A Season Preview for Dining

Who you callin’ Fatburger? A contemporary Asian fusion restaurant is going to debut down the street from Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in the Design District. Chef will be Timon Balloo, who has worked locally at Chef Allen’s, Azul at the Mandarin Oriental, and La Broche (in fact he spent…

Indomania Takes a Vacation

Pieter and Ineke Both of Indomania, which only started up on the Beach a few months ago, will be closing shop and taking August off so they can return to Amsterdam — jeez, these Dutch people are lazier than the French! They say it’s to see family and look for…

Greek to Me

You won’t find people smashing plates and dancing on tabletops at Maria’s. It’s not that kind of place. Rather this snug, 52-seat family-run eatery dishes home-cooked Greek taverna fare free of contemporary tweaking. And that’s it. Maria Sotiriou’s recipes are not likely to inspire Homeric verse, but they aren’t meant…

Toque on the Water

Waterfront: Miami’s got a lot of it. Twenty percent of the county’s total area is water. Waterfront restaurants? Hmm. If you mean places diners can get up close and personal with nature — where they can virtually feed fish from their table, and the sound of salt water lapping is…

Miami Spice Kicks Off Next Week

The sixth annual Miami Spice restaurant promotion deal kicks in on August 1st and continues through September. This season brings more than eighty participants, each of which will be offering special three-course prixe fixe lunch menus for $22, dinners for $35. Be discriminating with your selections — my guess is…

A Touching Tribute to John Lucente

John Lucente, chef de cuisine at Touch Restaurant and Lounge for the past three years, has been battling cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. To help, Touch is hosting a fundraising dinner, “Touched By John,” on Sunday, July 29th, at 7:00 p.m. All profits will go to…

Gumbo Limbo

My wife and I were graced with a special dinner guest when we dined at the grandiose new Christabelle’s Quarter in Coconut Grove: Bozhan Arizankovski, our 17-year-old summer visitor from Sköpje, Macedonia, whom we have known since he was a wee lad. He is an extremely smart young man; exhibits…

Lovely Loaves

Miami has a great many things — sun, sand, spectacular ocean views, trolling celebutantes with more plastic parts than an Xbox. One thing Miami doesn’t have much of is great bread. Sure, some of the upscale so-called gourmet markets do a passable variation on the classic baguette, ciabatta, pan au…

Soya Staying Put

A disheartening email arrived at New Times this week, in which a reader informed us that Armando Alfano of Soya & Pomodoro was closing his hip, informal downtown Italian eatery and moving back to Italy. Thankfully the news isn’t true. Mr. Alfano considered doing so for personal reasons, but assures…

Ask the Food Critic: What’s Up With Crabby’s Smoke House?

Lee, Do you know if Crabby’s Smoke House BBQ and Seafood are still open? I have heard conflicting reports Ani Corbett Orlando Florida Ani, I had assumed that Crabby’s was very much still going strong, but after reading your email I tried calling and, sure enough, the phone has been…

Bouley OK

In response to my recent blog concerning rumors of trouble at David Bouley’s Evolution, Nicole Eldridge, Director of Special Events there, sent me the following email. I will only add that I believe her, and am more than happy to squelch the rumor once and for all. –Lee Klein Dear…

One Ninety Does a 180

When One Ninety closed in early 2005, Miami lost much more than a neighborhood restaurant. Located on the bottom floor of an old house in historic residential Buena Vista, just north of the Design District, the funky, friendly food/entertainment spot was hip in a way that was the antithesis of…

Grass Grows Back

Critics mowed down Grass when it opened in the Design District in 2003, if only for the velvet ropes and snobbery encountered at the door. Despite such grumblings, or perhaps because of them, Grass grew quickly as a club destination with a reputation for passable pan-Asian fare. Alas, the scene…

Johnny V, Duo, Afterglo Gone; Bouley’s Evolution: Uh-Oh

When the summer of ‘07 gets discussed years from now, it may very well be recalled as being the season that set the Miami dining scene back a decade. In January of 2003, the Spanish deconstructionist restaurant La Broche opened on Brickell Avenue, signaling that our town was ready to…

Why Americans Get Their News From Jon Stewart

Question: There are 57 peaches hanging from a tree. Four of them are beautiful and ripe; 53 of them are rotten. True or false: All 57 of the peaches on this tree are rotten, so the tree is fruitless. If you answered “true”, a career in journalism may be awaiting…

Fame Game

At age twelve Adrianne Marie Calvo was pulling in $200 a week baking chocolate chip cookies and selling them at school. At sixteen she was voted one of the top ten up-and-coming chefs in Florida. At seventeen she captured the bronze in a national bake-off. Shortly thereafter, Calvo began training…

Southernmost City Beautiful

Are there any two cities more different than Key West and Coral Gables? The self-described “City Beautiful” is as anal-retentive as a bucketful of Imodium AD. There are regulations that tell you what color you can paint your house, what animals you can keep as pets. You have to get…

More Lincoln Road Restaurant Shuffling

Santo Restaurant & Lounge has just appointed Cory Smith, former sous chef at Pacific Time, to be their executive chef. The new menu will debut this Saturday, July 7th. The Back Story (maybe):A couple of weeks ago I met John Mariani, longtime food editor for Esquire Magazine, at Santo Restaurant…

The Riptide Guide to Summer Fruit

Pick a pair Gabriele Marewski’s Paradise Farms, a five-acre organic lot in Homestead, is rarely more paradisiacal than right about now, as summers’ bounty of nectar-laden fruit is coming into bloom. Marewski, who has a BS degree in agronomy from the University of Maryland, drives her farmed goods — which…