Comments (0) Best Restaurant Downtown - 2007

Soya & Pomodoro

Soya & Pomodoro is a little restaurant that serves a soy burger at lunch ($6) but is otherwise all Italian. It's tucked away in a tiny spot on a rickety street in downtown Miami. No, sorry — it's tucked away in two tiny spots, one indoors, with two or three tables and a ventanita; the other an open-ended, kinda outdoor spot under a towering, but again rickety colonnade. Yet it's all strangely seductive, rustic, and charming, like a trattoria you might stumble into on some side street in Rome. The two spaces are attached to one another, and a kitchen somewhere in between pumps out what they call "simple food made with love," but what we call damn tasty red-sauce Italian food. Can't go wrong with ricotta and mushroom ravioli, or spaghetti Bolognese, or handmade gnocchi, or any of the pastas — they're terrific! And get this: Every menu item, excepting sirloin steak and salmon, is under ten dollars. The fish and steaks top out at $11 ($14 for dinner). Eminently drinkable wines are available at similarly bargain prices. Espressos are topnotch, and so is the homemade tiramisu. Soya & Pomodoro is open for breakfast and lunch daily, but serves dinner only on Thursday evenings, when there is also live music. an We haven't yet gotten around to tasting the soy burger.