When the former owners of Mezzanotte finally closed that long-running fashionista-favorite restaurant/nightclub last year and opened Carnevale, a self-billed “Venetian café,” two questions instantly occurred to me: Would this really be like eating in Venice? And, since the space’s former occupant was so model-friendly, could you get blow in the…
Since opening on the southern tip of South Beach in 1995, Nemo has consistently been rated as one of Miami’s very best restaurants. Like the proprietors of many of the United States’ other highly touted contemporary dining establishments (The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, Spago, et cetera), co-owners Myles Chafetz and…
When dinner hour approaches at Captain Jim’s, a friendly fish market that’s also an informal (five Formica tables) restaurant, everybody eats in, even if they’ve just come for take-out. That’s because while the crowd waits for orders or service, the personnel behind the fish counter (who remain friendly even when…
It was in 1899 that Italy’s Queen Margherita and King Umberto I, in a public-relations move calculated to foster an affinity with the common folk, took a royal traipse into Naples for some pizza. In their honor the pizzaiolo commissioned for the event what is believed to be the first…
Even if the food at Red Fish Grill were only so-so, the restaurant’s spectacular setting alone would warrant many visits. Located at the furthest tip of wild Matheson Hammock Park, on the shores of a very nonwild saltwater lagoon (in fact you could call it downright gentrified; there’s an extensive…
At one time the Abbey Hotel’s lobby must have been a graceful space for guests to dawdle in, but not anymore. It’s stripped to bare essentials (desk, stairway, elevator), all relegated to the left side of the dapper, Deco, 52-seat Abbey Dining Room. The restaurant resembles a swank supper club:…
It’s one of those days that feels, from the amount of work you’ve done, at least 40 hours long — but you need a few more hours to finish up the work that still needs doing. No time for food, for sure, unless it’s a bite between phone calls/appointments/important meetings…
Several encouraging things were immediately apparent when Milkyway Café opened several months ago in my neighborhood, which is predominantly populated by people who walk to synagogue wearing fur hats and floor-length wool clothes in August. The most optimistic note was that the restaurant replaced Adam’s Ribs, a kosher joint serving…
My first inkling that Sandbar Grill didn’t take itself too seriously came when I called to find out the hours. A recorded message clicked off a lengthy recital of each day’s unique allure, as in Barefood Sundays (half-price drinks), Taco Mondays (half-price tacos), and Booby Wednesdays (half-price drinks for women,…
After we’d finished the dessert course at Grappa, gracious owner Claudio Nunes approached our table with a bottle of the restaurant’s namesake liquor (something he was offering all the patrons this evening), and some handblown glasses produced especially for this potent, woody alcohol. It occurred to me that I hadn’t…
Although food writing is a highly professional-type journalistic operation, with databases and secret information sources that put the CIA to shame, the best word to describe how I found Hiro’s Sushi Express would be roundabout. Well, dumb luck also comes to mind. I’d wandered for the first time into Hiro’s…
When a casual, reasonably priced, old-fashioned Florida fish house opens on South Beach’s Attitude Avenue (a.k.a. Washington Avenue) with no hype, hoopla, velvet ropes, door Nazis, or deafening disco music, it’s time for serious diners to grab the car keys. But be prepared to find your own meter, because New…
On this ratty but rallying stretch of Biscayne Boulevard, in a neighborhood where the most popular restaurants have long been referred to by acronym (KFC, IHOP, and so on), the log-cabin-like Canadian-outpost exterior of Pangea stands out like Dudley Do-Right at a gangsta convention. Gustavo and Laura Sanchez are co-owners…
The Japanese tend to take a less-is-more approach to eating. Americans prefer to think in terms of more is more (which probably is why our populace is among the most bloated in the world), though a growing health consciousness has had a moderating effect on our national per-meal consumption. Ocean…
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…
