Florida
Florida for food lovers: the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami Beach, from 25 to 28 February 2027.
- 1food festival
Food festivals in Florida
chensiyuan, CC BY-SA
Cities and towns in Florida
Radomianin, CC BY-SAMap of Florida
Florida is the peninsula between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, with mild winters in the south. Its festival in this guide is the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, in Miami Beach, set for 25 to 28 February 2027.
What to eat and drink
Florida’s food draws on its coasts and on its Caribbean and Latin American communities. Stone crab claws are a winter speciality. Key lime pie, made with small, tart key limes, comes from the Florida Keys. Cuban cooking, from the Cuban sandwich to café cubano, is part of daily life in Miami. Citrus groves made the state famous for oranges and grapefruit.
Getting to Florida
Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale’s airport, to the north, serve the south of the state. Orlando and Tampa have the main airports of central Florida. A car is the practical way to travel between cities.
Where to stay
For the festival, Miami Beach and Miami, across Biscayne Bay, are the bases. February is the dry season in South Florida.
Florida's official foods, written into state law
The Florida Statutes name the state's foods one by one, in chapter 15.
| Symbol | Food | Adopted |
|---|---|---|
| State beverage | Orange juice, from mature oranges of the species Citrus sinensis | 1967 |
| State fruit | The orange | 2005 |
| State pie | Key lime pie | 2006 |
| State honey | Tupelo honey | 2016 |
| State dessert | Strawberry shortcake with natural Florida dairy topping | 2022 |
The same chapter recognises Calle Ocho-Open House 8, the street festival presented each year by the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana and the Hispanic citizens of Miami-Dade County, as an official festival of Florida.
Cuban Miami, a short drive from the festival
Across Biscayne Bay from Miami Beach, Little Havana is the centre of Cuban culture in Miami, and the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau lists what to eat there: croquetas, roast lechón, Cuban sandwiches, sweet pastelitos and a cafecito, often ordered at a ventanita, a service window on the street. Along Calle Ocho, Versailles Restaurant has served Cuban food since 1971, and Máximo Gómez Park, known to locals as Domino Park, is where the domino games are played.
Where Florida's citrus comes from
The Florida Department of Citrus, based in Bartow, is the state body that promotes the fruit. Its archive, the Florida Citrus Archives at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, is designated by law as the official citrus archive of the state.