For the past six months, Coral Gables eateries have been playing the restaurant version of leap-frog, musical chairs, and hide-and-seek. Didier’s gave up its Alcazar Avenue location to Mozart Stube, only to resurface months later on Ponce de Leon Boulevard. Justa Pasta, whose husband-and-wife ownership team Doug and Maureen Cogen…
One summer when I was very young, my father drove us to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, famous for the hurricanes that bombard the coast there. As it turned out, August was not the best month for a visit; it rained on us for twelve days straight. Essentially a beach town…
The Beach wears me out. Even as spring break sputters to a stop and the Grove finally shows signs of emerging from the yearly onslaught, South Beach roars on, as if the season were as high as the sun. The restaurants seem to mutate faster than the people who frequent…
A year ago Ruth Fertel told Entertainment News & Views that what spurred her to mortgage her house in order to buy a small dining establishment called Chris Steak House was a “gut feeling.” For Fertel, following her own instincts has led to a 37-restaurant, $80 million chain that moves…
I once asked a former museum curator for advice about investing in art. “For collecting, buy what you like,” he said. “For investing, play the stock market.” “What if I already have stocks?” I asked. “Buy more,” he replied. I am of a similar opinion when I hear people refer…
The menu at North Miami’s two-month-old An American Place Waterside Restaurant contains a quote from the late food deity James Beard, friend and mentor of the restaurant’s proprietor Larry Forgione: “The truth is, one must be inspired to cook.” Indeed, the best chefs are not those who merely know what…
Several months ago I received a menu in my mailbox. This isn’t at all unusual — menus are deposited in my box at the office all the time. All too frequently they’re unremarkable, or notable only for the amount of typos they contain. What distinguished this one was its lack…
It had been a long time since I’d dined on Ocean Drive. Locals don’t bother with it much any more. Sure, we’ll take a stroll on our way to and from the beach, but come dinnertime we’d rather go hungry than subject ourselves to the hordes. This rule of red-lining…
Restaurateurs are a superstitious lot. They save their first hard-won dollar bill as a good- luck charm, often pasting it conspicuously on the cash register. If they’re chef-owners, they might wear the same necktie every day or favor certain whites. They won’t allow others to touch their knives. Most of…
Strictly speaking, no one fiddles at Fiddler’s, the three-month-old Hungarian/German/French addition to Coral Gables’s ethnic dining scene. On the other hand, it seems as if everyone at this restaurant is fiddling around. A musician plays selections from Fiddler on the Roof on a cembalo, an instrument that looks like a…
By strict definition, a diner is a restaurant that resembles the dining car of a train. Longer than it is wide, it opens early and closes late, if at all, and serves three meals a day to as many customers as it possibly can. Having spent a good portion of…
In Miami, where eating and drinking seem to be the basis of all social contact, dining out has its advantages. Other than choosing the restaurant, making a reservation, and ordering, there’s little stress involved. No chopping and dicing and nicking of fingers. No burnt disasters in the oven, no miasmas…
During the past two months, someone has been blitzing Miami with a half-million-dollar publicity campaign. Press releases galore. Metrobus shelters overwhelmed by this big spender’s gaudy, big-as-life likeness. A tie-in with American Express. A Huizenga production? The Estefans at it again? Schwarzenegger? Stallone? Madonna, maybe? Or Rourke? Try again. Nick’s…
In her novel Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto writes, “The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels,…
Those of you who love it may start mourning its loss of solo status now. Those of you who hate it, consider yourselves warned. South Beach is being copied. Or more accurately, the philosophy of if it’s still standing, tear it down has prompted other local beach neighborhoods to renovate…
Before a photographer shoots a picture, he checks for certain basic components — a worthy subject, appropriate light. But above all he composes the shot; that is, he determines how aspects of the picture interact. The most interesting subject in the world can’t compensate for discord — or blandness –…
A restaurant’s name often indicates the type of fare it offers. This is particularly true when a specific dish has been worked into the title. All Burgers serves burgers, El Toro Taco features tacos, Peking Noodle emphasizes its noodle dishes, and so on. It’s reasonable to assume that these restaurants…
For party people, an evening of both dinner and dancing is practically de rigueur. Though the conservative approach is to feast in one place, frolic in another, Miamians are not known for either their reserve or their patience. If the music in the restaurant has enough of a beat, we’re…
Where Kerry Simon goes, I will follow. Or will I? Follow the leader is a natural inclination on South Beach, where no phenomenon is considered good until the A-listers have been caught doing it, seeing it, smoking it, or eating it. So when Simon deserted the Raleigh Hotel’s Blue Star…
When a restaurant we love goes out of business, we may mourn its passing. We might long for a certain favorite dish. But we hardly ever wonder what became of the staff, how they survived the loss of their livelihoods, where they found other work. If the executive chef is…
Not very long ago, consumption of pasta was reserved for Italians and marathon runners, who inhaled it for energy the night before a race. The rest of the general American public dined in pasta ignorance. We called it spaghetti no matter its thickness, sometimes referring to it as noodles. In…
When real estate developer George Merrick planned his “City Beautiful,” Coral Gables, he was envisioning an upper-class enclave, architectural homogeneity, solidarity. Houses would present a unified front: white stucco, wrought iron, tejas, balconies. Landscaped lawns would prevail. He succeeded. Coral Gables became an ideal community — quiet, attractive, and conservative…
