The 5 Best Pan Con Bistec In Miami - Miami - The Infatuation (2024)

photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC

Like mango trees and questionable plastic surgery clinics, the pan con bistec is ubiquitous in Miami. There are literally hundreds of perfectly adequate versions around town. But for a pan con bistec to stand out in this city, it must exceed expectations while simultaneously respecting the fundamental elements that make it such an iconic sandwich: potato sticks and some form of beef on cuban bread. This guide only highlights the absolute best ones—the ones worth fighting a mob of feral peaco*cks for.

THE SPOTS

If you’re looking for Miami’s best example of a traditional pan con bistec, this is where you should go. The steak is juicy, the onions are lightly sautéed, and the ketchup and mayo are the literal and metaphorical glue that holds the sandwich together. Open 24 hours, you can get this magnificent pan con bistec at 3am after waking up from an apocalyptic nightmare involving conscious pigeons taking over the world. Mary’s pan con bistec will make you feel secure again. And if that scary pigeon dream made you sweat through your pajamas, bring them with you. This place doubles as a laundromat.

Like all the sandwiches at this Doral shop, Cuento's pan con bistec (called El Cid on the menu) has just enough unique elements to separate it from the rest of the sandwich pack. Instead of potato sticks, they use housemade malanga sticks—delicious and starchy toothpicks perfect for hanging out of your mouth like a cool cowboy in an old western film. And the palomilla steak is pounded so thin, you wonder if former powerlifter and WWE sports entertainment superstar Mark Henry is working in the kitchen. El Cid might also be the biggest pan con bistec in Miami too, made with half a loaf of cuban bread that's as long as a PTA mom’s to-do list.

The pan con bistec from Louie’s is a texture vortex. The buttered bread is slightly charred to give you a simultaneously crisp and springy bite that an ASMR podcaster would spend hours dissecting. The cheese oozes and stretches with each bite and when the mojo-marinated strip loin makes contact with Louie's house sauce, it takes the experience to another dimension—one where this sandwich is our mayor, and our city is a better place because of it. They’re only open from Friday through Sunday and that’s if they’re not closed for a private event. But the short window of opportunity only adds to this grandiose sandwich steak-sperience.

Instead of one thin piece of overcooked steak, Sanguich's pan con bistec is filled with thinly shaved slices of sous vide steak that resembles a roast beef sandwich. It creates a tender pan con bistec that's the opposite of the too-tough versions we don't care for, where you take one bite and the entire piece of steak slides out of the bread like paper tickets from a Skee-Ball machine. Sanguich doesn’t distract you from its lovely beef with lettuce and tomatoes—only a big fistful of crispy potato sticks, a slather of mojo rojo, and a healthy binding of swiss cheese to hold it all together. Like every Sanguich sandwich, the shiny cuban bread is brushed with lard before it's pressed.

If a pan con bistec rulebook exists, Chug’s probably used the pages to make paper confetti and celebrate this incredibly unique rendition. When it arrives, you might even double-check with your server to see if they made a mistake with your order. Instead of palomilla steak, they use crispy, shredded short rib that’s reminiscent of a good vaca frita. And it comes with a veal consommé for dipping that makes each bite taste like french onion soup. You could waste time thinking if this can truly be called a pan con bistec, but your time would be better spent actually eating (and thoroughly enjoying) the damn thing.