I’m always impressed by a restaurant that has worked its way up from humble roots. Oggi Cafe and Deli, for instance, which started as a handmade pasta distributor, selling to upscale Coral Gables and South Beach trattorias. Then owner Eloi Roy used his noodle and got busy, adding a few…
If the contents of a person’s refrigerator provide a glimpse into his or her culinary mindset — and I believe they do — then it’s also fair to say a restaurant’s decor reveals a lot about its proprietor’s predilections. Perhaps that’s why I felt reassured by the mural painted near…
The restaurants on Ocean Drive still have the capacity to surprise me. Just when I think I know what to expect — mediocre fare, lousy service, wide-eyed tourists — a place like Pane Caldo Ristorante Italiano comes along and quiets my instinctive distaste. Or some of it, anyway. On the…
A typical criticism of postsecondary education is that it proves impractical in the real world: Cramming for a Rocks for Jocks final does little to prepare one for an entry-level position in today’s crowded job market. A compromise for those who seek both idealistic theory and hard-core practicality is the…
This town has a special fondness for the Raleigh, a restored 1940s Art Deco landmark that offers some of the only deluxe accommodations on South Beach. I know people who recommend the hotel to overnight visitors just so they can join them for a cup of coffee in the lobby,…
A review of Katana Japanese Restaurant, which appeared in the January 19-25, 1995, issue of Miami New Times
Every family has its culinary quirks, and mine is no exception. We all like the fruit that fills our apple pies and other pastries to be soft and melty. If we want crisp fruit, we eat it raw. But baked, it should be just the opposite. Otherwise why bother cooking…
At this time last year, in addition to writing this column, I was a staff writer for a company that publishes Caribbean travel and tourism books. One great thing about working during the holidays: the gourmet edibles brought in by colleagues or sent by clients (the golden rum cakes in…
Restaurants in large airport or convention hotels have a virtually unshakable reputation for being mediocre, a taint that makes them unlikely to attract customers beyond the business traveler or tourist. While some restaurants do manage to emerge from the depths of hotel-lobby obscurity and attract local diners, it’s the rare…
If restaurateurs chant the same mantra as real estate agents — location, location, location — then Cafe Tango is on unstable ground. The five-week-old eatery occupies a hard-to-find space on the first floor of the Bay Shore Yacht and Tennis Club, an apartment building on Harbor Island’s West Drive in…
Most Miamians feel proprietary about Mark Militello, the New World cuisine pioneer who has presided over Mark’s Place in North Miami since 1988, and I’m no exception. He’s ours. But hey, it’s a reciprocal relationship. He fills our bellies with fare that reminds us of filtered sunlight, island trade winds,…
Baseball season may be over for the rest of the nation, but it just started in Cutler Ridge. Doc Graham’s Taproom & Eatery, which made its debut last month, is a sports-inspired pub named after the turn-of-the-century baseball player who owns one of the shortest major league careers in history:…
I find it fitting that very few of Miami’s top chefs and restaurateurs were actually born here. Even those chefs who embrace New World cuisine, the fare that has come to represent South Florida, hail from Texas, Illinois, New York, California — anywhere but the region with which they have…
You wouldn’t know it by the weather, but autumn is approaching. The biggest clue: the department stores and boutiques, which all feature “back-to-school” three-piece pinstripe woolens and nubbly mohair weaves, tempting consumers to replace their outdated, summertime wardrobes. For fashion-conscious folk in other parts of the country, where the first…
Restaurant owners must remedy health-code violations before their next inspection. If a violation is considered critical to public health — for example, if the pantry is infested with rodents — a followup inspection may be scheduled within a week or less. Restaurants that consistently fail to correct violations are subject…
People often compare New World cuisine restaurants Chef Allen’s and Mark’s Place. The reasons are fairly obvious. Both rank consistently as Miami’s top restaurants; both, in fact, have won national recognition. Friendly rivals, both opened in the mid-Eighties and are named after the pioneering chefs who operate them. And both…
Unruly children can be the bane of a restaurateur’s existence. Not surprisingly, some restaurants ban kids altogether, a policy that is discriminatory to well-behaved youngsters and their parents. This summer the Palm Grill in Key West, a high-end but by no means overly tony eatery, refused to take our reservation…
Years ago my family frequented a restaurant that was actually two in one. Same owners, same kitchen, but the right side served Chinese food, the left side Japanese. Moreover, what you ate depended upon where you sat. If you were dead-set on swinging, you could sometimes persuade a waiter to…
Forget hot dogs. Forgo chicken. And deep-six that undersize dolphin you caught in the bay. Summertime means steak: flavorful flank, roasted rump, or filet mignon as friendly to the butter knife as perfectly ripe seasonal fruits. Rub a cut with spices, glaze it, or marinate it, then char it over…
On Thursday nights I watch TV. Sit-coms, to be precise. There, I’ve confessed. An almost-comatose couch boniato, I munch from a bag of chips and snicker until my cats meow in chorus, begging me to stop the high-pitched wheezing. Okay, so the chips are more likely to be gourmet spiced…
After a disquieting clip in the Herald and a few subsequent days of radio and TV news factoids about the health horrors associated with Mexican-American food, I was hard put to find willing dining companions for a taco stand roundup. Friends who don’t bat an eye at a Big Mac…
In the June 30 issue of the Wine Spectator, food writer John Mariani claimed that Miami’s “overly hyped restaurant scene is deflating…fast.” To prove his point, he cited the departures of some of our most noted chefs: Douglas Rodriguez (from Yuca), Kerry Simon (from Starfish), and Norman Van Aken (from…
