Food & Drink

Inside a commercial kitchen in Kendall, Mari Rubio bakes dozens of confections, such as Nutella-infused cookies and guava cake, to deliver across Miami-Dade County. Rubio, who is behind the local dessert business Casa Gioia, dreams of opening a storefront, but she is concentrating on growing her delivery service first.

As 28-year-old Rizwan Sowkat tries to explain the taste of fish such as ayer, boal, and shor puti, entombed in his freezer cases at his North Miami Beach grocery store, he pauses and offers a curt nod when Kamrul Khan steps through the door.

Saul Ramos feels at home in his executive chef role at Fooq’s Miami. He began working at the restaurant in mid-May and was shown the ropes by chef Bryan Rojas, who planned to move to Monterrey, Mexico, where his mother lives. “He will eventually be back in Miami, but he wanted to focus on starting a family,” Fooq’s owner David Foulquier says of Rojas.

To begin a meal at Le Sirenuse, the elegant restaurant that opened March 23 in Surfside’s Four Seasons Hotel at the Surf Club, a server wearing white gloves and a jacket with gold epaulets appears tableside holding a silver tray. On it sit two demitasses with rims powdered red by…

Miami is in the midst of a food hall explosion. In the past year, plans for seven food hall concepts, spanning from Aventura to Little Haiti to Brickell, have been unveiled. Now add one more: the Wynwood Food Hall, which is scheduled to open on NW Fifth Avenue at NW 24th Street in winter 2019.

June saw a number of significant openings, along with some surprising announcements of restaurants to come. Federal Donuts, the Philadelphia eatery from Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook, opened in Wynwood last week, serving fresh doughnuts and Korean fried chicken. Chef Todd Erickson goes vegan with the opening of GLAM (Green…

In April, New Times reported that the Palace Bar would lose it’s Ocean Drive home in the near future. Now, the date is set for the iconic gay hot spot to dim the house lights forever. On Tuesday, July 4, the Palace Bar will host the Last Dance Block Party,…

Nilton Castillo, who has worked under Daniel Boulud, José Andrés, and Gastón Acurio, switched gears and opened his Latin-fusion food truck, Cilantro 27, six months ago. “I wanted to do something simple,” he says. “My bio is all haute cuisine, and I got bored of haute cuisine. I wanted something delicious and not too expensive, so I went to this.”

In recent months, Doral has become one of Miami-Dade’s buzziest dining destinations. Thanks to CityPlace, a new mixed-use entertainment, restaurant, and lifestyle center, this western suburb is now replete with eateries such as Icebox Cafe, Brimstone Woodfire Grill, the Rusty Bucket, Cabo Flats, and Angelo Elia.

Vegans and carnivores might seem like they’re on opposing teams, but that was before the Beyond Burger. The plant-based patty, made by Cali-based Beyond Meat, bleeds (beet juice), cooks, and tastes like the real thing — and it’s been a huge hit with eaters of every persuasion since its release last year.

Within the past year, a handful of poke restaurants have set up shop across town, including PokeBao in Coral Gables, Ono Poke in Wynwood, and Poke 305 in downtown. Now, instead of braving traffic for a fish fix down south, North Miami-Dade has its own place, Poke + Go (2451 NE 186th St., Miami).