Update: Jaguar Sun’s Downtown space is currently closed. Instead, the team is hosting an excellent steakhouse pop-up on the weekends at Lot 6 in Little Haiti.
Jaguar Sun is split almost perfectly in half between a bar and dining room, like the ratio of an ideal peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You could come here just for drinks or only bucatini - but that’d be a little bit like only eating the top slice of that peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The best way to enjoy Jaguar Sun is by consuming a little of both because it’s probably the best dinner-and-drinks combo in Miami.
The small restaurant is located on the first floor of a highrise apartment in Downtown, which is the only thing we don’t love about this place. Luckily it’s easy to distract yourself from the bright lobby that looks like the reception area of every start-up from the last decade - especially if you’re eating the excellent pasta. There are generally about four pasta variations on the menu. The bucatini is great if you prefer your noodles blanketed in a snowstorm of parmesan and pecorino, but the agnolotti is the best. The little pasta pillows are stuffed with blue crab, corn, and saffron - and each one contains a combination of sweet and savory that makes us forget how to speak for about three seconds.
The cocktails - which are all well-balanced despite having a novela of ingredients - make Jaguar Sun a solid option for a dinner before a night out. It’s also a great place to bring a date you might not know that well or a boss who desperately wants to be hip. Whatever the occasion, this place is incredibly consistent and reliable - just make sure you’re taking advantage of everything it has to offer and not leaving half the sandwich uneaten.
Food Rundown
These fluffy rolls come two per order with a side of honey butter. We appreciate that there are only two per order, because if there were six on the table, we’d most likely eat them all before the entrees arrived.
While we do think you should save some room for the pasta, the country ham plate is a tasty thing to snack on while drinking - especially if you combine it with the Parker House rolls and make little sandwiches.
This agnolotti is a top-three pasta in Miami. It’s slightly sweet thanks to the corn - but also cheesy and you can still taste the blue crab among all those flavors. If you’re with a group, it might be worth getting two of these on the table.
This dish keeps it simple: al dente bucatini, a whole lot of shaved parmesan and pecorino, and enough black pepper to cut through all that cheese. It is exactly what you want if you’ve been craving pasta for the last nine days.
