These figures were just released (only to Riptide) regarding the 2007 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival: $2 MILLION (plus) — Record ticket revenue for this year’s festival. $1 MILLION — Amount raised to benefit the students of the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center and Teaching…
The beverages are totally different: At Hofbräu Beerhall, nearly every table is topped with glasses or mugs filled with golden or amber-hued fluid. At Cafe Maurice, only slightly more delicate stemware is swirled with liquids tinted straw or dark maroon. There are plenty of other dissimilarities as well, so many…
When you consider the career path of eight-time world freediving champion Yasemin Dalkilic, it’s not surprising that she and her trainer/husband, Rudi Castineyra, chose ungentrified downtown Miami as the appropriate neighborhood for their very gentrified wine bar. The pair is used to taking big risks and winning. Often referred to…
Not a bad one in the bunch Local, organic, affordable, good. These adjectives rarely combine in Miami, despite our proximity to some of the most fertile farmland in the country. So rejoice, downtown office workers and anybody else who can find his way to Bayfront Park: An excellent farmers market…
Hot off the presses, a New Times exclusive: The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival is set to announce that its 2008 honorees will be internationally renowned chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and the buoyant British chef Jamie Oliver. The former will be feted at the Tribute Dinner on February…
Chef Johnny Vinczencz made a name for himself during a star-making stint at the Hotel Astor from 1995 to 2000. He also made a nickname for himself, “the Caribbean Cowboy,” which he discarded after leaving town and riding off to other restaurants in Palm Beach (Sundy House) and Broward (Johnny…
Is there any animal more abused than the chicken? Most begin and live their brief existence in mammoth farm-factories under conditions so dire they make the black hole of Calcutta appear merely gray. Then it’s off to the poultry processing plants, Dante’s seventh circle of finger-lickin’-good hell, where they’re killed…
The most surprising thing about Martin Scorsese finally winning that long-elusive Oscar for best director is that he did it without the benefit of any soup scene in The Departed. What ignites the famously sensual eating orgy in Tom Jones (best picture, 1963)? Big, steaming pewter bowls of celery soup…
Since South Beach’s late-Eighties renaissance, when droves of fashion and film aficionados (plus other notably fitness-conscious people) descended, sushi has been one of Miami’s major food groups. By the mid-Nineties, Washington Avenue was lined with Japanese eateries comparable in quality to those in New York City. Unfortunately, like those in…
Approximately two decades after it hit New York City, the great cupcake baking trend appears to have finally made its way to Miami, the bottom of America’s funnel. While the editorial staff at New Times are partial to the vegan creations of staff writer Tamara Lush (who modestly deflects credit…
If you want to know why San Francisco is a great restaurant town, go to South Miami. Bear with me; it’s not really that big a stretch. San Francisco is a great restaurant town not because of its handful of uber-luxe, four-star establishments, but because just about every neighborhood in…
Chefs Clay Conley of Azul and Michael Bloise of Wish agree: Given the choice of being stuck on a desert island with either Martha Stewart or the Mondavi brothers, both would prefer Martha. Conley explains, “If anyone can make a deserted island feel like home, she could.” The same question…
No trans-fatty fries allowed The Miami Dade School Board voted last night to become the first district in the nation to ban trans fats in food – not that you would know it by reading this morning’s Herald, which buried the news in the last graf of a story on…
David Bouley hails not from Paris or Provence, as his name, heritage, and repertoire of refined French cuisine might suggest. He grew up in Storrs, Connecticut. And while he trained under Michelin-starred chefs in France and Switzerland, and toiled away at landmark New York restaurants, he then served successfully as…
About three years ago, Miami’s midtown so-called “Arts District” was trumpeted, in a CNN real estate survey, as the most rapidly appreciating area in the country. National media hype that followed pictured Biscayne Boulevard as the gracious promenade it was to be, possibly within minutes — lined with cute cafes…
“We’re paying for their exorbitant rent!” my uncle Al bellows whenever I take him to dine in a pricey South Beach restaurant. Obnoxious, yes, but he’s got a point. The Ghetto Gourmet is a counterpoint. The Oakland-based group is, in essence, an underground supper club, meaning they find hip spaces…
Producers pf the uber-popular reality TV show Top Chef were in town recently looking for a few good cooks to compete for a $100,000 grand prize in their next season. And one local chef looks like he could be a prime candidate. Mike Sabin, 36, executive chef of South Beach’s…
It’s all Starbucks’ fault. Coffee used to be the equivalent of regular leaded. It was cheap, strong, and uncomplicated; you poured it in your tank, revved up your motor, and were good to go. Then some boy genius got his fancy knickers in a twist and all of a sudden…
Rocky Aoki didn’t invent teppanyaki dining, but he did introduce the Japanese tabletop cooking concept to the States in 1964, when he opened his first Benihana in New York City. Rocky can also claim credit for revving up the crowd-pleasing antics of his hibachi chefs way before Emeril. Aoki so…
Come back, Jeffrey! “It was a small dog, a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor’s great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the Emperor’s lap and pee on dignitaries’ shoes. The august gentlemen were not allowed to flinch or…
What’s the difference between a Valentine’s Day restaurant meal and the same dinner on a normal night? About $50 to $200. Something is clearly wrong with this discrepancy, yet the heart-shape box of Russell Stover candies doesn’t quite cut it as a romantic expression, either. Leave it to a French…
Chef Govind Armstrong is the Zelig of contemporary California cuisine. He started out spending summers working with Wolfgang Puck at L.A.’s legendary Spago, beginning in that restaurant’s inaugural year — when it was the seminal spot for modern American gastronomy. Govind was thirteen years old at the time. The prodigal…
