As a brilliant burnt-orange sun sets over the verdant fairways, an uncomfortable silence lingers inside BLT Prime, located just off the Trump National Doral Miami’s palatial lobby. There’s a reason for the hush in this staid 300-seater. Staff members have been instructed not to discuss their comically coiffed overlord. But…
Despite Miami’s appalling dearth of public transportation, those living or spending time downtown have it made. The Metromover is a free, reliable way to get around (with or without the one-shoed babbling bum). Uber is dirt cheap, and on a cool night. you can walk. It gets better. Some of…
There’s an ominous feeling as Conor Hanlon looks ahead after wrapping a four year stint as chef de cuisine at The Dutch inside the W Hotel. “Miami is always on the bandwagon looking for the next big thing rather than giving local chefs support,” he says He’s taking two months…
Sharon Morla was a greedy kid. While growing up in Lima’s San Isidro neighborhood, she would often tease a fistful of nuevo soles out of her parents and avoid her sister and friends while scouring the streets for her favorite carrito sanguchero. Each rickety metal cart shaded by a technicolor…
Despite a run of high-profile restaurant closures that have rolled through like a summer squall, casualties are waning as sales figures pick up and begin outpacing major metro areas like Los Angeles and New York. The numbers seemed to have bottomed out in March, when they climbed a paltry 0.8…
There’s one common theme this year among restaurants with disappointing Miami Spice menus. Untapped potential. You know the kind of thing we’re talking about. Things have come full circle, and now we’re the parents with the red temples and furrowed brows insisting “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.” Some of these…
Two things make a restaurant one of Miami Spice’s best deals. The first is that the restaurant’s menu is prohibitively expensive for most diners throughout the rest of the year. But a chef willing to experiment with new creations for Spice is just as worthy of a visit. The best…
With nearly 200 restaurants participating, Miami Spice can be a daunting endeavor. For those who scour the summer creations of Miami’s most prominent restaurants, it can be hard to pick out which ones are steals and which ones are stealing from you. Sample menus are replete with “market fish,” “chef’s…
Najat Kaanache told New Times she learned she was fired from her high-profile chef gig at Merrick Park’s Piripi after inquiries on social media began pouring in. Now, she’s fired back at the restaurant’s owners Gus Abalo and Teo Arranz’s Piripi VMP, LCC and AKA Hospitality LLC in a lawsuit…
Bradley Kilgore, the 29-year-old chef of Wynwood’s two-month-old Alter, sports a glistening, slicked-back Chicago gangster hairdo as he grabs a young Lake Meadow chicken. He debones it and removes the thigh meat, which he grinds up with a pungent combination of garam masala, North African spices, mushrooms, and foie gras…
There’s no middle ground when it comes to bottle service. You either thrive on it, scouring nightclubs for a table to latch onto, pool money with friends, or swipe a credit card to afford it because it’s peak Miami. But the concept of paying an exorbitant sum for the privilege…
We’ve all sat in our offices or cubicles huddled over a sad sandwich, a limp salad, or last night’s disappointing leftovers. Admit it. It’s ok. It’s simply a byproduct of being overworked. But now it’s summer when things are supposed to slow down. Even if your workload isn’t subsiding, the…
Chicken sandwiches are blowing up for a good reason. It’s all about texture. Burgers rely on the delicate interplay between juicy beef (if the right cuts are used), melty cheese, and toasted buns. Chicken sandwiches pack the flavor. Though Shake Shack and David Chang’s Fuku grab headlines in NYC for…
The past few years haven’t been kind to Kris Wessel. First came the 2012 closure of his beloved Red Light Little River after his landlord (the new owner of seedy Biscayne Boulevard motel) juiced his rent up to unsustainable levels. Along with Michelle Bernstein’s Michy’s the restaurant was a pioneer…
Michelle Bernstein knows she let her eponymous MiMo District restaurant get stale. “I got comfortable,” she says. “I outdated myself.” It’s a jarring confession from one of Miami’s most celebrated culinary figures. Bernstein, who’s 45, catapulted to greatness in 2000 when she took the reins at Azul inside Brickell Key’s…
Denise Paredes rules her restaurant with an iron fist. Waitresses scurry about sporting hot-pink tank tops that match Paredes’ flowing blouse. She handles the register with ease while making chitchat and directing mammoth platters of beef and pork ribs across the tight orange space. “I can’t talk to you right…
Somewhere between foulmouthed puppet Pepe Billete’s adulation, the publication of Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood, and the LeBron entourage member wearing a “Hialeah” hat in the playoffs, “La Ciudad Que Progresa” quietly became Miami’s coolest hood. The city is a Spanish-language version of Tammany Hall-style corruption emulsified with the grittiness…
The relaunch of Michelle Bernstein’s flagship MiMo restaurant, now known as Cena by Michy, means a lot of things. Most importantly is the return of beloved, fried chicken nights that have long been a summer tradition. The all-you-can-eat bacchanal kicks off Wednesday. As usual, $39 gets you platter after platter…
Once a month, Bruno Ponce and his three-person team toil for endless hours twisting out thousands of pounds of smooth orbs and knots of fresh mozzarella. They’re destined for Marky’s Gourmet on NE 79th Street, where they’ll be packed up and dispersed throughout the Caribbean. The rest of the month…
Matambre is a dish that looks you right in the eye, though not in the way the deep fried heads that accompany Japanese sweet shrimp might. Instead at Che Tito’s near Kendall a pair of hard boiled egg slivers wrapped up in slowly poached beef peer at you with hollow stares…
The way Paola Fernández remembers it, she arrived in Miami from Argentina last fall after being promised work alongside famous chef Najat Kaanache in preparation for the opening of a high-end Coral Gables restaurant. Instead, she was forced to iron, prepare home meals, and care for a difficult 8-year-old. “For…
Jorgie Ramos’ years in the restaurant business have been hell. Problems began in 2008, when the real-estate market collapsed, forcing him and his father Jorge to sell off several houses they were planning to fix up and resell. “I lost $4 million or $5 million pretty much overnight,” the 33-year-old…
