In order to protect his/her anonymity, any ethical restaurant critic plays by the unwritten rules: Don’t make a reservation under your own name. Don’t scribble notes on top of the table. And never, ever allow your picture to be taken. Once your identity is blown, how can you have an…
You’ve just been served a glistening tray of sushi. The salmon practically quivers with freshness and vitality; the yellowtail snapper looks like velvet, laid out over the rice; and the tuna is the most tempting of all, the rich, ruby redness beckoning your first bite. You decide to eat the…
The Palm premiered in Bay Harbor Islands in 1986, but it has the Joe’s Stone Crab, old-timey feel of an institution that’s been around forever. The original Palm in New York does go back pretty far — to 1926, which is when John Ganzi and Pio Bozzi, two immigrants to…
Ah, the banana. If you’ve looked around our markets lately, you might have noticed the several varieties from which you can make your selection. You can choose the short and chunky dwarf, finger, or red banana. You can check out the bananas that taste like other fruit — the Manzano…
It was on the drive to Tequila Sunrise that one of my dinner guests inquired as to what sort of place we were headed. “Mexican,” I replied, though it turned out she had already surmised that. I really didn’t know any more, other than having been told by someone who…
The prodigal chef returns. Hang on to your Caribbean Cowboy hats, boys and girls — Johnny Vinczencz has reclaimed his place in the kitchen at Astor Place. The chef decided to sign on again when he and his investor couldn’t find an appropriate South Beach location for their dream eatery…
Deborah Calderon is the “D” and Clare Kelley the “Clare” of I Do D’Clare, a cozy 65-seat breakfast and lunch spot on Ponce de Leon, just off South Dixie Highway in the Gables. The same location used to house another restaurant, Loffler’s, where Deborah cooked and Clare waited tables. Two…
Thus far in my lifetime, I’ve vowed never again to do three things: be pregnant, board a boat, or drink tequila. All three, you see, turn my rather weak stomach as easily as a hurricane upsets a kayak. So it was with no minor trepidation that I, four months in…
Like many curious New Yorkers whose acquaintance with Cuban food was largely limited to the tasty but pretty basic mom-and-pop Cuban/Chinese joints that once sprouted on every block of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I devoured the New York Times piece that came out shortly after Douglas Rodriguez’s Yuca first opened…
A civilized Latin supper club seems out of place amid the raucous scene of South Beach’s Washington Avenue, but that’s exactly the point behind Bolero Bar & Grill — a place on kid row for adults to enjoy. Apparently the mature elements of Miami have gotten word, as this 72-seat…
Icebox Cafe. 1657 Michigan Ave, Miami Beach; 305-538-8448. Open every day except Monday, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (lunch/brunch) and 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. (dinner); on weekends open till 1:00 a.m. for pastries.
Rarely has a restaurant in South Florida been so anticipated as pan-Asian Bambú, largely because of its co-owner, Cameron Diaz, who hooked up with her restaurateur/hotelier partners Karim Masri and Hubert Baudoin while shooting There’s Something About Mary in Miami. For months preceding the opening this past February, strollers regularly…
Countless adjectives can be used to describe the multitudinous restaurants of Miami-Dade. “Adventurous” is not one of them. Our ethnic-dining establishments seem particularly snakebit when it comes to exploring the more intriguing realms of their native cuisines, and Spanish restaurants reach even lower than the rest. Phillipe Restaurant, a 40-seat…
Every morning John Rossetti braises a brisket. He roasts a pork loin, a chicken or two, mixes a meat loaf. He caramelizes onions and grills vegetables like zucchini and eggplant. Then he piles them all, in various combinations, on three different homemade bâtarde breads he bakes himself. What he doesn’t…
Mayya has made a lot of changes in its lineup recently, but the most startling is the release of executive chef Guillermo Tellez. Ever polite, the Charlie Trotter protégé says he was let go because of a “difference of opinion.” Word on the street is slightly grittier. Tellez, who apparently…
Fast food joints failed to deliver a knockout punch to diners, but they did have those American institutions on the ropes and looking hopeless for a while. That was back in the early Sixties, and one of the main attractions of the then-new national burger chains was their consistency of…
It was bound to happen. After nearly a decade of regional this and local that, restaurateurs and chefs have tired of self-imposed provincial restrictions. Suddenly it seems instead of promoting products from our back-yard growers and purveyors, some of our better area restaurants are featuring luxury foodstuffs that come from…
There are times when it’s awfully difficult to explain why one lives in Miami. Like now, during this period of embarrassing Elianmania, with the national media trumpeting the arrogant antics of one small but stupid-as-a-stump group of right-wing refugee residents as they loudly and proudly point out that our county…
When dining out we like to think of the fish on our plate as having arrived fresh from the market that very day, a harmless bit of self-delusion that somebody, in just about every city near water, inevitably capitalizes on by opening an eatery called “The Fish Market.” The Wyndham…
I confess I didn’t know I had done something immoral until my editor informed me. “You ate shark’s fin soup?” he cried over the phone. “Don’t you know what they do to those poor sharks?” “They,” as it turned out, meant fishermen, and what they “do” is relieve the sharks…
No longer coping: Seems Frank Copestick, executive chef of Red Square, has gone the way of perestroika and fizzled. There’s no official word on why he left his position, but he didn’t go directly to another job, and substance abuse is rumored. Frank, tell us you’re not just another executive-chef…
Maybe it was because I was alone, carrying a book, that the bartender at this joint in the Gables inquired if I was on my way to a lecture at Books & Books. It was strangely flattering to think someone thought I looked like the type who attended such events,…
