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…
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…
I’d like to offer a big warm welcome to all you frigid foodies flying in from afar for the second annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival this weekend, and at the same time ask that you please remove your galoshes at the door. Congratulations to those who’ve managed to…
I was sipping a glass of Australian Shiraz at Vin Amante, a new wine bar on Española Way, marveling at just how many crummy dining establishments could be crammed into one short stretch of this quaintly sweet street. On the night of our visit Vin Amante’s tiny dining room contained…
Early one morning several years ago, speed-reading through the e-mail that had accumulated overnight, I found a long letter that appeared to be from a friend. It started like a continued conversation among people who knew each other well enough to totally dispense with formalities: “Here’s a story.” Though I…
It’s that time of year when the annual horde of houseguests descends from the north yet again, demanding to be schlepped out to the Everglades yet again. What they claim they want is to experience our region’s great natural wonders. What they really want is one of our region’s great…
In 1991 Hectór Rolotti opened a modest little café in New York City called Novecento Soho. A few years later he instituted a more extensive bistro menu there, and since that time has added four more Novecentos in Argentina and Uruguay. Two months ago the sixth branch premiered on Alton…
To think of restaurant reviewing as an Xtreme Sport may at first seem overly dramatic to readers who are more accustomed to thinking of the genre in terms of, say, rock climbing without ropes, or racing down ice-coated mountains in unprotected vehicles that have no brakes and are the size…
As the original supervising architect of Coral Gables, Phineas Paist established a board of review whose approval was required for any new construction or remodeling. That board is still in place today, but somehow The Village of Merrick Park shopping complex slipped past Paist’s precept, and sprawls luxuriously across quite…
It takes more than some gallons of blue paint and some gallons of white to make a Greek restaurant look authentic; you also need murals on the walls, preferably of white sun-bleached domes against blue ocean waters. A little of that tinkly Greek music doesn’t hurt either. Ouzo’s Greek Taverna…
After a weekend afternoon in the park with the family, there is nothing like ice cream. So it’s just as well that Tasti D-Lite Café isn’t open on weekends, because Tasti D-Lite “ice cream” is nothing like ice cream. Unlike its competitors in the field of low-fat desserts that attempt…
Restaurant reviewers and spies have a lot in common. We work covertly, report our findings, and get to attend the occasional cocktail party. True, the life of a spy is more important, exciting, and rewarding, but, on the other hand, we eat better. This past week I spied on the…
At the start of a new year everyone makes resolutions, 99 percent of which involve losing weight. Who makes these resolutions? Skinny people, like Miami’s models. Curse them! Because who needs these resolutions? Miami’s restaurant reviewers. Not that I’m complaining. Getting paid for eating out at least once a week…
There are highs and lows in the restaurant-reviewing world — a low, for example, being the week I got food-poisoned twice at the same South Beach joint. A high was the day I discovered Raja’s. Because even though Miami has many Indian restaurants, the cuisine is almost invariably Northern Indian/Bengali…
When Michael Schwartz jumped ship from Nemo last summer, this town’s foodies practically choked on their sushi in shock. After all, as co-owner and executive chef, Schwartz helped make that establishment a modern-day dining landmark on the Beach, while also successfully steering nearby sisters Shoji Sushi and Big Pink. Local…
As my companions and I walked through the front door at Madame’s Restaurant, three things happened in quick succession. First, the rather stern older woman at the maitre d’s desk, pointedly noting that we’d arrived at 7:45 for a 7:30 reservation, chided us discreetly yet firmly for our lateness –…
Chicagoans overwork their hot dogs with relish, onions, tomatoes, peppers, pickles, mustard, and celery salt. New Yorkers are more circumspect in sticking to mustard and either sauerkraut or sautéed onions. Those in Salt Lake no doubt prefer their frankfurters with mayo, but we won’t go there. Ever. Point is, our…
The 1990s were a heady time for the culinary stars in this town, as the creative talents of New Worlders, Pacific Rimmers, Nuevo Latinos, Mango Gangers, et al., catapulted South Florida onto the nation’s culinary map. Champagne corks flew, flashbulbs popped, puffy personality pieces appeared, heralding the unique fusion of…
“This is why we moved to South Beach in the first place!” exclaimed my companion. It’s something we used to say to each other frequently when we came from New York City almost a decade ago. It almost always involved a “shirtsleeve experience,” like lunching in lushly planted tropical patios…
