•Foodie Magazine, a start-up print venture for the Gen X gastronome, has acknowledged Miami as one of the culinary scenes to watch. In the premiere issue, both Wish and The Strand, where Andrea Curto and Michelle Bernstein cook respectively, were given glowing writeups. We can only hope editor/publisher Gus Floris continues to take notice of our many provocative talents, both male and female. To find out check out the magazine's second issue, which hits the stands this week.
•It's all in how you say it: Touch -- South Beach, the restaurant that just opened in the space formerly known as South Beach Brasserie, has been mistakenly reported in publications ranging from the Sun-Sentinel to Nation's Restaurant News to this column as Touch of South Beach. But co-owner Peter Schrank says it's a misunderstanding. “When you say it in conversation, it comes out like Touch of South Beach. But it's registered as Touch -- South Beach.” Which either confuses the issue or explains how co-owner Bobby Rifkin is quoted in a recent NRN article as saying, “The places that make it here all have a sustaining kind of schmaltz, and I strongly believe that's what we're bringing to Touch of South Beach.” Of course Rifkin may know what he's talking about, but NRN doesn't have quite the handle it thinks it does on the South Beach scene. In the same article, author Jack Hayes reports that “South Beach ... began to realize prominence as a dining scene with the mid-1990s arrival of chefs like Jonathan Eismann, Robbin Haas, and Johnny Vinczencz and concepts like Pacific Time, Lure, and Astor Place.” Um, I think he meant to list The Colony Bistro -- where Haas was -- since the top toque at Lure was Jake Klein. And while we're on the subject of Jake Klein, last seen ruling the stove at now-defunct Jada in South Miami, let's consider Hayes's next remark: “Nevertheless the South Beach restaurant scene has a history of failed concepts, among them names like Jada....”
