La Camaronera photo
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It’s decorative gourd season, and that means more than one thing. Today’s example: The New York Times has dropped this year’s list of its critics’ 50 favorite dining establishments in America. And we here at Miami New Times are here for it.
As has been the Gray Lady’s custom, two Miami restaurants found spots on the 2024 Restaurant List. One, Walrus Rodeo in Little Haiti, is a relative newcomer to town, having first opened its doors in late 2022. The other, La Camaronera in Little Havana, is a venerated standby.
Walrus Rodeo’s dining room
Photo by David Bley
Walrus Rodeo is brought to us by Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, who established the physically diminutive but hugely inventive Italian gem Boia De in the same unprepossessing urban shopping strip early in the decade. So impressed with what emerged from Walrus Rodeo’s wood-fired oven were the dining-out mavens at the Michelin Guide that they surprised Walrus Rodeo and its fans mere months later when they teased their 2023 Miami picks. Now New York is applauding, too. One might say it’s about time.
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That goes double for La Camaronera, a mainstay on Flagler Street for more than half a century. In our recently updated Top 100 list, we singled out the grouper soup, shrimp empanadas, conch fritters, and, perhaps most lovingly, the fresh fish sandwich.
For those keeping score at home, recent New York Times Restaurant Lists have lauded Mamey (RIP) and Zitz Sum (2022) and Maty’s and Smoke & Dough (2023).
