Around the year 1800, European immigrants who’d settled in the southern Brazilian grasslands of Rio Grande do Sul, bordering Argentina and Uruguay, developed a cooking style to match their lifestyle of herding cattle. First they would build a campfire and allow the fire to burn down to coals. Then they’d…
When a Chinese restaurant advertises “Hong Kong-style cuisine,” the main thing diners can count on is variety. Historically a sizable percentage of this southern territory’s inhabitants (now numbering approximately seven million) have been immigrants from all over China — a vast country with dramatically varied geography and climates, and correspondingly…
Back in 1915, the year Miami Beach became a city, Brown’s Hotel was the place to hang out. Actually it was the only place to hang if you insisted on amenities like a place to sit down or a roof over your head. Joe’s Stone Crab, predating the city’s founding…
There are some nice surprises about the Sonesta Beach Resort’s top-end Purple Dolphin restaurant, but getting there isn’t one of them. On a first visit, following directions I’d received from a hotel employee, I arrived half an hour late. On a second visit, a dining companion (who, being from out…
For more than a decade, as the rest of Miami’s “Mango Gang” of chefs (Douglas Rodriguez, Mark Militello, and Allen Susser) parlayed their Hispanic-influenced New World cuisine into restaurant empires and product marketing, Norman Van Aken resisted such expansion. While he did write several cookbooks in those years, Norman’s in…
Hit Bagels and Company on any given morning, at any given moment, and you’ll find yourself waiting on line at the counter or for a table. Weekends aside, this popular neighborhood spot is never not thronged with northern Miami-Dade residents thrumming fingers impatiently for toasted bialys with whitefish salad, homemade…
Catching a movie at CocoWalk always presents a problem. I’m not talking about parking, either, though that is also problematic in Coconut Grove. Where to go for a good pre- or postshow meal is the real dilemma. While the CocoWalk neighborhood is hardly lacking in eateries, the food at the…
The Spanish word chispa means spark, which conveys a sense of excitement even in its most basic translation. But at Robbin Haas’s four-month-old Chispa, the connotation is meant to go beyond that. If you’re a person with chispa, the restaurant’s Website (www.chisparestaurant.com) proclaims, you’re “a hot-blooded firecracker who’s just dangerous…
Birthdays are important in the restaurant business. Celebrating your first full year signals that you have a chance of succeeding in the long term. Making it to five means the community has accepted you. A decade? You’re good to go. But some folks in the restaurant industry mark a different…
The parameters that guide the making of a perfect pizza are pretty clear. A pie must have a good crust, whether it be thick or thin; vibrant sauce, whether it be red or white; and tasty toppings, whether they be traditional (pepperoni) or neo (chili peppers). In that respect, Pizza…
In its old location, as an adjunct to the now-defunct Café Del Mar on Biscayne Boulevard and NE 86th Street in Miami, Ye Olde Boston Fish Market was somewhat visible — as in, not invisible. It was hard to angle your car into the parking lot, yes. And the storefront…
Of course there was an elephant standing outside the new Fifteen O One Barton G., twirling rings on her trunk and trumpeting on command, a kind of consolation prize for those unable to score wristbands to enter the event impresario’s latest coup: a refurbished catering hall and live-music venue formerly…
In the late 1980s diners from the San Francisco Bay Area, the birthplace of French-influenced Chez Panisse — and, from there, the entire New American food revolution — suddenly became disgustingly health-conscious. The rest of America’s restaurants followed. Obsessed with cholesterol and weight, restaurant clientele rejected France’s creamy dishes (Julia…
To paraphrase an old folk song: Where have all the pastry chefs gone? A decade ago, having a pastry chef on staff at a South Florida restaurant was both de rigueur and a badge of honor. It implied that here, at least, dessert was a special enough course to be…
For a place where the party goes on 24/7, South Beach has surprisingly few restaurants that are open 24/7. Snack joints where one can fuel up on a slice, sure. But real restaurants — where night people can experience real meals — even vaguely comparable in style, excitement, and fun…
I had it as a chopped steak at Barton G., lying on a pillowy mattress of hash browns and smothered with mushrooms. I sampled it as short ribs during the most recent Chaine des Rotisseurs dinner at the Loews Hotel, braised and falling off the bone. And again at the…
Sure, there’s meat aplenty to be found at this Argentine gourmet market and café, which has a location in Aventura only several months old and another, newly opened, in the Village of Merrick Park in Coral Gables. You can order garlicky, thinly sliced matambre (roasted and rolled flank steak stuffed…
Among his recommendations for preparing a career as a truly informed restaurant critic, legendary food writer Craig Claiborne listed — right up there with actually working in top chefs’ kitchens, or extensive reading about food — gourmet world travels, learning by experiencing, and analyzing dishes at their source. When asked…
What a difference a decade makes. In 1993 Café Prima Pasta was a 28-seat noodle joint in a dilapidated mid-Miami Beach neighborhood, and owner Gerardo Cea was a first-time restaurateur who seemed to be capitalizing on the success of his cousin-in-law Eloy Roy, who had recently made a splash with…
In gastronomy, there are numerous prestigious awards, but none comes close to the celebrated status of being inducted in the “Choucroute Halles of Fame,” as the Coral Gables-based national magazine The Wine News founder and publisher Tom E. Smith recently discovered. Brasserie Les Halles owner Philippe Lajaunie established the annual…
Three ways to draw unwelcome attention to yourself at Parrot Jungle: Climb the monkey tower, yelling, “I am king of the primate world!” Teach the parrots to squawk, “Come here, little girl. Want some candy?” or simply walk around the exhibits with a young child firmly clasped in one hand…
In 1989, 24-year-old homeboy chef Douglas Rodriguez opened Yuca in Coral Gables and set off a wave of culinary excitement that almost immediately ignited imaginations and tastebuds far beyond Miami’s borders, particularly in other urban centers with large Cuban-American populations. Up in Manhattan, where I then lived, I can remember…
