How MiamiExplore scores and ranks every venue

How venues are scored

Each venue is rated on the five things that matter for its type. A restaurant is scored on food quality, service, atmosphere, value for money, and location. Hotels, attractions, and nightlife venues each have their own five, and every venue of a type is measured on the same ones. Those sub-scores combine into the single score you see on its page, using one formula that applies to every venue equally.

One of those criteria deserves a note: value for money is read against the venue's price class, the same way a hotel's guest rating is read against its star class. A tasting-menu restaurant is judged on whether it delivers at its price point, not on costing more than a lunch counter. An affordable spot keeps every bit of the value credit it earns.

Nightlife gets the same fairness treatment on entertainment: a speakeasy or wine bar is judged on the experience its format offers (the ceremony, the storytelling, the room), not on whether it has a DJ. A venue with a stage keeps every bit of the entertainment credit it earns.

And hotels get it on value: a five-star resort is judged on whether the night delivers what its class promises, not on costing more than a highway motel. Guests at those properties rarely write about price at all, and silence is not a verdict. An affordable hotel keeps every bit of the value credit it earns.

Scores are built from aggregated guest review data and each venue's own published information. Next to our score you will always find the venue's real Google rating and review count, so you can check our take against the broadest public signal in one glance. We do not host our own guest reviews, and we never score a venue we have no data for.

How venues are ranked

Our score is the biggest thing that moves a venue up a list, but it is not the only one. When you sort by MiamiExplore Picks, here is everything that can affect the order, from most influential to least.

1. Quality

The venue's score, weighed against how many guests stand behind it. A place with a dozen glowing reviews does not leapfrog one with thousands on rating alone. New venues earn their way up as real guests weigh in. For hotels, official star class is part of this picture.

2. Popularity and momentum

How many guests have reviewed a venue, and how fast that number is growing right now. We re-measure review growth four times a year from public counts, on a fixed schedule. Venues genuinely gaining attention rise, and ones fading drift down. Measured, never guessed.

3. Recognition

Major distinctions such as Michelin recognition add a small, capped bonus. Recognition can break a tie near the top. It cannot carry a venue that guests rate poorly.

4. Small tie-breakers

When venues are otherwise even, minor rules settle the order. They apply identically to every venue in the same situation, and none of them can lift a weaker venue over a stronger one.

Sometimes our editors hand-pick a venue to feature. When that happens it is labeled Editor's Pick, so an editorial choice never wears the costume of an earned rank.

That list is complete. Nothing else moves a venue up. Not payment, not a relationship with us, not how loud a place is on social media.

When we get something wrong

A real person reads every correction request. If you run a venue listed here, you can have your information corrected, and if you want your listing removed, ask and a person will handle it. Visitors who spot an error can write to us at [email protected] and reach the same human.