Fruit & Spice Park
Tourist attraction · Miami-Dade County ·
Botanical garden with 500+ varieties of fruit, spice & herbs
Botanical garden with 500+ varieties of fruit, spice & herbs
"A 37-acre botanical garden in Homestead, Florida, this living museum felt like a tropical treasure hunt as I zipped around by golf cart with guide Philip Romero. I came across a small grove of Veinte Cohol bananas—small, fast-growing, with a creamy texture and citrusy tang, rarely found outside the Philippines—and heard Romero say, “These are more flavorful than your typical store-bought Cavendish banana. Everyone loves how petite they are.” The park, founded in 1944 by Mary Heinlein and now run by the Miami-Dade County parks department, grows more than 500 varieties of fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs, and nuts, including about 75 kinds of bananas. Plants are organized by region; in the Americas section I tasted a berry from an eight-foot-tall Brazilian grape tree that was like a grape with the tartness of an apple and the spiciness of cinnamon, and we passed breadfruit, carambola, dragonfruit, guava, hog plum, loquat, lychee, monstera, mulberry, papaya, passion fruit, star apple, and tamarind. During the 45-minute tour Romero capped things off with a flavor-bending demo: a puckery wedge of gamboge, a few red miracle berries from West Africa, then the gamboge again—suddenly sweet. “That’s why the berries are called miracle fruit,” he said with a smile." - Nora Walsh Nora Walsh Nora Walsh is an award-winning writer who specializes in luxury hotels, Latin America, and the intersection of wellness and adventure travel. Her work appears in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Robb Report, and Afar, among others. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines
"Fruit & Spice Park is not a restaurant. It’s a park in Homestead where the tree-curious can stroll through a stunning collection of fruit and spice trees. The rule at Fruit & Spice is: any piece of fruit on the ground (that’s not rotten) is fair game to eat. And they have rows and rows of mango trees—so it’s essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet of ground mangos. They even hand you a halved mango with a plastic spoon when you pay the $15 entrance fee. Just bring a tiny knife (or that friend who always carries one) to help you slice open the many varieties you’ll find." - ryan pfeffer, virginia otazo, mariana trabanino
"Fruit & Spice Park is not a restaurant. It’s a park where the tree-curious can stroll through a stunning collection of fruit and spice trees. But here’s where it becomes an eating opportunity. The rule at Fruit & Spice is: any piece of fruit on the ground (that’s not rotten) is fair game to eat. And if you come during mango season, it’s essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet of ground mangoes. They even hand you a halved mango with a plastic spoon when you pay the $10 entrance fee. Just bring a tiny knife (or that friend who always carries one) to help you slice open the many varieties of fruit you’ll find." - virginia otazo, ryan pfeffer
"A botanical garden that grows more than 500 varieties of fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs, and nuts." - Nora Walsh Nora Walsh Nora Walsh is an award-winning writer who specializes in luxury hotels, Latin America, and the intersection of wellness and adventure travel. Her work appears in The New York Times, The Wall Stre
"Fruit & Spice Park is not a restaurant. It’s a park in Homestead where the tree-curious can stroll through a stunning collection of fruit and spice trees. But here’s where it becomes an eating opportunity. The rule at Fruit & Spice is: any piece of fruit on the ground (that’s not rotten) is fair game to eat. And if you come during mango season, it’s essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet of ground mangoes. They even hand you a halved mango with a plastic spoon when you pay the $10 entrance fee. Just bring a tiny knife (or that friend who always carries one) to help you slice open the many varieties of fruit you’ll find." - Ryan Pfeffer