Almost exactly a year ago, I publicly entreated our native (or close enough to it) chefs to get out there and open their own upmarket places instead of relying on Mango-Gang mentors, cushy corporations, or acclaimed out-of-towners for media-ready jobs and near-guaranteed kudos. At the time I only had Kris Wessel, chef-proprietor of the brand-new Liaison, and Michelle Bernstein, erstwhile operator of The Strand, to applaud. We were about to lose our budding identity as a homegrown food city, due to the drought of local, ambitious talent -- a fire danger that only increased when Bernstein was wooed to debut Azul at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.
By next season, however, I might be happily munching on my own words. Though I don't see folks enjoying Liaison's sophisticated southeastern cuisine as much as they should, Wessel has hung on to celebrate his first-year anniversary and, with a little support from the dining community, should make it to his second. Pascal Oudin, a veteran of the South Beach and Coconut Grove hotel dining room scene, finally launched Pascal's on Ponce and is enjoying mucho success. Michael Schwartz has let loose with Shoji Sushi, his third venture; former China Grill Management's Ephraim Kadish has struck out on his own with Breez and Parallel in Billboard Live.
Culinary life not looking good enough to eat yet? The fall should also bring the rise of former Wish executive chef Andrea Curto's venture, said to be planned in conjunction with fiancé and Gaucho Room executive chef Frank Randazzo. Carmen Gonzalez of Clowns and then Tamarind has hinted that she will be returning to the gastronomic public life after a long catering stint. And then there are the risk-takers behind soon-to-be-unveiled Rumi: twentysomething nightlife promoters Alan Roth and Sean Saladino, along with co-chefs Scott Fredel and J.D. Harris. Four South Beach-savvy boy joys running an eatery named after a mystical Persian poet from the Thirteenth Century, who penned lines such as "This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness/more manifest than saying can say?" Allow one word to do more saying than I can say: Yum.
Okay, I'm not really that shallow to be so easily won over by a group of guys who haven't yet heard of crow's-feet, love handles, and hair loss. (Sure I am, but that's another story.) I've actually been teasing the Rumi boys. According to who's been writing about it, the restaurant-slash-nightclub was supposed to have hit the Miami scene a blue moon or two ago. In fact the Miami Herald and South Florida Gourmet reported that the restaurant would hang its shingle in mid-March; Black Book claimed it would debut in April; and Ocean Drive and Ego Trip thought May was more like it.
Indeed those publications were circumspect. In February Street reported about Rumi in the present tense, saying that the restaurant "comes complete with a Murphy bed that pulls out from the wall to accommodate the throngs of lizardlike scenesters who make the nightly migration from their own tattered couches to those in clubland." Also in February, Harper's Bazaar claimed that Rumi "is replete with dark wood, plush fabrics, and undulating Plexiglas." The March issue of Meetings & Conventions, a trade journal, announced in March: "Open less than a month, supper club Rumi is across the street from the Art Deco Albion Hotel." American Way, the in-flight magazine for American Airlines, notes in its May issue that "very-now designer Nancy Mah marries vintage-'40s simplicity with luxury fabrics and sci-fi lighting at this new SoBe nightspot. Go for the fresh, chef-caught fish.... Order a kumquat martini and linger postmeal in the restaurant-turned-drinkery when the music amps up, queen-size Murphy beds snap down, and the place is transformed for serious lounging. Ooh la la."
More like oh no no. Yes, Rumi was done by New Yorker-in-demand Nancy Mah, the designer dominatrix of the supper-club scene. (She's responsible for Manhattan's Sushi Samba and Lotus.) Oui, Rumi is located across from the Albion (and next to the former Bar Room). And sí, the chefs, who are South Florida natives, really will serve the fish they catch in Scott Fredel's 32-foot Contender (though really only as a gimmick to supplement their regular purveyor-provided supply).
But let's be truthful, not to mention specific. There ain't no lounge lizards, because there ain't no lounge. There ain't no queen-size Murphy bed -- singular -- or, for that matter, any queens to loll around on it. And nothing so far is replete and undulating but the construction workers' bellies as they guzzle beverages in front of the papered windows. Why? Because (and I swear, I've been repeating myself a lot lately, so listen carefully) Rumi isn't open yet.
