Florida Food & Traditional Cuisine

Florida food is Caribbean and Latin American in the south and Southern in the north, with a seafood tradition running the length of both coasts.

Cuban cooking is the most influential single strand, concentrated in Miami and Tampa, and it is everyday food here rather than a speciality — the sandwich, the coffee, the pastries.

The waters supply stone crab, grouper, spiny lobster, pink shrimp and, in the panhandle, oysters from one bay in particular that were long considered among the best in America. The state also grows most of the country's citrus, and its own small-fruited lime gives the pie its name.

Cuban sandwich

Roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard pressed in Cuban bread. Tampa's version adds salami and the two cities disagree about it permanently.

Key lime pie

Made with the small, sharp, yellow-fleshed key lime on a graham crust. If it is green, it is not right.

Stone crab claws

In season from 15 October to 1 May. Only one claw is taken and the animal is returned alive to regrow it, which makes this one of the more genuinely sustainable fisheries anywhere. Served chilled with mustard sauce.

Grouper sandwich

Blackened or fried, on a soft roll, at every Gulf coast fish shack. The default lunch of the west coast.

Conch fritters

A Keys and Bahamian staple, deep-fried and served with a spiced dipping sauce.

Cafecito

Sweetened Cuban espresso, served in thimbles and shared at a walk-up window. An afternoon social ritual in Miami rather than just a drink.

Little Havana in Miami is the state's best concentrated eating — walk-up coffee windows, fruit stands and cigar shops along a working street.

Fish houses and shrimp docks on both coasts sell straight off the boats, and the unglamorous ones are almost always the better ones.

Farmers' markets run through the winter here rather than the summer, which inverts the usual pattern — the growing season is the cool half of the year.

Roadside citrus stands operate from November to April, and the panhandle oyster bars are at their best in the cooler months.

Florida's climate defeats European grape varieties, so the state's wine is built on the native muscadine, which tolerates the heat and humidity. The results are sweet and unlike conventional wine, and a handful of wineries do it well.

Tropical fruit wines — mango, passionfruit, key lime — are a genuine local category rather than a gimmick, particularly in the south and the Keys.

The state's real strength is craft brewing, which is substantial in Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, and rum distilling has grown alongside it.