One would be hard-pressed these days to find a restaurant that can’t, in some way, be called fusion. In Miami alone, Richard Hales smashes together Korean food and burger-shack fare at Sakaya Kitchen, while at Phuc Yea’s Cesar Zapata cooks Viet-Cajun cuisine and has done so since long before it…

Nemr Aljabra doesn’t speak English or Spanish, but he’s fluent in Kitchenese. In late March, the 33-year-old dishwasher, prep cook, and Syrian refugee was featured on the Miami-based Instagram account Humans of the Kitchen. “Nemr is a grinder,” said Pablo Zitzmann of No Name Chinese, where Aljabra and two other refugees have worked in the kitchen since the place opened. When Aljabra started, it wasn’t easy; he had to communicate with the rest of the kitchen through Google Translate. Over time, he picked up the daily routine and has, as Zitzmann put it, become the glue that holds the kitchen together.

Francisco Abenante, one of Venezuela’s most celebrated chefs, has managed to keep his Caracas restaurant, Casa Bistro, afloat even as the country has descended into chaos. Now he’s planning a downtown Miami arepera, which is expected to open in late 2019

The Oleks never meant to get into the deli business. Yet after relocating to Florida, switching careers, and losing everything, husband-and-wife team Lisa, age 56, and Steve, 52, opened the Pastrami Joint at Hollywood’s Yellow Green Farmers Market and quickly became one of the most popular stalls.

Consider the daiquiri. Ask someone on the street to define it and they’ll likely describe a frozen abomination spiked with some kind of strawberry concoction festooned with little umbrellas and served on cruise ships. But a good bartender, especially a Cuban bartender, knows better.

Long before Bill Young, the 57-year-old chef and owner of Red Shallot, began serving his Taiwanese picadillo, residents of his densely populated home island off China’s eastern coast have enjoyed a dish of ground pork belly aggressively seasoned and served atop of a bed…

Sakaya Kitchen and Blackbrick chef and owner Richard Hales will undergo emergency brain surgery this morning following a procedure to remove an 8-year-old brain tumor at the beginning of this year.

Chef Shuji Hiyakawa, of Wabi Sabi by Shuji, and Alvaro Perez Miranda, who launched the Vagabond Restaurant & Bar with Alex Chang, will open a 36-seat Japanese restaurant on the ground floor of the Cynergi building in Wynwood later this year. “The focus will be seasonality, simplicity, and kikubari,” Hiyakawa says…

For some, a church might be a strange place to seek a meal, yet on a recent Sunday night, as twilight cast a lavender glow across the sky, cars filled the parking lot of St. Matthew the Apostle Episcopal Church near South Miami. People emerged and wandered between red brick…

Jim Wood’s Palmetto Creek Farms in Central Florida is shuttering, leaving some Miami chefs scrambling to find a substitute for his top-quality, heritage breed pork that has been lauded statewide and around the country.

The cooks were suspicious. Standing in the fluorescent-white kitchen of the Dutch (2201 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-938-3111; thedutchmiami.com) inside the W South Beach, they were stunned to learn Josh Gripper, the restaurant’s soft-spoken, bespectacled pastry chef, would soon take over the entire operation. For years, Gripper, who is 38,…

Escamoles can be found at Bakan, where they’re sautéed with butter, shallots, Serrano chilies, and epazote, then wrapped in a blue corn tortilla and topped with a spoonful of guacamole and pickled vegetables. Is the dish worth the $25 price tag?

After two years of slinging breakfast sandwiches off rickety trucks, Matteson Koche’s El Bagel has secured a permanent location at NE 69th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, with plans to open later this year. The new space will join Phuc Yea, Blue Collar, and Jose Mendin’s recently opened La Placita…

For years, Brad Kilgore wanted to tweak the soft-cooked egg that became a hit almost the day his Wynwood restaurant, Alter, opened in 2015. The only problem was that changing the dish, which accomplished its mission to become a signature almost too well, was borderline taboo.

Manny Sulbaran is making one of the best soups in Miami. It starts with a chocolate-hued mushroom broth that’s infused with ginger, garlic, lemongrass, star anise, kaffir lime, and a touch of soy. It’s filled out with egg noodles, cabbage, herbs, crispy garlic, and a soft-boiled egg. It can be enhanced with pork belly, duck, brisket, pork shoulder, or chicken thigh for another $4, though it’s perfect without them.

Erick Briceño and Michael Honore are obsessed with Jupiña. So much so that a few months ago, when the two 35-year-olds were testing basting sauces for their forthcoming barbecue spot, they took about eight liters of the sugary, pineapple-flavored beverage and reduced it to a thick syrup that could barely fill half a soda can.

Is it synchronicity, or just good timing? On the heels of the “Assassination of Gianni Versace” winning a Golden Globe for best miniseries, New York City chef and restaurateur David Bouhadana is opening one of his trademark, four-seat sushi bars atop the eclectic, jarring, and oftentimes just-plain-weird oceanfront manor, now called the Villa Casa Casuarina, where the Italian designer lived and died.