Food & Drink

Shareef Malnik, the charismatic owner of The Forge restaurant, was back in action at the BubbleQ on Friday during the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival. It was Malnik’s return to the culinary arena, since he shuttered his iconic steakhouse last summer. He also introduced the food world…

“Aaah this is perfect,” said guests when George Stone Crab and Chef Laurent Tourondel teamed up for Cocktails and Claws, an all inclusive food and drink event on the rooftop of the Betsy Hotel on Ocean Drive late Friday afternoon.James Beard Awards Rising Star candidate Chef Sam Gorenstein and his…

Dim Sum & Disco was the best event I attended at this year’s Festival. It was loose, fun, funky, featured fantastic food by great chefs, amazing Ty Ku cocktails by famed mixologist Tony Abu-Ganim, and the gorgeous Setai outdoor area. Truth be told, for much of the night I was…

Yesterday Esquire hosted a round table talk regarding “The Rebirth of Fine Dining.” Panelists were Chefs Daniel Boulud, Laurent Tourondel, John Besh, Paul Bartolotta, Mike Lata, and Michael White, while Esquire’s food editor, Ryan D’Agostino, moderated.The following lessons were learned:…

Guests who bought $225 tickets to last night’s Barilla Interactive Dinner at the Biltmore hotel probably assumed the word “interactive” meant a chef would be cooking for them at each table. Not so. As hungry diners dressed in everything from jeans to suits entered the room, they found cloth toques…

Female fans rushed Scarpetta’s Scott Conant at yesterday’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival Barilla Interactive Lunch at the Biltmore Hotel. They wanted to snap his picture. “I haven’t gotten this much attention since my wedding,” he told an audience of about 200. Some jumped on stage as Conant prepared…

To the rhythm of the bongos, bubbly in-hand, we bopped down the horseshoe of booths at last night’s Perrier-Jouet Bubble Q. It’s an event you accept for its woes as much as its wows. Expecting fabulous food, easy maneuvering in the crowds and glimpsing  the big man would have been…

Best use of pork belly (and there was a lot of pork belly) was this satsuma glazed square with cilantro and marinated beets on the side from Susan Zemanick, chef of Gautreau’s in New Orleans:Best single bite of food at the affair was foie gras bon bons from Beast, in…

Even the best things in life come to an end, and so it goes with SBWFF’s Best of the Best. Oh sure, it still presents great national chefs putting out delicious tidbits and fantastic vintners pouring wonderful wines. We’re not suggesting it’s a bad time at all. In fact, we…

There’s something to be said of that old cliché, “The early bird gets the worm,” as was evidenced by the line stretching from the peach lifeguard stand to the red, white, and blue one even 20 minutes before the Wine Spectator Trade Tent/Grand Tasting Village officially opened Friday afternoon. Hundreds…

Nearly 100 journalists, sponsors, and other industry types attended a private welcome brunch at The Betsy Hotel’s rooftop this morning to kick-off the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and, lo and behold, there was Daniel Boulud mixing amongst the common folk…

South Beach Wine and Food Festival is here, but it wouldn’t be without the FIU student volunteers who gain invaluable real world experience by creating the infrastructure, handling the logistics, cooking the food, dealing with sponsors, and a million other jobs that nobody thinks about while they’re drunk in a…

Getting an interview with Chef Jonathan Wright was as difficult as, well, trying to eat hot and sour soup with chopsticks. But we forgive the delay; he’s a busy guy. Tonight, as a matter of fact, you can catch him at Wine Spectator’s Best of the Best presenting a tasting…

Jonathan Eismann’s Q American Barbeque is officially open for business. The above image is from 8:52 p.m. at last night’s grand opening celebration, which featured free food, free beer, and free shots of liquor…

Midtown upstart Sakaya Kitchen’s Ssam lettuce wrap holds angus beef “bulgogi,” scallion ginger sauce, fresh edamame, rice pearls, and Ssamjang in organic Swank Farms green butterhead lettuce. Ssam is the Korean method of wrapping bite-size meats in leafy vegetables.The dish was available for free sampling in biodegradable wheat bowls last…

Chef Michael Schwartz took top honors at the 2010 Amstel Light Burger Bash last night, earning the Allen Brothers Golden Grill Award – the judge’s choice for best burger. Twenty-seven patties were battling for this and three other awards inside a smoky tent on the beach outside the Ritz-Carlton. Schwartz…

Tonight’s SBWFF Perrier-Jouët Bubble Q will feature a whole lot of very talented chefs, but make sure to check out whatever Mauro Colagreco is cooking up. I had the privilege of sampling his food at a Graffigna wine luncheon at the W Hotel South Beach this week, and it was…

Aracataca, a restaurant promising to serve “Colombian chic cuisine,” opens its doors tonight in Key Biscayne. Named after the town in Colombia famous for being the birthplace of novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the restaurant replaces French bistro Le Croisic. The locale and owners are the same. “We’re going to be…

In the wake of their impressive SBWFF kickoff last night, it seems the folks at Red want everyone to know they’re putting out a serious contender in the battle of the beef (a.k.a. Burger Bash) competition tonight, also. Chef Jonathan Bennett, the executive chef at Red, the Steakhouse and Moxie,…