Just as the lit-up-at-night, I.M. Pei-designed Bank of America tower stands apart from the rest of Miami’s skyline, its in-house restaurant, Skyline Cafe, makes other downtown lunch spots seem commonplace by comparison. It’s literally on another level — the eleventh-floor to be precise. To get there you’ll have to take…
Bond St. Lounge is the South Beach outpost of Manhattan’s megasuccessful nouvelle Japanese sushi and sake restaurant. There are differences to be sure. Whereas the Big Apple Bond St. is an elegantly minimalist three-floor emporium, the one here is in a basement (of the Townhouse, a recently renovated hipster hotel…
The main wall is what grabs your attention as you enter Suva, adorned as it is by three looming, luminous ten-by-ten-foot panels colorfully depicting Polynesian tribal masks. In front of these are gauzy white curtains running from floor to high ceiling, and a shadowbox bar piled with sand and seashells…
When we came upon Yambo, I yahooed with excitement. It’s a hopping, bopping, most colorful Nicaraguan joint that, despite the crowd lining up at an outdoor counter to get food, surely couldn’t be known by too many outside the periphery of this funky neighborhood (SW First Street between Sixteenth and…
Azul is a two-month-old 120-seat restaurant in the $100-million Mandarin Oriental on Brickell Key, actually housed on the side of the hotel, along with another eatery, Café Sambal, in a patinaed structure. The restaurant’s interior , elegantly accented in rosewood, bamboo, white marble, stainless steel, and silk, impresses in an…
I was befuddled by the only word emblazoned beneath the restaurant’s name, right on the menu’s front page: tapas. Having always assumed the first Las Culebrinas, on West Flager, was a Cuban restaurant, I naturally projected likewise for this second venture, which emerged in the Grove seven months ago. I…
Green beans, sweet potatoes, strawberries, and all types of pulchritudinous produce can be purchased from roadside purveyors peppering the flat farmlands that surround Homestead. Nothing beats farm-fresh food. It’s also pleasing to note that there are more chickens than traffic lights here, John Deeres outnumber John Does, and a pastoral…
There are two types of gourmet markets: the modern sort, as in lots of white tiles, bright lights, and shiny stainless steel Metro shelving; and the rustic old-time look favored by Scotty’s Grocery. Well, not really favored. The style in this case has been attained involuntarily through evolution, the landmark…
If you’re going to dine at Diego’s Tapas at Bayside Marketplace, first check the local sports pages; you won’t want to head there when the Heat is playing a home game. Unless of course you’re the undaunted sort who relishes the prospect of a bumper-to-bumper crawl home through arena traffic…
The road to hellish restaurants is paved with good intentions, smiling countenances, sunny dispositions, and a sincerity on the part of proprietors. Al Bustan isn’t hellish, but the Lebanese eatery also isn’t anything more than just another ethnic eating place owned by people who want to serve exemplary renditions of…
The Paramount Grill in Aventura Mall is being touted as Chef Allen’s passage into casual dining. For those of you who may have just arrived here, Allen Susser once was one of the most talked-about chefs in town, his namesake restaurant nationally acclaimed. That was back in the heady days…
I was mindlessly slipping on my favorite Wallace & Gromit socks while getting dressed for lunch, when I suddenly became mindful of the fact that I was headed to the Govina Dining Room at the Hare Krishna Temple in Coconut Grove, the sort of place that likely would have guests…
It’s become cliché to describe a Latin restaurant in Miami as “reminiscent of an old-time Havana supper club,” but that is in fact the case at Samba Room in the recently renovated Bancroft Hotel on South Beach. Not too ritzy a club, mind you, the stylishly spare décor defined by…
Hans Viertz has gone from being corporate head chef of Club Med, a job that entailed overseeing 31.2 million meals per year, to proprietor of Estate Wines & Gourmet Foods, whose “Euro table” lunch service features a butcher-block table with communal seating for twelve, plus five additional stools at a…
The House Restaurant recently opened in a renovated 1930s residence, giving it an automatic built-in appeal — after all, one of the best things you can say about a dining establishment is that it makes you feel at home. The welcoming attitude of the staff here reinforces homeyness, although this…
Cautiously optimistic” is how I would have described my reaction, if anyone bothered to ask, after finding out that Suzanne’s Market in South Beach had been replaced by Neam’s Gourmet. Suzanne’s had been in my neighborhood for quite a few years, so I can attest that as an “upscale” food…
Dennis Max’s latest venture, Max’s Place, is now open in Bal Harbour Shops, in the space where Petrossian used to spoon out caviar. Things haven’t been altered much inside, which is fine, because the tall ceiling, neat cherrywood trim, and plush banquettes make for a handsome and comfortable dining room;…
It’s always a letdown when the waiter in a quaint picture-perfect café hands out a slipshod piece of paper that passes as a menu. First thing most of us do is turn it over to see if there’s anything else written on the other side. Artichoke’s is the antithesis: The…
Dining on Cuban food often dictates a choice between dirt-cheap dives dishing out decent fare and upscale establishments that serve nuevo Latino cuisine as incongruously overgarnished as Fidel Castro in a tuxedo. Havana Harry’s, a 200-seat family-style Cuban restaurant on Le Jeune, one block west of South Dixie Highway, falls…
It was while sitting at home, watching the presidential debate on TV, that I suddenly found myself seized by an insatiable craving for jerk chicken. Go figure. So I headed to Jerk Machine, located in North Miami (other locations include Sunrise, Opa-locka, Coral Springs, and Hollywood), a place whose motto…
Rodz of South Beach, a restaurant and lounge nestled in the center of Española Way, serves cuisine that is self-described as “Pan Asian, Continental, and Mediterranean, with an American influence.” Whenever I come across such globally ambitious concepts, a little warning flag pops up: cooks of all countries, masters of…
Back in the days when cars had tail fins and Elvis was a hound dog, the Morris Lapidus-designed Eden Roc hotel was one of the hottest celebrity hangouts in town. But cars got smaller and Elvis got fat and, like a lot of Miami Modern structures, the Eden Roc went…
