South Beach Seafood Festival

Seafood dinners before the beach festival

South Beach Seafood Festival runs in Miami from October 22 to October 25, 2025, with a multi-day format rather than a single tasting session. The program begins with the Experience Miami Beach dinner series on October 22 and 23, built around multi-course seated dinners with wine and cocktail pairings at partnering restaurants.

Chef Showdown and Saturday seafood tastings

The October 24 VIP Chef Showdown turns the festival into a seafood competition, with 20 local chefs competing across 10 seafood battle categories. Attendees and judges help decide the winners, which gives the cook-off a participatory structure alongside the professional chef lineup.

On October 25, the SoBe Seafood Slam beachfront festival centers on restaurant pop-ups, beverage sampling, demos, and music. The lineup includes more than 40 restaurant pop-ups, 30-plus beverage stations, culinary showcase demos, live bands, DJs, and interactive sampling competitions.

Stone crab season and named dishes

The festival is tied to the start of stone crab season, and the named offerings keep the seafood focus broad: seasonal Florida stone crabs, oysters, shrimp cocktail, lobster waffle cones, ceviche, sushi, fish tacos, lobster tail risotto, and craft cocktail pairings. The database description also notes tasting pavilions hosted by Miami seafood restaurants serving dishes in tasting portions.

Miami Beach chefs, venues, and program partners

Named participating chefs include Andre Bienvenu of Catch & Cut, Sean Brasel of Meat Market, Luis Wakabayashi of Sushi Maki, Sharon Fernandez of Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, Jorge Negron of Diplomat Prime, and Generric Kyles of Golden Rule Seafood. Named venues connected to the program include Lummus Park / Sands of South Beach, Carbone Miami, Mimi Chinese, Rao’s, Pubbelly, and Catch.

The event benefits the CI Foundation’s EAT SMART program, which supports healthy meals and nutrition education for youth in Miami-Dade County. Major presenting sponsors named for the festival include Tequila Herradura, Jack Daniel’s, GOYA Foods, Breakthru Beverage Florida, and the City of Miami Beach.