If you are looking for Byblos in South Beach, it is not open, and the reason it is confusing is that the hotel it sits inside is. The Royal Palm on Collins Avenue reopened in July 2026 after a rebuild costing more than a hundred million dollars. Byblos did not reopen with it. As of early September the restaurant's own booking listings put the return at the first of November 2026.
The hotel reopening made the news and the restaurant staying shut did not, which is why people are still walking into the Royal Palm looking for a table that is months away.
What happened, in order
Byblos opened at 1545 Collins Avenue in 2015, in the historic Shorecrest building attached to the Royal Palm, and spent a decade as one of the more reliable dinners on South Beach. It announced its closure at the start of July 2025, framed around the hotel's construction programme making normal service impossible.
The restaurant used the shutdown for its own purposes as well, reworking its two-level layout — a relaxed lounge downstairs, a more formal dining room above — ahead of what would have been its tenth anniversary that autumn. The original messaging pointed at a reopening in late 2025.
That date moved. The hotel finished first and opened in July of this year; the restaurant did not, and the current published target is the first of November. Anniversary refurbishments running over is unremarkable in this industry, but the gap between the two reopenings is what is generating the confusion.
Why this keeps catching people out
A hotel reopening is a news event and gets covered. A restaurant inside it staying closed is not, and gets covered by nobody. So the search results now contain a run of recent, accurate, positive coverage about the Royal Palm being open, sitting directly alongside a Byblos listing that looks live.
Compounding it, the restaurant's review pages carry a decade of photographs and a thousand-plus reviews, which keeps them ranking. A temporary closure is much less visible in search than a permanent one, because none of the platforms treat it as a state change worth flagging prominently.
If you want to check the current position yourself, the restaurant's own reservation page carries the date it is working toward, and it is the only source that updates when the target moves. Everything else lags.
What Byblos actually serves, for when it returns
The kitchen calls it Middleterranean — Eastern Mediterranean with Middle Eastern and North African influence, served family style. In practice that means a shared table: dips and mezze to start, then the two dishes it is known for, the lamb ribs and the grilled octopus, with the rest built around them.
It is worth booking for the November window if you are going to be in Miami then, because reopenings of restaurants with this much history draw a crowd for the first month and the room is not large.
Where to eat this food now
The strongest substitute is Doya, at 347 Northwest 24th Street in Wynwood. It is a modern Aegean meze restaurant working from Greek and Turkish traditions, cooking meat and vegetables over wood and coals, and it holds a Bib Gourmand. The format — a lot of small plates, shared, with cocktails — is close to what Byblos does, in a louder and more contemporary room.
On the mainland, Mandolin Aegean Bistro at 4312 Northeast 2nd Avenue in the Design District is the quieter and more traditional option: Greek and Turkish village cooking in a restored 1940s house with the best restaurant garden in the city. It is less of a night out and more of a long lunch, which for some people is an upgrade.
If you specifically need to stay on South Beach, Motek has a location there and runs an accessible Mediterranean menu at a considerably lower price point. It is not doing what Byblos does, but it is open, it is walkable from Collins, and it is a better outcome than a hotel bar.
The wider pattern on Collins Avenue
Byblos is not an isolated case. Miami Beach's hotel restaurants are tied to their buildings' capital cycles, and when an owner commits to a major renovation the restaurants inside go dark for as long as the works take, regardless of how they were trading.
For anyone planning a trip, the practical implication is that a hotel restaurant on Collins is a slightly riskier booking than a standalone room on the mainland. The kitchen can be excellent and the reviews current and the doors still shut for eighteen months because of a decision made three floors up.
The defensive habit is simple enough: for anything inside a hotel, check the restaurant's own reservation page rather than an aggregator, and check it close to the date. Aggregators reflect the last time somebody updated a record; a live booking system reflects whether they will actually seat you.
Practical notes
The address, for when it reopens, is 1545 Collins Avenue inside the Royal Palm. Do not confuse the restaurant's status with the hotel's — you can currently check in upstairs and not eat downstairs.
The first of November is a target rather than a guarantee, and it has already moved once. If you are planning a trip around it, confirm directly in the fortnight beforehand rather than relying on a listing.
Doya and Mandolin are both on the mainland, which means a causeway crossing from South Beach. Allow more time than the map suggests in the evening, particularly on a weekend.
Tags: #byblos #byblosmiami #southbeach #collinsavenue #royalpalm #miami #mediterranean #middleeastern #doya #mandolin #wynwood #miamirestaurants #miamibeach #aegean
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Ask Karpo first
Byblos is closed for a refurbishment that has already slipped once, and the hotel around it reopening has made that harder to work out. Ask Karpo whether it is back yet and where to eat this food on South Beach in the meantime.
