Writing in his Metamorphoses, Ovid claimed that time devours everything. He could have invented the governing motto for the restaurant industry, because it is hardly news to anyone that, as a vocation and business proposition, restaurants are dicey at best. Indeed, most financial pundits will tell you they’re about as…
One of the most exquisite architectural structures in South Beach is the Marlin Hotel on Ocean Drive, designed in 1939 by the great L. Murray Dixon — one of seven important Miami Beach projects the architect completed that year — and recently purchased and renovated by music magnate Chris Blackwell…
To separate cuisine — or culture, for that matter — by broad geographical parameters is one of society’s most tempting and nauseating tendencies. In America, this pervasive pigeonholing extends to the arts: Consider how writers as contrasted as Tennessee Williams and Eudora Welty are casually branded “Southern,” along with the…
Before getting to the business at hand, an announcement: New Times is looking for a permanent dining critic and food chronicler, someone with matching insights and appetite, an original, stylish writer for whom each restaurant experience is an adventure to be seized upon and savored. Let me say, by way…
Probably the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “cassis” is black currant, which is what the word means in French. Or perhaps the term conjures images of that lovely liqueur from Dijon, Creme de Cassis. But located on the western end of France’s Cote d’Azur is the…
Oddly enough, good Cajun restaurants have been few and far between in Miami. Say maque choux to someone here, and they think you’re cursing them in Creole. It’s a shame, because there’s more to the cuisine than dousing foodstuffs with a finely ground combination of black, white, and cayenne peppers…
During a recent appearance on David Letterman, Vancouver native Michael J. Fox mentioned that he, his wife Tracy Pollan, and their young son loved their visit to the new EuroDisney just outside Paris. The actor noted with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, however, that one of the most pleasurable aspects of the…
You don’t necessarily have to hail from the Deep South, Texas, or the far western perimeters of the Midwest to have stronger opinions about barbecue than politics, but it helps. We cantankerous Americans argue not only about whose barbecue is best, but about the very meaning of the culinary term…
Who could pass up a restaurant that last year ran away with Best Restaurant with a Chef Named Vinnie honors in New Times, and this year was named Best Inexpensive Italian Restaurant? Not me. After all, I spent my crucial years in a beer-and-shot town that boasted an Italian-American Club…
South American cuisine is taking Miami by storm – or perhaps I should say sword. The latest in this exciting turn of culinary events is a Brazilian rodizio called the Rodeo Grill, a carnivore’s paradise where all types of meats – from slabs of sirloin to chicken hearts – are…
Let me say right up front that the Outback Steakhouse is terrific. Or perhaps I should say “bewdie,” which is Aussie-speak for great, according to the menu. Like most theme restaurants, the Outback gets a bit carried away with its shtick. A New York strip is called “The Michael J…
If you haven’t explored Cuban dining recently, you’re in for some surprises. The fare offered in many of the newer restaurants goes well beyond ropa vieja and boliche, and the ambiance is elegante. La Casona, a villa-style restaurant that opened a couple of months ago on Calle Ocho, is a…
Next door to the refurbished Century Hotel on the 100 block of Ocean Drive, the Century is giving folks a reason to stray from South Beach’s beaten path. With a sleek look and menu, the restaurant is a welcome – and increasingly popular – addition to the SoBe scene. The…
Not since the short-lived but intriguing Clowns has an area restaurant so wholeheartedly followed its own muse. While the cuisine at the defunct Clowns leaned ever so slightly toward the Caribbean islands, Brasserie Coral Gables turns subtly toward South America, particularly in its European traditions. But like its quirky predecessor…
Even in Miami, restaurants don’t come much funkier than Kon Chau. Looking very back-lot Warner Brothers, a big, square room covered in well-trodden red industrial carpeting is flanked by vinyl banquettes of the same vintage as the seats in a 1955 Chevy – right down to the stuffing poking out…
Time was when the name of a restaurant gave you a pretty good idea of what sort of fare it offered. When I was a kid you didn’t go to the Burger Barn to satisfy a craving for Chateaubriand, nor did you visit the Six-Pack Saloon for champagne cocktails. In…
When a journalist friend returned to the United States recently after spending a few years in Berlin, my dining companion and I were sure she’d be longing for such all-American favorites as Southern fried chicken, T-bone steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, juicy burgers, and apple pie. But when we invited…
Tony Chan’s Water Club is no choose-one-from column A, choose-one-from-column-B Chinese restaurant. Nearly 200 dishes are offered in the restaurant’s large, narrow room overlooking Biscayne Bay in the Grand Prix Hotel. But the ostentatiousness – and ultimately, the inefficiency – of the staff made our party of three want to…
Don’t bother telling anyone in Miami that Italian food is passe. When Miamians want to eat healthy and light, they think pasta – the new “health” food – and, in turn, Italian restaurant. It’s a simple formula, but it works. And in these hard economic times, chichi spots that serve…
You know the place: Low-pile carpeting, travel-poster art, fake flowers on the tables, menus with a few misspellings, banquettes in only slightly better condition than old auto seats found in a junk yard. But all of these are forgivable because the food is good and the prices low. And sometimes…
No sooner did I master such words as fufu, the Cuban dish of mashed plantains mixed with pork rind, than I was confronted with mangu, its Dominican equivalent – except the Dominicans serve onions with mangu, and call the dish containing pork rinds mofongo. I still have a few things…
Just when I thought it was not in the cards for an upscale Mexican restaurant in Miami, I discovered one with food so good I almost leaped from my chair to perform a Mexican hat dance in the middle of a weekday afternoon. I restrained myself. Mostly because Las Puertas,…
