The Scoop on Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill in Midtown

If you’re not a subscriber to our weekly Café Bites dining newsletter, here’s a taste of what you’re missing. Click here to subscribe.If one kitchen is good, are three kitchens three times better? One way to find out is to swing by the new Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill, 4,200 square…

Looking to Attend the SoBe Wine & Food Fest? You Still Can

Food Network personalities, high-profile chefs, and food fans from all over the world will descend over Miami next week for the 2010 South Beach Wine & Food Festival from February 25 to 28. You locals should consider yourself lucky: In years past, you’d be hard pressed to find a ticket…

Ariston Greek Restaurant Is Closed

Drove past Normandy Isles’ Ariston Restaurant on 71st Street the other night and noticed that it is no more. Don’t know when this happened, but it’s a shame — we liked the place enough to name it our Best Greek Restaurant last year.From the website:Regretfully, Ariston has closed it’s doors…

Café Barcelona Goes Bohemian on Wednesdays

Yes, all the info you need is in this ad. No, we are not getting paid to run it. I’m just posting it because I like Café Barcelona — it’s a cozy, local spot that works hard to provide a good time for its patrons. I like Bohemians, too. Honestly,…

The Genuine Kitchen: Roses Are Red… These Cupcakes Are, Too

The Genuine Kitchen column features recipes and tips for your home cooking by James Beard Award-nominated Chef Michael Schwartz and his team at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink. For this installment, Executive Pastry Chef Hedy Goldsmith guest blogs a retro recipe. Questions or comments? Visit the restaurant’s blog to send…

Where It At? Stuffed Artichoke Hearts

What it is: Artichoke heart stuffed with whipped artichoke confit, poached quail egg, and American sturgeon caviar.Now then: Where it at?Give it your best shot in the comments section below, and we’ll let you know when you get it right…

Top 10 Hypothetical South Beach Wine & Food Fest Media Disasters

The South Beach Wine & Food Festival is almost here, and that means an orgiastic horde of mostly out-of-town drunks on the shores of Miami Beach concerned with nothing but food, drink, sex, celebrity, their cell phone cameras, and Twitter.With that in mind, here’s our Top 10 list of hypothetical disasters…

Hot Plates: Michelle Conley at Quattro

Not only is waitress Michelle Conley a stunning blonde, but also she is very passionate about the food she serves at Quattro. The Connecticut native is a newcomer to the Lincoln Road Italian eatery, but she wows her customers with her knowledge of the menu and her winning smile. Michelle…

Grass Keeps Growing

Grass Restaurant and Lounge  has unveiled a new menu by executive chef and Top Chef alum Micah Edelstein. “Only natural and organic ingredients” will be used, everything from pasta to sorbets will be homemade, and the fare is being tagged as “upscale yet approachable all natural cuisine set in an…

Cool Restaurant Interiors: Fratelli Lyon

You wouldn’t expect the interior of a restaurant housed inside an Italian home design showroom not to be cool. Fratelli Lyon’s décor is sleek and industrial with clean-lined furniture, flatware and decorative accents from the Driade store.Orange place mats and tables and chairs provide a pop of color against the…

Interview: Chef Brian Cantrell Gets the 10

Ever met Brian Cantrell, A Fish Called Avalon’s executive chef and general manager? He’s no stranger to South Florida, though he grew up hunting and fishing in the Blue Ridge Mountains near his farm home in Hendersonville, North Carolina. [Editor’s Note: He still claims Lexington barbecue is the bomb diggety.]
At…

Seafood in Your Booze at Alonzo’s Oyster Bar

Wise men and idiots alike have uttered the words, “Food is better when it’s booze.” But the intelligence of the utterer has absolutely no bearing on the truth of the matter. Booze food is better. And there are three main reasons why: 1) Swallowing takes less effort than chewing; 2)…

Kiss My Cocktail: Pop My Cherry from Burger & Beer Joint

No, B&BJ doesn’t probably sell lots of whipped cream-topped adult milkshakes to the biker dudes and Jersey Shore/Ed Hardy-wearin’ wannabes when they stroll without their bitches, but you can imagine how sexy it would be to share one of these with a silicone-enhanced partner of the opposite sex. Heck, it…

Burger & Beer Joint Expands to Brickell

The burger craze is heading south, with the expansion of the wildly popular Burger & Beer Joint to Mary Brickell Village. Although B&B has been open for less than a year on Miami Beach, they are on the move. Co-owners Buzzy Sklar and Ron Garcia just signed the lease on…

Q&A with AltaMare Executive Chef Simon Stojanovic

For the past three months, executive chef Simon Stojanovic, has been working in the kitchen of longtime local favorite AltaMar developing dishes for the restaurant’s sister, AltaMare, expected to open next week. Claudio Giordano’s AltaMar will close its doors the day AltaMare’s doors open, just half a block from the…

Meatless in Miami: Adventures in Urban Gardening

The last apartment I lived in for several years had no outdoor space to call my own. So when I started getting the itch to garden, I made sure that the next move would bring a bit of sunlit space I could grow some plants in. A year and a half later…

Sneak Review: Fish Shack & Market

A whole, fried yellowtail snapper, hooked from local waters, came posed on the plate as though battered and flash-fried while swimming, like something found at Mount Vesuvius. The white flakes of snapper sounded nothing but pristine, oceanic notes and were accompanied by three fluffy tostones. We also liked a thick,…

Kiss My Cocktail: Fontainebleau’s Box of Chocolates

Here’s one box you can really get your tongue into. Okay, that was totally foul, but hell–you know the impending holiday just makes us a little perverse. Have a few of these and you’ll forget all about our bad behavior.Box of Chocolates1 oz Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka1/2 oz Van…