.

Louie’s smashburger gets everything right. The potato bun is squishy but not soggy. The double patties are thin and seared from edge to edge. The sauteed onions are sliced so thin they're practically translucent. The melted american cheese melts into all the cracks and crevices. But it's the "Louie’s Special truffle sauce" (an additional but very worth it $2 upgrade) that bumps it into that top 1% of the city's smashburgers.

Unwrapping a warm USBS burger fills us with the kind of joy we haven't known since Christmas Day, 1996 (the year the Nintendo 64 came out). The housemade potato bun is so soft that your fingers leave little imprints like a memory foam mattress. The smashed and seared patties are covered in a runny cheese sauce that sinks into all the burger’s little cracks and charred bits. It's a classic smashburger with just enough unique elements to make it taste like a one-of-a-kind creation.

This small North Beach spot is named after the various (and delicious) Lebanese wraps on the menu. But their burger is great—and the only Lebanese-style burger we know of in Miami. It’s stuffed with coleslaw and fries, which might be a little hard to manage if it wasn’t all pressed into a neat, crispy little burger package on the same grill as their wraps. And just like the wraps, the outside of the bun gets some gorgeous grill marks in the process.

North Beach’s Silverlake Bistro is one of Miami's most consistent restaurants, and not unlike Rick Astley, their burger will never let you down. This is also a good one to seek out if you're kind of sick of smashburgers. It consists of two un-smashed patties, lots of melted cheddar, porcini mayo, and strips of thick bacon, which are “optional”—but, in our opinion, essential. Another great thing about this burger: it comes with a big pile of crispy, skinny fries.

Wagyu burgers are often disappointing. It’s hard to cook a patty with so much fat. They fall apart, get overcooked and lose all of that flavor, or get buried in too many condiments. But Shadow Wagyu has an 8oz thick boy with soft bib lettuce, tomatoes, and melted cheese that hugs the curves of this tender patty. We like ours medium rare so we can really taste how buttery the meat is. But even if you get it well done (you psycho), the potato bun sucks up all the juicy burger drippings.

The cheeseburger à l’Américaine at Pastis is not only very good, but also an appropriate burger for a restaurant where so many people are concerned with looking attractive. It’s not drippy or greasy, and stays composed to the very last bite thanks to the sesame seed bun that holds the cheesy double patties and sliced onions in place very well. But the flavor of the charred beef is what comes through most in this burger. The french fry portion is also generous.

This slightly random South Beach hotel bar is a reminder that martinis and cheeseburgers are one of life’s great pairings. The Greystone Bar will most likely be populated by tourists and possibly a jazz pianist. The dark bar has a small “comfort food” menu, but you’re here for the smashburger (and waffle fries). The burger is straightforward but really well-executed—caramelized onions, pickles, american cheese, finely shredded lettuce, and two smashed patties.

We love a steamed bun, and Apocalypse BBQ in Kendall makes a stellar steamed-bun cheeseburger. Their boss burger isn’t complicated: it’s meat, cheese, pickles, and a house sauce. But simple is better when great ingredients are involved. Their housemade pickles are sweet but peppery. And the tangy boss sauce is everything Big Mac sauce wishes it could be. Then there’s the cheese. It gushes over the tender brisket and short rib patty like slow-moving lava.

The Chug burger is elusive, but worth the effort. The towering creation, held together by nothing but good burger engineering and every one of your fingers, used to be a fixture on the Ariete menu. Then it vanished, and now it appears at Chug's every Thursday from 3pm till close. It is worth organizing your week around. Like everything this Coconut Grove Cuban diner does, it’s perfectly cooked, meticulously arranged, and hits your table looking like the burger equivalent of a supermodel.

There are a lot of factors that go into making a burger taste good, but perhaps the biggest one is the beef. If you agree with this fairly obvious statement, then the Proper Sausages burger is for you. They’re one of the best meat shops in town, so it makes sense that the wagyu patty they use tastes incredible, and is cooked to a perfect medium rare. They could serve that thing on two slices of stale white bread and it’d probably still be on this guide.

Like Proper Sausages, Babe’s is a meat shop in Palmetto Bay. So, yes, the patty is predictably delicious. But theirs is more of an old school burger—they keep it simple with just american cheese, pickles, and sriracha mayo. The bun is one of those squishy burger buns that gets steamed the longer you leave it in its wrapper. There are no fancy tricks going on with this one, but every bite is classic burger perfection.

La Birra Bar is a fast-casual burger spot in North Miami with a borderline overwhelming amount of options, but the correct choice is their golden burger. This place doesn't have much personality inside. You're not coming here to have fun. You're coming for a quick burger—but what a burger it is. It’s got two patties covered in melted american cheese, very finely diced onions, and a sauce binding everything together. But the best part about this burger might be the buns they bake themselves.

We haven’t had a conversation about Miami’s best burger without someone mentioning Pinch. And that someone is us. It’s just undeniably good. And you won’t get mad at the burger’s thick patty, even if you prefer the thinner smashburger style. It’s really juicy and has a somewhat looser texture than the other burgers on this guide. Caramelized onions and a brioche bun add just enough sweetness, and the addition of bacon for an extra few bucks creates an enjoyable sweet and salty juxtaposition.