Michael Schwartz and his restaurant holding company have settled a class-action lawsuit that alleged the restaurant funneled tip money to managers, sommeliers, and kitchen employees leaving servers to be paid below minimum wages. 130 NE 40th St., LLC, the same address as Schwartz’s flagship Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, agreed…

Fat cods are the best ones, Tomás Cuadrado says as he emerges from the walk-in refrigerator deep inside beloved Coral Way institution Xixón Spanish Restaurant (2101 Coral Way, Miami; 305-854-9350; xixonspanishrestaurant.com). He holds up a snowy-white loin like a jeweler would a Rolex and then explains how the thick white…

Coral Way’s Neme Gastro Bar seems to be having an identity crisis. It’s trying to be a live music space, a neighborhood bar, and an ambitious restaurant all at once. Enter the venue that opened in the waning days of 2015, and the first thing you notice is an impressive…

Most young cooks dream of achieving the kind of success enjoyed by Charleston’s Sean Brock and Philadelphia’s Marc Vetri. The pair claims a bounty of hardware, including James Beard Awards. They’re captains of burgeoning restaurant empires. But with the glory comes the complexity of managing it all. Just being a…

Sunset Harbour’s NaiYaRa is like an Asian night market nipped, tucked, and primped to meet South Beach standards. The wicker baskets that, on the streets of Hanoi, might bear the purple, razor-edged herb called red perilla have been refashioned into tall, dangling light fixtures. The sheaths of Thai magazines and…

The agricultural quarantine that for months has gripped a large swath of South Dade farmland in an effort to stave off an Asian fruit fly outbreak will finally be lifted Saturday at midnight, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture. The long awaited relief will finally give some farmers the…

Zak Stern thinks Ptcha is sexy. The Ashkenazi dish is made by boiling cow’s feet or knees into oblivion with little more than onion, garlic, and salt. Once rendered out, the whole meat-studded brew is poured into serving trays and cooled. After it’s chilled, the fat is skimmed off and…

The fried chicken sandwich is shockingly simple but perfect. No wonder more and more are popping up across Miami and America. In mid-January, Shake Shack began serving its version, aptly named the Chick’n Shack, across the nation. Restaurateur John Kunkel’s 50 Eggs Inc.’s fast-casual concept place Spring Chicken opened the…

A description of Wynwood’s 2-month-old Beaker & Gray reads like a hipster checklist. There’s pork belly, sous vide cooking, and exposed brick walls. The soundtrack bounces from ’80s hits to the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Gimme the Loot.” When the 120-seater’s owners, Brian Nasajon and Ben Potts, who respectively oversee the kitchen…

A handful of food halls all located within a stone’s throw of Biscayne Boulevard in Miami proper are in the works, though it’ll be at least a year before any open. Conway Commercial Real Estate and Urban Atlantic Group (Disclosure: I rent shared office space from the two) are planning…

It’s around 3 p.m. onboard Myumi (56 NW 29th St., Miami; myumifoods.com), the six-seat omakase truck that parks on Wynwood’s northern boundary. Inside the drab, gray cart, Ryo Kato, age 34, dumps about four quarts of California’s short-grain Koshihikari rice into a metal mesh bowl. He fills it with water…

Deep inside the 3-month-old Nobu Miami at Eden Roc, a German tourist sporting a salmon-hued pullover stands in front of the sushi bar. His back is stiff and his arms are crossed. “How many years did you apprentice?” he asks an itamae who’s busy forming a knob of snowy rice…

Nabil Hach Al-luch bought the restaurant across from the Normandy Isle fountain more than a decade ago but never planned to be a chef. Then, in 2012, the sole cook at his place, Rouge (908 71st St., Miami Beach; 305-720-9125), announced he was leaving for vacation the next day. “I…

A month after opening this past September, Marion seemed the culinary rebirth of artist George-Pierre Seurat’s masterpiece Un Dimanche Aprés-Midi à l’Île de la Grande Jette. Like the 1884 painting depicting a well-appointed crowd enjoying a bucolic weekend afternoon in Paris, this gold-splashed, 260-seat bistro on the ground floor of…

Pamela Canales arrived in Miami from Quillota, Chile in 1973. In 1979 she started a humble business: Baking Chile’s flaky, egg-washed empanadas out of her house. They’re hefty half moons that weigh more than you’d expect. One plumped up with chopped shrimp, mozzarella, jack, and ricotta cheese is flecked with…

No one in Miami makes tacu tacu like Miguel Gómez. The Iquitos-born chef stews lima beans in a brew of ají amarillo, cumin, and oregano fortified with chicken stock. Once tender, the legumes are mashed into a paste that smarts from the pepper’s citrusy sting. Slender grains of fragrant basmati…

It only takes one good bout with canned seafood to fall in love. My grandfather initiated me with weekend sandwiches of shimmering King Oscar sardines arranged in a neat row atop salty butter slicked onto whole wheat bread. Like odd smells and gifts in strange denominations (think checks for $50.12),…