Box Park: Matt Hinckley Is a Rising Star Chef

You won’t taste the gator. It’s cooked in a thick, fiery gumbo with okra, shrimp, and boar, so you’re fooled by its familiar aroma, which is blended with sassafras and smoke. The greenish liquid, fortified with spices and herbs, veils the exotic flavors of reptile and wild boar. Sure, you…

A Passage to India Pop-Up Brings Bollywood to Coconut Grove

A Passage to India, a month long pop-up, premiered last evening at the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove. The special event turns the hotel’s restaurant into an Indian dining hall every Thursday through Sunday from 6 to 10 p.m. from October 3 to November 3. The pop-up transforms the luxury hotel’s Bizcaya…

Giorgio Rapicavoli’s Five Favorite Miami Restaurants

At Eating House in Coral Gables, Giorgio Rapicavoli serves Tang mimosas, Cap’n Crunch pancakes, and croquetas banh mi. When he isn’t at his restaurant, the playful chef seeks out cool spots and laid-back, neighborhood joints. Here, in his own words, are his favorite restaurants in Miami…

Michael Mina 74 to Open at Fontainebleau

Michael Mina’s new restaurant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach is scheduled to open in November 2013 — in time for the rush that Art Basel and the holiday season brings. Michael Mina 74 will open in the iconic resort’s lobby, in the Arkadia space and is quite a departure from…

Top Chef Season 11 Premieres Tonight: Miami Represents

Season 11 of Top Chef, the Bravo cooking competition that paved the way for the cooking-show craze, premieres tonight. This time, the cheftestants compete in New Orleans, where regulars Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, and Gail Simmons are joined by Emeril Lagasse and Hugh Acheson. Though some critics scoff at Bravo’s…

Government Shutdown: Nine Ways It Affects Restaurants and Consumers

Today, the United States Government shut down after Congress failed to reach an agreement to fund federal agencies. The first shutdown in 17 years disrupts a laundry list of federal agencies. Though essential government employees like air traffic controllers, border patrol agents and food inspectors, will continue to work, many…

September 2013 Restaurant Openings and Closings

September marks the beginning of the busy fall season. All over Miami, life renews as shops, restaurants, and hotels spiffy up for the winter season. Retooled menus, chef changes, and reworked decor are all par for the course — as are the openings of a plethora of new and interesting…

Richard Hales on Blackbrick: “Let’s Make It Good First and Then Worry About Being Authentic Later”

When Richard Hales opened Sakaya Kitchen in 2009, the “fast-casual, Asian-inspired, organic-conscious restaurant” quickly became an obsession of many Miamians who craved flavorful food that wouldn’t break their budgets. The restaurant served everything from Korean-style barbecue to “chunk’d” tater tots smothered in cheese and beef. Hales, who attended the French…

Chayhana Oasis: Uzbek Food Including Chebureks and Lagmans

Chayhana Oasis in Sunny Isles is a surprisingly enchanting Uzbek restaurant only accessible from one side of 163rd St. After you arrive on the correct side of the street, you have to find the visitor parking ramp above and away from the restaurant, and ride down the elevator. Then you’ll…

Los Magueyes: Holy Mole Poblano

Ah, mole, the sauce as personal and versatile as curry. It can come in an array of delicious colors: red, green, yellow or brown and most are said to have upwards of twenty ingredients. Discovering your perfect sauce is like finding your soulmate. At Los Magueyes they offer up two…