It could be that I’ve been working so hard on the “Best of Miami” issue that my juices have been whetted. It could be that the time change has me waking up far too early in the morning for anything but mostly evil thoughts. Or maybe I’ve just been holding…
Cooking is not just about nourishment, or even about taste. It’s about, well, everything: An area’s food is as much a key to understanding a culture as is its history. This is not an original thought, at least not from me. Ever since Food Studies became as chic and serious…
I must admit to suffering a little pang of disappointment, in intensity just a bit less than a hunger cramp, at the Friday-night events of the recent Boca Bacchanal wine and food festival. Not by the setting — a series of dinners, each prepared by a renowned chef and paired…
To say that Bali Café is the top Indonesian restaurant in Miami is just as true, and misleading, as lauding Robert De Niro for being the finest actor in Meet the Parents. Both are better than that, and Bali is in fact the best restaurant in downtown Miami. Period. And…
On the scale of anticipation, Timo is a ten. Just mention the restaurant, chef-owner Tim Andriola’s first proprietary project that is about to debut on Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles, and the reaction is immediate. “Is it open?” “What’s the address?” “What kind of food?” “Wanna go?” Potential customers aren’t…
I don’t make a habit of reading press releases or studying menus prior to reviewing, partly in the belief this leads to fresher, less studied perceptions that are closer to those of a typical diner, and partly because of a lifelong aversion to research. Every now and then, though, I…
When a South Beach resident wants just a nice light bite in a stylish setting, there are roughly a zillion places to go; it’s probably harder to find a single South Beach block where one can not get a designer salad — or crêpes, or panini, or whatever meat/fish/veggie carpaccio…
Boats, beaches, bingo, and beer would all make the lengthy list of “Things Floridians Like More Than Books.” Yet while we are not, overall, the most literate of Americans, here and there are signs of intelligent life. For proof you need look no further than Books & Books, both on…
Since sabor is the Spanish word for flavor, one wonders: Why did the owners so name an Italian restaurant? Was sapore taken already? According to a quick look in the Miami area phone books — nope. The Italian word is still up for grabs. But in terms of ethnic identity…
Pay close attention to the following restaurants, listed in alphabetical order: Carmen’s. Chispa. Elia. Il Giramonde. Isabela’s. Locanda Sibilla. Mundo. Pao. The Prime Grill. Talula. Taverna Opa. Timo. Wish. A few have new owners, chefs, or retooled menus. Several have opened doors in the past couple of weeks. Some more…
“If you can imagine it,” Nahum Frenkel says, “I can make it out of chocolate.” The new owner of Confection Connection, a specialty chocolate shop in North Miami, already possesses a thousand molds from which he and his staff can make anything from baby rattles to bunches of grapes, and…
Prepare yourselves — there’s a new political correctness on the horizon, and it concerns our food. We’ve probably all heard by now that North Carolina restaurateur Neal Rowland, angry about France’s passive stance on our aggression, renamed French fries in his Cubbie’s eatery as “freedom fries.” Media-savvy colleagues, who took…
It has become apparent in recent months that Miami restaurants are finally catching on to certain dining trends that have long been established elsewhere around the country — like, for instance, an emphasis on letting foods speak for themselves in clean and sensible fashion. David Bracha, chef/owner of the new…
There are many local restaurants that are enjoyable because they are so typical of what Miami now is and does best: perfectly put-together upscale glamour. And then there are restaurants that are enjoyable because they are atypical of what Miami now is, but shining examples of what we could be,…
It took the end of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and the arrival of the invitation for the upcoming Aspen Food & Wine Magazine Classic to come to a realization: I am tired of plastic-forking a tiny piece of something atop a minuscule dollop of something else, all…
In like a lion, out like a lion: Heralded in by the South Beach Wine & Food Fest, March looks to be a month of little respite for the gastronomically weary. The rash of restaurant openings is like poison ivy on the tender skin of a baby. We’ve got, first…
It’s understandable if you haven’t yet heard about Casa Tua (pronounced “too-ah”). After all it doesn’t advertise, and there’s no signage on the restaurant, which, to daytime passersby on Seventeenth Street in South Beach, appears to be nothing more than a stunning stone Mediterranean-style beach house. An iron fence and…
Does the old expression discuss going “from feast to famine” or “from famine to feast”? I’d always thought the former, especially while trying to find a decent pizza when I first moved down here from New York City a decade ago. But after experiencing Pizza Libre, the latter won’t leave…
A great sandwich consists of great bread plus great filling (GS=GB+GF). What makes a great bread is freshness, flavor, and texture. The breads at Zooz are baked on site, right before your eyes if you arrive early enough, steam rising from a seven-grain bread as the baker sliced it into…
The quality of the culinary news this week amounts to a rhyme scheme in a children’s poem (or a Sheryl Crow song): sad, mad, and just plain bad. And not just because Mr. Rogers passed away after a bout with cancer. For starters there’s been a death in the gastronomic…
If you have read anything about the Coral Gables restaurant Cacao 1737 (though there hasn’t been much to read — the lack of buzz especially odd since Edgar Leal was perhaps the most buzz-producing young chef in Venezuela before he relocated to the now-defunct restaurant Zur in Miami Beach not…
From the outside, this small, unassuming downtown lunchroom with the ubiquitous coffee/pastry window on the street looks like a typical Cuban joint — and sure enough, it was La Carreta for almost a quarter-century. Then Argentine owners took over a couple of years ago. Now rechristened and redecorated, Floridita, as…
