Little Italian Tavern used to be housed in front of a Hallandale trailer park, and was critically and popularly acclaimed for solid, home-cooked Italian fare, friendly service, and low, low prices. Ten months ago owners Juan and Diana Rubin transferred Tavern to North Miami Beach, in the space occupied many…
When you enter the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton hotel, you expect to experience several ineluctable elements that give the chain its platinum reputation: liveried doormen greeting you with the respect accorded to royalty, superb floral arrangements with flowers that appear to have been flown by Lear jet from Holland’s finest…
What’s the difference between a “gastropub” and a restaurant? Nothing, as far as I can tell. A recent New York Times restaurant review that described a hot new place’s food as “gastro-pub cuisine” went on to list everything from pasta to lamb chops to cheesecake — which sure doesn’t sound…
Talk about making the best of underutilized space. The Delano Hotel has initiated “Cabana Dining,” an option for the shy celebrity — yeah, that’s an oxymoron — to take advantage of the private, poolside cabanas. For $190, which actually isn’t all that pricey, you get a candle-strewn cabana from 7:00…
The roast chicken of my dreams is sexy, not spartan — bursting with juice, tender yet firm, and very important, served splendidly dressed in its own succulent skin rather than cruelly stripped of this tasty protective covering by cooks whose claims to health consciousness fool only the most gullible or…
Astor Place Bar & Grill, with chef Johnny Vinczencz at the helm, was not too long ago considered one of the Beach’s better dining establishments. Thus it came as something of a surprise when Hotel Astor owner Karim Masri shut the restaurant for extensive renovations, and re-opened it in December…
It could be that I’ve been working so hard on the “Best of Miami” issue that my juices have been whetted. It could be that the time change has me waking up far too early in the morning for anything but mostly evil thoughts. Or maybe I’ve just been holding…
Cooking is not just about nourishment, or even about taste. It’s about, well, everything: An area’s food is as much a key to understanding a culture as is its history. This is not an original thought, at least not from me. Ever since Food Studies became as chic and serious…
I must admit to suffering a little pang of disappointment, in intensity just a bit less than a hunger cramp, at the Friday-night events of the recent Boca Bacchanal wine and food festival. Not by the setting — a series of dinners, each prepared by a renowned chef and paired…
To say that Bali Café is the top Indonesian restaurant in Miami is just as true, and misleading, as lauding Robert De Niro for being the finest actor in Meet the Parents. Both are better than that, and Bali is in fact the best restaurant in downtown Miami. Period. And…
On the scale of anticipation, Timo is a ten. Just mention the restaurant, chef-owner Tim Andriola’s first proprietary project that is about to debut on Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles, and the reaction is immediate. “Is it open?” “What’s the address?” “What kind of food?” “Wanna go?” Potential customers aren’t…
I don’t make a habit of reading press releases or studying menus prior to reviewing, partly in the belief this leads to fresher, less studied perceptions that are closer to those of a typical diner, and partly because of a lifelong aversion to research. Every now and then, though, I…
When a South Beach resident wants just a nice light bite in a stylish setting, there are roughly a zillion places to go; it’s probably harder to find a single South Beach block where one can not get a designer salad — or crêpes, or panini, or whatever meat/fish/veggie carpaccio…
Boats, beaches, bingo, and beer would all make the lengthy list of “Things Floridians Like More Than Books.” Yet while we are not, overall, the most literate of Americans, here and there are signs of intelligent life. For proof you need look no further than Books & Books, both on…
Since sabor is the Spanish word for flavor, one wonders: Why did the owners so name an Italian restaurant? Was sapore taken already? According to a quick look in the Miami area phone books — nope. The Italian word is still up for grabs. But in terms of ethnic identity…
Pay close attention to the following restaurants, listed in alphabetical order: Carmen’s. Chispa. Elia. Il Giramonde. Isabela’s. Locanda Sibilla. Mundo. Pao. The Prime Grill. Talula. Taverna Opa. Timo. Wish. A few have new owners, chefs, or retooled menus. Several have opened doors in the past couple of weeks. Some more…
“If you can imagine it,” Nahum Frenkel says, “I can make it out of chocolate.” The new owner of Confection Connection, a specialty chocolate shop in North Miami, already possesses a thousand molds from which he and his staff can make anything from baby rattles to bunches of grapes, and…
Prepare yourselves — there’s a new political correctness on the horizon, and it concerns our food. We’ve probably all heard by now that North Carolina restaurateur Neal Rowland, angry about France’s passive stance on our aggression, renamed French fries in his Cubbie’s eatery as “freedom fries.” Media-savvy colleagues, who took…
It has become apparent in recent months that Miami restaurants are finally catching on to certain dining trends that have long been established elsewhere around the country — like, for instance, an emphasis on letting foods speak for themselves in clean and sensible fashion. David Bracha, chef/owner of the new…
There are many local restaurants that are enjoyable because they are so typical of what Miami now is and does best: perfectly put-together upscale glamour. And then there are restaurants that are enjoyable because they are atypical of what Miami now is, but shining examples of what we could be,…
It took the end of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and the arrival of the invitation for the upcoming Aspen Food & Wine Magazine Classic to come to a realization: I am tired of plastic-forking a tiny piece of something atop a minuscule dollop of something else, all…
In like a lion, out like a lion: Heralded in by the South Beach Wine & Food Fest, March looks to be a month of little respite for the gastronomically weary. The rash of restaurant openings is like poison ivy on the tender skin of a baby. We’ve got, first…
