Big changes are coming to Michael Schwartz’s Cypress Room. After last week’s dispatching of chef de cuisine Roel Alcudia, the kitchen’s three remaining cooks walked out in protest days later, Alcudia confirmed. “I told them if that’s what they were going to do, they should do it the right way…
Wynwood has seen plenty of makeovers in the past few decades. Until three or four years ago, the neighborhood was in a strange purgatory. It held its working-class past in one hand, and in the other was the seed of a home for Miami’s nascent creative class. For a time,…
It’s fitting that Azucar Ice Cream Company’s second store would be close to Eighth Street, where the original opened in 2011. Since then it’s cemented it’s position as Miami favorite place for ice cream along with becoming a can’t miss tourist stop alongside the Tower Theater and Domino Park. The…
The past year has been rough for Teena’s Pride. First, Teena Borek, the namesake and matriarch of the decades old Homestead farm suffered a stroke. Later the farm’s website was hacked, forcing a website overhaul. Meanwhile, Borek’s plans to recuperate and get back to running the community supported agriculture program…
It’s been almost a decade since Jared Galbut and Keith Menin teamed up to take over the Sanctuary South Beach. The cousins had long run businesses like car washes together as kids and worked in hotels as teenagers, but 2005 marked a next step for the then-20-somethings. Since then, the…
Fooq’s chef Nicole Votano has parted ways with the restaurant less than a year after the hip, homestyle eatery opened on a shady downtown Miami’s corner in the space once filled by Nemesis Urban Bistro. She’ll be become chef de cuisine at DIRT, according to a restaurant spokeswoman. The curiously…
Cuba may be known as the land that spice forgot, but that hasn’t stopped Cuban-American chefs from trying to build upon their list of hearty homestyle classics. It all started with Douglas Rodriguez, widely recognized as the godfather of Nuevo Latino cuisine. Lately Alberto Cabrera of the recently refurbished Bread…
It seems every other storefront in downtown Miami offers up sandwiches stuffed with processed lunch meat and salads stacked on flaccid greens. Recently there have been a few respites like Niu Kitchen, Cafe Pastis, Burrito-San, and Peruvian sandwiches at Station 28, but still many of the area’s businesses take a…
Klime Kovaceski once turned his nose up at pizza. The 55-year-old Macedonian chef has been a Miami mainstay since 1984, when he arrived to open the first U.S. outpost of Jama, a place that specialized in hearty Eastern European classics such as goulash and stroganoff. His greatest success came in…
Though completion of All Aboard Florida’s downtown Miami train is still two years away, company officials last week met with owners of some of Miami’s favorite spots in hopes of luring locals into the sprawling hub. Among those the company is trying to woo are Mignonette’s Danny Serfer, Blackbrick’s Richard…
Miami is awash in forgettable Italian restaurants. It’s as though a factory line perpetually stamps out carbon copies offering parmigiana this and marinara that. A yawn comes naturally whenever a new so-called trattoria throws open its doors promising specialties from one of Italy’s idyllic regions. La Moderna made its late-June…
Gourmands and caffeine addicts alike have celebrated the birth of Miami’s quality coffee scene. Roasting outfits and cafés like North Miami’s Alaska Coffee Roasting Co., Eternity Coffee Roasters and of course Panther Coffee have helped transform the city from a land with little to boast beyond its ventanitas into a…
Miami’s dim sum loyalties run deep. Tropical Chinese devotees swear by the Bird Road establishment, while others stick with nearby Kon Chau. Some make the pilgrimage north for Broward favorites such as Pine Court Chinese Bistro and China Pavilion. But South Garden Chinese Restaurant (10855 Sunset Dr., Miami; 305-274-9099) on…
A request for the “other” menu at a Chinese restaurant is always the right move even when it’s met with a suspicious stare. At Dragon 1 Chinese Restaurant out west on Flagler Street, a tattooed waitress with streaks of purple hair responds by delivering a tattered middle-school book-report binder with…
With so many utilitarian Cuban pizza places selling doughy, Varadero-style pizzas it seemed inevitable someone would reimagine some of Cuba’s best-known dishes in pie form. About a month ago Gabriel Martinez, a partner in downtown’s Havana Coffee & Tea Company, opened Havana Pizza (48 E. Flagler St. 305-250-1099) nestled into…
Hialeah is a land of surprises. From the topsy-turvy street arrangements to the produce and wares you can buy while stuck in traffic, there’s always something interesting. Here, most expect little more than heaps of moros and shingles of dried out palomilla. Sure, La Ciudad Que Progresa boasts some of…
“If you had a spoon I’d eat some right now,” Prinston Paul says while standing near the front door of Little Haiti’s Sabal Supermarket on the corner of 54th Street and Northeast Second Avenue We’re inspecting a jar of mamba, Creole for peanut butter, a common snack on the island…
It seemed inevitable Tom Colicchio would open a place in Miami. He’s been eyeing the city since 2007, when David Bouley’s Evolution vacated the Ritz-Carlton, South Beach. But there was little hint the smooth-domed chef whose face is a fixture everywhere from television to Capitol Hill would take on a…
There are always new Japanese restaurants opening in Miami, but no matter how many join the ranks, there are few viable options. Just take a look at Eater Miami’s recent list of so-called “essential” sushi restaurants. For the most part the group is a laughable assemblage of transplants and middling…
In a few months time Zak Stern will move his baking operation from its cramped home to a 7,000-square-foot behemoth that was once the Van Alpert exhibition space. The 26th Street bakery, where a staff of 45 now lines up shoulder-to-shoulder turning out breads along with everything from toasts, soups,…
Hiroshi Horai has offered kaiseki since opening Maido Japanese Restaurant (4267 NW 107th Ave., Doral; 305-592-4002) a decade ago. His regulars, who knew him during a 12-year stint at Su-Shin Izakaya in Coral Gables, have always loved his carefully composed, highly seasonal multicourse menu. For the most part, however, it…
There was a brief moment in Brickell when goose prosciutto, antelope salami, and pan-seared Asian snakehead fish were up for grabs. They were the handiwork of Matt Hinckley who toiled in the kitchen of Michael’s Genuine and Nobu before helming Box Park for a flashy five-month stint before a disagreement between…
