There's always an ebb and flow here: the market suddenly heats up (often driven by inspired local chefs with local followings), and operators from all around the globe pour millions of dollars into buildouts of new spaces in the highest-rent districts. And then summers have always a struggle in South Florida. But the speed of the turnaround this time has been staggering: Massimo Bottura's Torno Subito, Henrique Sa Passoa's Sereia, NY imports Red Farm, and Ensenada: all shuttered within about a year.[1] I can't think of a time so many places pulled the plug after only one season. But it's not just the newcomers: long-time stalwarts like Osteria del Teatro (38 years over a few different locations), Cafe Vialetto (26 years), Sardinia (20 years), Red Steakhouse (17 years), Sugarcane (15 years) all called it quits the past couple months. Even overwhelming critical and media recognition is no guarantee of survival: Val Chang has closed up the wonderful Maty's just a year after receiving the James Beard Foundation Best Chef South award.[2] And EntreNos has ended their extended pop-up at Tinta y Cafe a year after picking up a Michelin star.
All of which is to say: if there's a restaurant you love, show your love. Visit often, be nice, tip well, tell your friends. It's a cruel summer[3] – don't leave me here on my own. So let me do my part.
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| Luci's Chopped Salad - Boia De (Buena Vista Miami) |
For reasons I've previously explained, I usually find it pretty difficult to answer the perennial "What's your favorite restaurant?" question. I wrote then that it was easier to answer if the question was "What's your favorite restaurant right now?" And back then, five years ago, the answer was Boia De, which had just opened a few months earlier. Well, while we've already established that I am not on the cutting edge of every latest dining trend, it is nonetheless somewhat out of character that if you asked me that question again right now, the answer very well might be the same. It's just impossible to not have a great meal there. While many dishes come and go, one menu stalwart remains an essential order for me on every visit and is simply one of my favorite dishes in Miami: Luci's chopped salad, chef Luciana Giangrandi's unabashed ode to Nancy Silverton's chopped salad at Pizzeria Mozza. I think Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen nailed why it's so great: it's got all the flavors of an Italian sub, in salad form. Perfect. Never change.
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| Scallop, Pomelo, Rice Paddy Herb Oil, Coconut Nuoc Cham - Tam Tam (Downtown Miami) |
I'd missed the "Phamily Kitchen" pop-up dinners that chef Tam Pham and his partner Harrison Ramhofer had been doing back in the day, and my first taste of Tam's cooking was a pandemic-era pho pick-up pop-up.[4] I've been stalking him ever since, through a series of extended pop-ups in Little Haiti to his opening of a full brick and mortar restaurant in downtown Miami (in the old Diana's Cafe spot around the corner from the courthouse). It's been a thrill to see what he's able to do with a real kitchen at his disposal. The food is still fun and playful, inspired by Vietnamese "quán nhậu" – but it also shows some finesse and delicacy, nowhere more so than this absolutely delicious scallop crudo with tart-sweet lobes of pomelo, creamy-sweet-tangy coconut nuoc cham, and fragrant, verdant rice paddy herb oil.
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| Unagi & Caviar with Okra - Shingo (Coral Gables) |
Shingo Akikuni is another chef I've been stalking for years, going back to some nice meals at the counter of The Den at Azabu. In 2023, he finally got to open his own place, the eponymous Shingo in Coral Gables, and promptly made it on my list for that year. (Oh, and Shingo also got a Michelin star within the year). That first time, it was for the "simplest" of dishes: Akikuni's silky, rich tamago which serves as the last bite before dessert. This time, it's here for something a bit fancier: unagi, with its crackling grilled skin encasing fluffy, tender flesh, garnished with a very generous dollop of good caviar. But one of the things I love about Shingo's style is that he treats "humble" ingredients with the same reverence as "luxury" items: that caviar-crowned unagi was paired with some beautiful, fresh local okra, slippery but still with some snap. There has been a tidal wave of omakase openings over the past couple years. Shingo, along with a couple others, is at the crest of that wave.
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| Proof Burger - Vice Versa (Downtown Miami) |
Valentino Longo's aperitivo focused bar, Vice Versa, has been a very welcome addition to the downtown Miami landscape. Partnered up with Will Thompson and Carey Hynes (of the late Jaguar Sun downtown, and the current, and fantastic, Sunny's in Little River, which we'll get to below), it's got this delightful Italian Futurist vibe, and clever inspired cocktails that will go down easy but can simultaneously provide the opportunity to geek out on technique to the same degree as any served by a moustache-twirling, vest-wearing "speakeasy" mixologist. But what really completed the package for me was bringing in chef Justin Flit, last seen here at Proof. There are bright fresh crudos, perfectly tuned salads, and excellent pizzas. And to top it all off, there's the return of the "Proof Burger," which if you go digging through the archives, was on this list way back in 2018. Here's what I said back then: "I could passionately argue that his burger was the best in Miami. Each component was carefully considered and executed with precision: two stacked grass-fed beef patties, featuring both crusty char and juicy interior; melted cheese, bolstered even further by a creamy cheddar aioli; caramelized onions, for an extra dose of umami and just a hint of sweetness; a house-baked potato bun, soft and tender but with enough structural integrity to hold everything together to the last bite." He's not lost his touch, and I can once again passionately argue that this is the best burger in Miami. Available Mondays only in limited quantities.
(continued ...)
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| Rosette Cookie - Atoma (Seattle) |
We took a long weekend in the summer to trek out to Seattle, another city whose restaurants have been facing challenges (though in Seattle, reporting suggests that it's more of a post-pandemic malaise out of which the city is still emerging, combined with the impact of a minimum wage increase and staffing challenges, rather than the post-pandemic boom-and-bust that Miami has experienced). Still and yet, the Pacific Northwest remains one of my favorite places in the country to eat, and there are some really interesting things happening there. We had a very nice meal at the highly celebrated Atoma, which Johnny and Sarah Courtney run out of a lovely old Craftsman which used to be home to Maria Hines' Tilth, which itself was once one of Seattle's most highly celebrated restaurants. Johnny spent several years at Canlis before going out on his own, and his cooking style retains some of the delightfully timeless, precise but not precious vibe that I've always admired about that place. This savory rosette cookie – filled with farmer's cheese and Walla Walla onion jam – is a signature item, and deserves all the accolades. It's clever, fun, delightfully textured, and bursting with good flavors.
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| Cherry Matcha White Chocolate Kakigori - Tomo (Seattle) |
I was at least equally enamored of the similarly-named but unrelated Tomo,[5] which involved a trek to Seattle's outskirts (White Center, about twenty minutes south of downtown) and a mistaken visit to its next-door-neighbor (Taboo Video, which was exactly what you'd expect it to be, and not an unmarked entrance to the restaurant!). After finding our way to the right place, we had a really inspired, delicious meal, with dishes that looked simple but were full of happy surprises: gorgeous, ripe tomatoes with soft tofu, cucumber broth, and an unexpected jolt of flavor from a tart rhubarb chamoy; hearty but cool chilled heirloom beans with grilled squash, aioli and bottarga; grilled kalbi with spicy serrano jaew and pickled radishes. But the highlight was this absurdly tall kakigori festooned with white chocolate, matcha and sweet cherries. Ridiculous; and delicious.
(More pics from Tomo).
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| Boudin Blanc - Bouchon (Coral Gables) |
Back home, I paid a visit to one of the many new fancy imports – Thomas Keller's Bouchon, which opened in Coral Gables in mid-2023. Keller had already staked out some local turf with the Surf Club back in 2018, and is no stranger to South Florida – he spent some of his youth in Palm Beach and his first restaurant job was at the Palm Beach Yacht Club. While there are some things I enjoy about Surf Club – the billionaires-on-holiday vibe, the butter doohickey, the deviled eggs with caviar – I tend to prefer the somewhat heartier bistro fare at Bouchon to Surf Club's mid-century, country club continental theme. Prime example: this lovely boudin blanc, doused with brown butter, and paired up with a silky pommes purée and brandy-soaked prunes.
(More pics from Bouchon).
****
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| Crispy Grouper Cheeks - EntreNos (Miami Shores) |
I really hope that Evan Burgess and Osmel Gonzalez come back with a permanent home for EntreNos, after ending their extended pop-up at Tinta y Cafe in Miami Shores. When they first opened in late 2023, I promptly dubbed it the most exciting newcomer of the year. My initial impressions were confirmed by every repeat visit. There's a gratifying attention to thoughtful technique and focused flavors; and their dedication to local ingredients put to creative use is maybe unparalleled among this generation of restaurants. They already made an appearance in Part 1 of my 2024 list, and are back here with an off-menu special: grouper cheeks fried in a crispy shell dotted with black mustard seeds, topped with tempered curry leaves, served over a cushion of creamy tomme cheese sauce. Breaking lots of rules, with great results. Please come back soon.
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| Uni Rice with Ikura - Silvers Omakase (Santa Barbara) |
Another short getaway took us to Santa Barbara for a weekend, where I highly recommend getting fresh sea urchins at the docks from Santa Barbara Fish Market. I will also highly recommend Silvers Omakase, where chef Lennon Silvers Lee,[6] with Ryan Mayo alongside, is doing really nice things – things like dry aging some of their fish, and bringing in a special varietal of un-milled brown rice direct from Japan. They mill the rice themselves for service, and it was some of the most pillowy soft shari I've ever sampled. I enjoyed pretty much everything – sashimi of kurodai in a melon ponzu, a particularly lush and fatty bite of hiramasa nigiri, the assortment of kagami crystal sake glasses – but nothing more so than this bowl of sushi rice mixed with uni, topped with a generous mound of ikura, crispy bubu arare, and gorgeous purple shiso buds. A perfect final savory course before dessert. Within a year of opening, Silvers was recognized with a Michelin star; I'm not surprised.
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| Caesar Salad - Sunny's (Little River Miami) |
I promised you we'd talk about Sunny's. Here we are. I am not going to surprise anyone by mentioning Sunny's in this list. After the pandemic era pop-up called "Sunny's Someday Steakhouse," a remarkable feat of hospitality that recreated a steakhouse vibe with a jerry-rigged outdoor kitchen and white linen covered picnic tables in an old industrial space in Little Haiti, the prospect of a return was eagerly awaited. When "Someday" finally came, the transformation was nothing short of astounding. That same space now holds two dining rooms done up in a lavish but comfortable Art Deco / Palm Beach Regency style, with a gorgeous bar, a sprawling outdoor patio, and a massive, well-equipped kitchen. It's got a super-smart bar program run by Will Thompson, who's educated me on all sorts of less-heralded old-school martini variations that have become favorites. It's got the super-skilled chef Aaron Brooks running the kitchen along with Carey Hynes, which is just an abundance of culinary talent. It's got an expanded menu that includes samplings from Aaron's charcuterie creations, and Carey's pastas from the old Jaguar Sun menu,[7] to go with fresh, bright crudos and raw shellfish, gorgeous salads, quality steaks and chops with an assortment of great sauces, and the occasional culinary equivalent of the bartender's handshake (i.e., the "Ko Egg" which Carey used to make at Momofuku Ko in New York).
Within weeks of opening, it became one of the hottest reservations in town and has pretty much stayed that way ever since. And for good reason. It's really pretty much a perfect restaurant that is doing everything right. Over the years I've heard a lot of folks talk about "reinventing" the steakhouse genre. This is how its done. And I know it may seem weird that my favorite thing on the menu is a salad and not a steak, but this Caesar salad: it just doesn't get any better.
So I encourage you to choose your own adventure, but here's how we do Sunny's: first, a cocktail. If you're a martini person I encourage rolling the dice on one of their "improved" martinis, which will invariably expand your drinking horizons. And if you're not, get something goofy and outrageous like the Green Ghoul or the Circus Permit[8] or the Living Dead, a spirit-forward tiki concoction served in a ceramic skull highball. Then something raw and/or cool, either from the sea (hiramasa or scallop crudo, perhaps) or land (wagyu carpaccio or some of Aaron's hams or terrines or chicken liver mousse) – or if you've got a big group or you're just a baller, do both. Get two salads: the Caesar and something else. They're so good; you will not regret it. Maybe if you're especially hungry, a pasta or that Ko Egg. Do not forget to get the Parker House rolls; and try to save them until your mains arrive, so they're available to dunk in the sauces (this will not be easy). Split a big steak among several people, and – this is also important – get all the sauces. Relatedly: get both the french fries and the russet potatoes cooked in chicken fat and dusted with fennel pollen. You will dunk them in the sauces, along with whatever bits of the Parker House rolls you've not already wolfed down. (You already ate your rolls, didn't you?) Finally: don't skip dessert. I know you're feeling full, so get the kouign amann ice cream sandwiches, they're actually quite dainty.
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| Oyster, Scallop, Beef Tartare - Palma (Little Havana Miami) |
It took me a while to get to Palma, but I sure was glad when I did. An intimate, quiet space in an off the beaten path location near the Miami River. A tightly curated 8-course tasting menu that changes every month. A combination of the best locally farmed produce, together with thoughtfully sourced ingredients from further afield. A patient, deliberate approach to cooking focused on highlighting and extracting the most flavor from those ingredients. Some really good taste in wine selections. Friendly people. This is my kind of place. Chef Juan Camilo Liscano – Florida-born but world-traveled[9] – is doing something really special here.
It was all captured in this opening plate from my first visit last November. A squeaky fresh raw scallop, sandwiched between leaves of French Farms blue collard greens, spread with a nori paste to amp up the umami. A Beausoleil oyster dressed with a tart-sweet, vibrantly hued blueberry ponzu and roasted kombu oil. A delicate, raw squash blossom, filled with a rich beef tartare, then blanketed in shavings of 18-month aged Comte cheese. Each bite tasting so clearly of its ingredients, while enhanced by their combination.[10]
I was recently back for a return visit, and while the courses were entirely different (with the exception of the mid-meal plantain brioche roll with coconut caramel and dried plantain leaf butter, a staple on every menu), the ethos and execution were every bit as good, if not better. This is a place that will reward your attention.
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| Arroz Negro - Sra. Martinez (Coral Gables) |
A little history. Wind the clock back about a decade and a half, and chef Michelle Bernstein had just won the James Beard Foundation Best Chef South Award on the strength her flagship restaurant Michy's. In late 2008, she opened Sra. Martinez in a historic space in the Design District that was originally the Buena Vista Post Office and then in the late 1920's became the Moore Furniture Building.[11] The tapas-centric restaurant was one of my favorites at the time, so I was excited to hear that after a long hiatus Sra. M was making a return, this time to Coral Gables. And then we waited, for what seemed like years. But that opening finally came in December. The menu includes several old favorites from the original – the fantastic croquetas, the crispy eggplant drizzled with honey, the butifarra and gigante beans enriched with foie gras and port wine, the egg yolk carpaccio with crispy potatoes shamelessly borrowed (with due credit) from Bar Mut in Barcelona. But maybe my favorite dish on this return trip was the rich, dense arroz negro with grilled calamares, brightened with herb oil and enriched with dollops of silky aioli. Bonus point: Michy's Fried Chicken Night is now a Wednesday thing at Sra. M, all summer.[12]
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| Kohada Nigiri - Inoshin at Surf Club (Surfside) |
Chef Shinichi Inoue spent a couple decades at sushiyas in Tokyo before making his way to New York to work at Michelin-starred Kosaka. For the past couple years he has been doing extended pop-ups at the Surf Club in Surfside, while waiting for the completion of a permanent venue of his own. In the meantime, it is a pretty cool experience to ascend the stairs up to the Hemingway Tower, a space usually reserved for club members and guests, where a small sushi counter and a few dining tables await. Kihong Kim and Mihyun Han are incredibly thoughtful, attentive hosts, and Chef Shinichi works with gentle grace and charm. A lot of omakase courses tend to move from leaner to richer fish, but Shinichi seems to like to play ping-pong instead, where you're never sure what may come next. On my first visit, it turned out that the first bite of nigiri was the highlight: kohada (gizzard shad), possibly my favorite neta, a small hikarimono (silver-skinned fish) lightly cured in vinegar that perfectly highlighted without overwhelming the flavor of the fish. The Inoshin pop-up has wrapped up for the season; I'm looking forward to it finding a permanent home.
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| Pani Puri - Mister Mao (New Orleans) |
Around Christmas we took another brief jaunt to New Orleans, a place I always love to go. There are always venerable old standards to visit,[13] but this time around I was interested in what's new. For a city whose dining reputation was long based on traditional creole and Cajun cooking, the past decade in particular has seen a boom of creative, fun, diverse places. We had a brunch of pupusas and baleadas at Alma Cafe, "naanwiches" and dosas at Lufu,[14] lemongrass fried chicken gumbo and catfish cha ca la vong at the counter of Palm & Pine, a stacked seafood tower at Seaworthy, all of which were excellent. But my favorite bite at my favorite place of this trip was at Mister Mao, which describes itself as a "tropical roadhouse" and which makes about as much sense as anything I could come up with. The menu veers all over the place, but mostly South Asia, run through the filter of New Orleans, and it's all pretty delightful. I loved the chaat with puffed rice, sprouted lentils, pickled beets, satsuma and avocado; the kashmiri fried chicken with Sichuan peppercorn topped with "poor man's pink pineapple"; but most of all, these pani puri, filled with turmeric potato masala, pomegranate seeds and tamarind chutney, with "fiery mint water" to pour into the shell before shoving it all into your face in one bite.
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| Saffron Tagliatelle alle Vongole - Boia De (Buena Vista Miami) |
And we end where started this post: at Boia De, where it's becoming something of a tradition for Mrs. F and I to spend an early New Year's Eve dinner and then scramble home before the fireworks start. There's usually canapés and caviar and other good things, like this tagliatelle alle vongole with broad ribbons of saffron infused pasta, plump clams, a shower of herbs, and good butter. A favorite dish, made well, and a happy way to close out the year.
Of course now we are more than knee deep into 2025, and it's amazing what a difference half a year makes in the dining zeitgeist. The progression from boom to bust could give you whiplash. And yet there are signs of hope. Smaller spots in lower-rent neighborhoods – I'm thinking of places like Recoveco in South Miami,[15] Palma in Little Havana, Edan Bistro in North Miami – are hanging in there. Mike Pirolo, of Macchialina fame, has defied all the odds by opening not one but two great new spots over the summer: Bar Bucce (a casual pizzeria / market / bottle shop) in Little River, and Fluke (a crudo and martini bar). The ticket to survival seems to be some combination of (1) making sure you've not taken on too much (debt / space / staff) so that you have the flexibility to survive the slow season; (2) cultivating a core clientele of local diners so you're not overly dependent on the fickle, seasonal tourist market; (3) offering something that differentiates yourself from the crowd; and (4) giving people a reason to come. There have been a bunch of intriguing special events and collaboration dinners this summer already, most of which I've unfortunately not been able to catch, but I think this is a great idea. Here's hoping folks find their way through.
As always, I'm tremendously grateful to all the people who work so hard, and often struggle so much, to make diners like myself happy – all the chefs, line cooks, prep cooks, managers, servers, bussers, dishwashers, bartenders, sommeliers, farmers, fishermen and foragers. Every year I wish them all the same thing my grandfather wished for his family: "Always better, never worse."
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[1] Several of these have said the closings are "temporary" for the summer - let's see about that in the fall. Ensenada, which had initially just announced a summer "pause," has now confirmed it's not coming back.
[2] And while editing this post, news came out that brother Nando Chang, who kept things in the family by winning the same award last month, will be closing his omakase counter Itamae AO which was operating inside Maty's – temporarily, while finding a new space.
[3] To be clear, this is a Bananarama reference, not a Taylor Swift reference. But the thing is: this may not just be a summer phenomenon. Economic and political uncertainty is putting a big dent in international travel to the U.S., and Miami was already seeing the effects in the first quarter of 2025, and info suggests that trend is going to continue.
[4] That's a lot of p's and a lot of hyphens.
[5] There actually is a pretty significant culinary family tree connection: Tomo's chef, Brady Ishiwata Williams, like Atoma's, also spent several years in the kitchen at Canlis.
[6] Another family tree connection, literally this time: Lennon Silvers Lee and Philip Frankland Lee, who started Sushi by Scratch, are brothers. And now both have picked up Michelin stars for their sushi bars.
[7] Carey and Will closed downtown local's fave Jaguar Sun in order to open up Sunny's, but then promptly opened Vice Versa along with Valentino Longo to effectively take its place.
[8]Named for what they were originally operating under when they first opened the pop-up.
[9] The list of places he's worked and staged is like a dining wish list for me. Maison in Paris; Ikoyi in London; Quintonil in Mexico City; Momofuku Ko in New York (which I did get to back in 2017).
[10] Case in point: I know everyone loves to fry squash blossoms, and I get it: they're the perfect size and shape for stuffing and frying, and that crackly texture, maybe with something oozy inside, is delightful. But there is something truly beautiful about the fresh, delicate taste of a raw squash blossom that usually gets lost in the battering and frying, and which was perfectly captured in this dish.
[11] At the time, one of the only other signs of life in the then-nascent Design District was Michael's Genuine, which had opened a couple years earlier. The "Design" in "Design District" still referred primarily to the home-goods, furniture and appliance stores that had long been situated there, and not the constellation of luxury brands that have since moved in. The space which Sra. M took over had very briefly been home to a restaurant called Domo Japones which turned over in less than a year. Sound familiar? It was an implausible setup with a kitchen so narrow that chefs had to go in and out single-file to work the line, supplemented by a cold station downstairs in the middle of the dining room which used to be a sushi counter, and a tiny bar upstairs manned by master Julio Cabrera. It was crazy and delightful.
[12] One more bonus point: if your timing is right, and you were a fan of chef Andrew Gilbert's lovely Gables gastropub Seven Dials, you might find Chef Andy's Fish and Chips on the menu at Sra. M (Andy was an OG Sra. M alum and is back in the kitchen at the new incarnation).
[13] I have a special fondness for Galatoire's.
[14] Along with a genius curry-spiced piña colada.
[15] Recoveco is not in this list only because I did not make my way there until after the calendar had turned. But I've fixed that omission since, and – *SPOILER ALERT* – it is absolutely everything I treasure in a restaurant. Creative, thoughtfully prepared food often inspired by local ingredients, with a tight, focused menu that hides a few surprises here and there, in a small intimate space with incredibly gracious, graceful service. You'll undoubtedly see it here in the next round.
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