When Martini Bar Restaurant opened in the Shops at Sunset Place this past December, I read various press notices about how consulting chef Frank Jeanetti would bring fine cuisine to South Miami. Jeanetti has been cooking it up around town for a while — at the Biltmore Hotel, Pacific Time,…
You would think a sleek, swank wine bar on South Beach has got to be the House of Pretentious Snobs, with cork dorks noisily proclaiming their ignorance and haughty staffers sniffing that you, peasant, couldn’t possibly comprehend the indecent pleasures of this insolent little Bordeaux, which sells for roughly the…
Houston’s, T.G.I.Fridays, Tarpon Bend, City Cellar Bar & Grill. Blame Dennis Max for the glut of casual-upscale restaurants threatening to overrun every privately owned casual and upscale eatery in Coral Gables. After all, it was his formula of posh interiors and accessible, reasonably priced contemporary American food that made him…
La Cofradia is a gorgeous new 78-seat restaurant in Coral Gables. The contemporary cuisine, with Mediterranean and Peruvian accents, is fresh and cooked with aplomb. The wine list features more than 180 bottles (beginning at $40) and 37 wines served by the glass, ranging from $9 to $25. A full…
It’s clear you are in the country when you pull up to a four-way intersection — with no traffic lights, just stop signs — and the vehicles on the three other roads include a tractor, an open-back tomato truck, and an arch-neck paso fino horse. And it’s apparent you are…
As diners enter Heads or Tails Seafood, they are greeted by a smoky fish-fry aroma and the scent of raw fish emanating from the retail market located immediately to the right. Some pause and peer at the fishmongers furiously filleting sundry snappers, groupers, and other carcasses of the sea before…
The joy associated with home cooking. Picture Mom standing at the stove, stirring a large pot of soup, waiting for Dad’s arrival. The kids are gathered in the kitchen, inhaling the intoxicating aromas of long-simmered chicken, fresh vegetables, and herbs. The table is set for the family meal, which provides…
Stupendous tents that compose the Grand Tasting Village have been constructed on the Beach. Barbecue pits are being assembled for the BubbleQ, flatware is being polished for the Ferran Adrià Tribute Dinner, sugar is being spun for the poolside dessert party, and a small army of the culinary world’s movers,…
The Seven-Minute Chicken Look at Rachael Ray. Isn’t she cute? And quite a “chef” too, with her top-rated $40 a Day and 30 Minute Meals Food Network programs, best-selling cookbooks, national talk show…. Hey, look out! Bam! Ha, ha! It’s Emeril! What a gig he’s got: TV star, cookbook author…
Truth be told, the Happy Wine shop’s concise menu of tapas and pressed sandwiches is no match for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s feast, nor will its rambling inventory of amazingly priced wines equal the bevy of boutique bottles brought by the participating wineries. But this is one…
Diners ascending into o-R-o during presunset hours — with its lofty white ceilings, luminous white walls, white linen tablecloths, white ostrich-skin upholstery, and island of white U-shape booths — might be forgiven for temporarily thinking they had entered in Heaven’s dining room. Adding to the celestial airiness of the 175-seat,…
When one fantasizes about a perfect fish house, certain criteria are universal: waterfront location, preferably with an outdoor dining deck; fun décor; friendly “no shoes, no problem” ambiance; and a fresh fish market component, which imparts a certain confidence that the food is supremely fresh. Captain Nate’s, which opened about…
A pair of corner restaurant sites bookend Ocean Terrace, a two-block stretch of mostly Deco structures that runs from 73rd to 75th Street between Collins Avenue and the beach. Various dining venues have occupied these two spaces over the past decade, but only Baraboo, despite its overwrought, overrated, and overpriced…
During the era when Og the caveman speared a woolly mammoth, hacked the carcass into chunks, and carried his kill back to Ug and their cave-rats, there was only one known method of preparing the meat: Toss it into a roaring fire. After all, Emeril Lagasse had yet to arrive…
On a few occasions since my mother’s death, I have attempted to re-create her renowned kugel. You would think a clearly written recipe for noodle pudding would be easy to replicate, and in fact it is. I even resist the temptation to deviate a bit — say, for instance, substituting…
Roughly 50 zillion locales in Paris bear signs saying salon de thé. Yet one finds serious tea — the loose-leaf kind, precision-brewed by the establishment, in a pot — at only a handful of these spots. More often than not, patrons are offered a serious-looking, snazzily decorated box displaying an…
Firefighters fight fires, and crime fighters fight crime, so what do freedom fighters fight? Why are French sex comedies neither sexy nor funny? If love is blind, what makes lingerie so popular? And why has a spirited scene such as Coconut Grove been perennially bereft of worthwhile places to eat?…
If great concepts were personified by guacamole, Taco Max would be able to fill Miami City Hall with mashed avocado mixed with cilantro, onions, and the juice of several thousand limes. But a great concept is not personified by guacamole. So where does that leave Taco Max? We’ll get to…
With Big City Tavern in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, City Oyster Bar in Delray Beach, and the new City Cellar Wine Bar & Grill in Coral Gables, Big Time Restaurant Group has shown itself to be city-slick in picking the right real estate for its entries into the burgeoning…
There’s good Chinese food, and then there’s bad Chinese food — the latter being something in which Miami-Dade County specializes. Sadly, though, this category also includes a whole subgenre of food that isn’t necessarily bad at all. It is sneered at merely because it is Chinese-American rather than authentic regional…
We make the BEST sandwich on the island.” Such was the claim I noticed, while cruising food Websites one day, of a place I normally would have cruised right past in my car, given the island in question. Key Biscayne is, to put it kindly, not exactly a worth-a-special-drive destination…
When first told that NASA incorporates Peruvian foods into the inflight meals of American astronauts, I pictured bowls of ceviche floating gravity-free through a spaceship, and lime wedges trailing nearby in very slow motion, lazily bumping into free-tumbling tamalelike humitas. Upon snapping back from my reverie, the rationale became clear:…
