Starving Artists Take Note

Here's a deal: Joey's in Wynwood is offering a $14 fixed menu "Artistic Duos" dinner Monday - Thursday (6pm-8pm), which includes a glass of wine, with a different option for each day of the week. The lineup, which they say is geared toward the artists, gallery owners and related riffraff that populate Wynwood features:


 

Monday

Chicken and Asparagus Risotto with a glass of Falanghina wine

Tuesday

Salmon and Ricotta Salata Salad with a glass of Pinot Grigio

Wednesday

Penne Bolognese, Radicchio and a glass classic Chianti

Thursday

Spezzatino/Beef Stew over Polenta with a glass of Malbec

While you're there, you may want to try the pizza too, it had a good showing in our pizza crawl, particularly the "Joey" with the unlikely combination of tuna, spicy salame, gorgonzola, capers and spinach.

Joey's Wynwood
2506 NW 2nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33137
305.438.0488

Incanto - San Francisco

They smelled good. They were topped with bacon. When I asked if he wanted to know what he was trying before he took a bite, he declined. And that's how my 11-year old son came to eat lamb balls at Incanto.

image via @offalchris

Before you accuse me of some form of child abuse, please keep in mind that he should well have known better. I have long been a fan of the so-called "fifth quarter," or offal. Tongues, cheeks, ears, feet, livers, sweetbreads, tripe, hearts, intestines, marrow, gizzards. They're all my friends. These are things I eat not on a dare, but because they have the capacity for deliciousness. They offer depth of flavor you often won't discover in the "prime cuts" (though in fact many are actually quite mild), and unusual, sometimes luxurious textures. And it is often the measure of a chef's talent what they're able to do with the misnamed "nasty bits." Anyone can take a prime New York strip and make it taste good. It takes some skill to make lamb balls tasty.

Chef Chris Cosentino has that skill, and has been one of the most prominent and vocal champions of offal cookery (along with perhaps his kindred spirit in England, Fergus Henderson). So his restaurant in Noe Valley was one of my "don't miss" destinations on our current San Francisco trip. And Frod Jr. was on clear notice that whatever he was taking a taste of could have come from just about anywhere on or in the animal.

Incanto looks much like many other Italian restaurants, with rough-cut stone floors, simple dark wood furniture, and a series of columns and arches that separate a partially open kitchen from the bustling, boisterous dining room. One thing that's a little different is the glass case of house-cured salumi on display as you walk in (this love of cured meats has expanded into a side business for Chef Cosentino, who now produces several "tasty salted pig parts" for retail sale through Boccalone, with an outpost in the Ferry Building). Many of those pig parts can be sampled on an antipasto platter at Incanto; and the menu, with a leaning towards starter-sized items and almost all pastas available in half portions, lends itself to trying a variety of dishes.

We started with the antipasto platter, which our server helpfully advised was also available in a 1/2 portion, even though this was not listed on the menu. My memory has faded a bit at this point, but I believe it featured some mortadella, prosciutto cotto (a cooked ham, delicately spiced and more sweet than salty), soppressata, porchetta di testa (rolled pig's head, thinly sliced), and a pork paté, along with some nice bright pickled vegetables. All were quite good, and surprisingly conservative with the salt - almost to the point where I thought they could have used a touch more. Some nice crusty bread, along with focaccia and breadsticks, were accompanied by a black olive tapenade.

image via @offalchris

We followed with a simple dish of lobster mushrooms, sea beans and a sizzled egg. The lobster mushrooms are truly beautiful things, gigantic firm mushrooms, almost white in color, but with a gorgeous orange-red blush to the caps like the color of a cooked Maine lobster (they're actually the product of a parasitic fungus that grows on the mushroom). Here they were sliced thin, sauteed, sprinkled with a scatter of sea beans, then topped with an egg quick-fried in olive oil (I'm guessing) which made its own sauce for the mushrooms. I enjoyed this though I found (as I've experienced when cooking them myself) that the lobster mushrooms are actually somewhat short on flavor, though they have an interesting firm, almost steak-y texture.

The lamb fries were also a starter, and were done in a piccata style with bacon. They came, as I guess can be expected, two to an order.^[*] The fries were actually a wonderful delicate texture, similar to sweetbreads or fish quenelles. They had a lightly meaty flavor with maybe just the slightest hint of iron, as in liver. And they were soaking in melted butter spiked with capers, topped off with a few strips of salty savory bacon. I thought they were genuinely delicious; Frod Jr., while he didn't go back for a second bite, didn't think they were bad (until after I told him what they were; and even then, he admitted he was more bothered by the idea rather than the flavor).

Next, a 1/2 order of the spaghettini with Sardinian cured tuna heart, egg yolk and parsley. I've had and enjoyed a similar dish at Sardinia Ristorante in Miami made with bottarga, the dried and cured roe sac of a tuna. The cured tuna heart has a flavor very similar to the bottarga, salty and with a deep funky marine whiff to it. It was generously shaved over the hot spaghettini, which had been tossed with olive oil, many slivers of browned garlic and a handful of fresh parsley, and topped with a raw egg yolk which is then lightly cooked by the heat of the pasta as you further toss the pasta yourself.

But Chef Cosentino's cooking is not just about offal. A handkerchief pasta sauced with a pork ragu was just flat-out good cooking. The pasta was just about perfect, supple and smooth without being insipid and limp; and the rustic meat sauce was rich, tender and hearty. Nothing unusual or exotic about this, just a delicious pasta dish.

what was left of the beef rib

Frod Jr.'s appetite was not so thrown by the lamb fries that he couldn't dig into a Fred Flintstone-sized English-cut beef rib (a massize length of short rib), topped with "God's butter" (Chef Cosentino's name for beef marrow), dandelion greens and a simple onion salsa. Indeed he made pretty good work of that rib. We also had a braised duck leg, with contrasting notes of sweet and salty provided by grapes and pancetta in the braising liquid. Also very hearty and satisfying.

The wine list, if I recall, was almost exclusively Italian wines, and showed some nice breadth both regionally and in price ranges. A 2003 Fanetti Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva hit the appropriate note of refined rusticity to match the food.

And that is perhaps the best way I can think of to describe the cooking at Incanto - refined rusticity. While much of the attention is paid to Chef Cosentino's work with offal, I think perhaps that angle is overworked to a degree. It's exciting to explore the different flavors and textures that can be offered by the "fifth quarter," but unless it's done well, it's just something to brag about to your friends, which to me is infinitely less rewarding than a genuinely great meal. In our experience, whether it was lamb fries or pasta with pork ragu, this was just good, satisfying food.

Incanto
1550 Church Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415.641.4500

^[*]As good as they were, I don't think I could eat 28:

Pizza Crawl Part IV - il fin

They say all good things must come to an end, and "Pizza Crawl" finally did so earlier this week - just in time for the Miami Herald to get on the pizza bandwagon. Another troupe of pizza fans came along for the final edition, which made its two last stops in South Beach at Fratelli la Bufala and the newly opened Casale.

Fratelli la Bufala

I had always been curious about Fratelli la Bufala, which came to South Beach with an authentic Italian pedigree. The brand was supposedly started by the sons of a family of Italian buffalo mozzarella producers who thus dubbed themselves the "Fratelli la Bufala" and has nearly 100 locations, mostly in Italy but also including such far-flung outposts as Hannover, Strasbourg, Istanbul and Dubai.

The full contingent of pizza-tasters had not yet come on board when we arrived at Fratelli, so we limited our tasting to only four pies. When we first started the pizza crawl, we had the idea of sampling a "control group" margherita from each restaurant; that idea was quickly abandoned as the group sought to identify the best "signature" offering from each place (a couple additional unofficial rules instead came into play: one was that if a pizza included the name of the restaurant, it had to be ordered; and another was that if a combination sounded completely unlikely - i.e., the "Joey's Pizza" with tuna, salami, gorgonzola, capers and spinach - we ought to order it just to see if it could actually work). While I lobbied to try a traditional margherita at Fratelli, I was boisterously voted down and instead we tried:

La Reale - tomato sauce, bufala mozzarella, bufala smoked mozzarella, bufala ricotta & prosciutto crudo
Diavola - tomato sauce, spicy salame, mozzarella, basil & crushed red pepper
Vesuviana - fresh cherry tomatoes, smoked bufala mozzarella, bufala mozzarella, green olives & anchovies
Sausage & Broccoli Rabe - a special, double-crusted pizza, explained further below.

Across the board, I found the basics at Fratelli were done right - the crust was thin but not cracker-crisp, with some nice bubbles and just a hint of charred bits; the cheese was high quality; the sauce struck a nice balance between acidic and sweet. Yet while they were all good, there was nothing about any of the pies we tried at Fratelli that made you sit up and say "This is a great pizza!"

Though I like the sausage and broccoli rabe combo, I was suspicious of the special we ordered, which was described as being a pizza topped with another pizza crust on top to create a stuffed effect (though not crimped and sealed like a calzone). This sounded too much like some Frankenstein-ish Pizza Hut creation dreamed up for the sake of creating a new product line, but it turned out to be fine, though I still could have easily lived without the extra crust. I am not usually a fan of the multi-cheese approach adopted by the Reale, as I find it's usually overkill, but this one was OK, even if the multitude of cheeses made this pie a bit soggier than the others. The Diavola had a nice assertive spiciness from the salame and crushed pepper, but the one that showed the most promise for me was the Vesuviana, which sported ripe juicy cherry tomatoes, a nice element of intrigue from the smoked buffalo mozzarella, and some high quality anchovies.

Despite missing a "wow" effect, Fratelli la Bufala put out some good pizzas. It is surely the only place in town where pretty much all the pies are topped with high quality mozzarella di bufala, though their prices still remain mostly in the same neighborhood as other pizzerias (mostly in the range of $11-15).

Fratelli la Bufala
437 Washington Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.532.0700



Casale

[Sorry, this place has closed]

Casale is a sister restaurant to Sardinia, which opened nearly three years ago and has a well-executed focus on the cuisine of its namesake region of Italy. I had heard Casale described as a pizzeria, but it is more ambitious than that. In addition to nearly twenty pizza choices, there is a mozzarella and burrata bar with a number of options for accompaniments, more than a half dozen crudos, several antipasti and salads, and a pretty sizable selection of sandwiches and a few other items as well. It is also a much larger space than I had anticipated, indeed it's a sprawling space with still more seating in an indoor/outdoor upstairs area too.

Since this was the final round of Pizza Crawl and we were only visiting two establishments for the night, we ended up sampling a pretty broad array of Casale's pizza options:

Pugliese - rapini & wild boar sausage
Funghetto - wild mushrooms, taleggio & sage
Smeraldina - braised fennel & bottarga
Catalana - chorizo, manchego, tomato & olives
Atomica - spinach, artichokes, guanciale & quail eggs
Sag Harbor - mussels, clams, baby octopus & shrimp
Buongustaio - baby zucchini, parma prosciutto & burrata
Sagaponack - potatoes, anchovies & ricotta
Super Margherita - prosciutto, bufala mozzarella & arugula

I thought that the crust at Casale was among the best that we've sampled, thin but with a bit of chew, nicely blistered and bubbled and crisp around the edges, if occasionally veering a little too far into blackened and charred territory (an assumed risk when you're dealing with a hot oven). The toppings were often very vividly flavored - the braised fennel on the Smeraldina was silky in texture and bright in flavor, the mushrooms on the Funghetto were rich and meaty with a nice resinously woodsy note from the fresh sage leaves. A few in particular I thought were complete and unqualified successes - the Catalana (an unorthodox but effective use of Spanish ingredients), the Atomica (the spinach jazzed up with the salty guanciale and the use of quail eggs a great way of distributing their yolky goodness across the entire pizza) and the Super Margherita hit all the right spots for me.

On more than one occasion, though, the promise of the menu didn't quite come through on the plate, because the flavor of a key component was missing in action. The Smeraldina was missing the funky whiff of bottarga, making it a one-note fennel composition. The Pugliese appeared almost completely devoid of broccoli rabe. Others just didn't quite click - the potatoes in the Sagaponack were mushy, the Sag Harbor a vast improvement over the seafood pizza we had at Spris but still not quite right.

Despite these miscues, though, Casale's basic execution is fundamentally sound, and the menu is more adventurous than many of the other places we visited. While other pizzerias may boast a lengthier list of pizzas, many are just minor variations on the same theme, whereas Casale's are for the most part each very distinctly different and often more ambitious.

Casale
1800 Bay Road
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.397.8237



So after 53 pies at 11 different locations, what conclusions can be drawn? I have a few:

(1) Good pizza isn't easy to do right. Some places where I've had good experiences previously had poor execution on our Pizza Crawl visits. When you're working with extremely high cooking temperatures and short cooking times, the difference between soggy, perfect, and burnt can be a matter of seconds.

(2) You can't make a truly great pizza without great ingredients. The places that stood out to me the most - Pizzavolante, Racks, and Casale - are using high quality ingredients, and it shows in the finished product.

(3) Pizza is a great cheap meal. At most of the places we went, the pies averaged between $10-15. Most were of a size that you could probably split one between two people. Throw in a beer or a cheap glass of wine, and how many other options are there for getting something that's hand-made with artisanal ingredients for under $10 a person?

(4) Miami may not be a pizza mecca, but it doesn't suck either. No doubt all the New Yorkers will chime in about how nothing you get here in Miami can compare to any pizza you can get on any street corner in New York. Whatever. I'm just happy to see some local restaurants taking pizza a little more seriously and for the most part succeeding in their efforts.

And with the Pizza Crawl officially concluded, I am going to reopen the "best pizza" poll with all the places that we've visited. Take a look over on the right-hand column and cast your vote.

Miami Pizza Crawl - Part III - South Beach Edition

After forty pies, are we becoming jaded and world-weary pizza eaters? Was the rainy, humid weather putting a damper on the pizza ovens? Whatever the reason, Round 3 of the Miami Pizza Crawl seemed like something of a letdown, though it finished on an up note. This portion of the tour covered Lincoln Road - the newly opened Sosta Pizzeria, as well as a couple more established pizzerias, Piola and Spris. About 15 hardy pizza fans braved the foul weather to sample the following:

Sosta Pizzeria
Sosta (sundried tomato spread, mozzarella, burrata, prosciutto crudo)
Carpaccio (tomato sauce, mozzarella, beef carpaccio, arugula, parmesan)
Siciliana (tomato sauce, mozzarella, anchovies, capers, black olives, basil)
Brie & Speck (just like it says)

Piola
Piola (fresh mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, basil, tomato sauce and mozzarella)
Carbonara (bacon, egg, parmesan, tomato sauce and mozzarella)
Curitiba (catupiry cheese, hearts of palm, artichokes and mozzarella)
Posillipo (fresh mozzarella, anchovies, oregano, cherry tomatoes and tomato sauce)

Spris
Carbonara (tomato sauce, mozzarella, pancetta, egg, parmesan and black pepper)
Ortalana (tomato sauce, mozzarella, grilled eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, roasted peppers and portobello mushrooms)
Frutti di Mare (tomato sauce, mozzarella, calamari, clams, shrimp and mussels)
Patate e Pancetta (mozzarella, pancetta, potatoes, rosemary and parmesan)

Here's my take:

Sosta -

We started the evening at Sosta, a spin-off of Quattro Gastronomia, which opened on Lincoln Road a few years ago. I hear the space is very nice, but I arrived late and immediately sat at our outdoor table and never got a good look inside. The menu features a lengthy - nay, intimidating - list of about 30 pizza options, though some of them require careful study to find what ingredient distinguishes one from another (sort of like the Monty Python Spam restaurant).^[*]

One of the unofficial rules of "Pizza Crawl," starting with the "Joey's Pizza" at Joey's Wynwood, is that if there is a pizza named after the restaurant, then it must be ordered. Unfortunately, the "Sosta" pizza made little impression, other than that the sun-dried tomato spread with which it was anointed instead of sauce was too sweet. If there was burrata, it was wasted, as it was was indistinguishable from the mozzarella.

The carpaccio pizza, topped with slices of raw beef which in short order were cooked pink from carry-over heat, was likewise curiously underflavored, the beef tasting like not much of anything when raw, and like under-salted steamed roast beef after it sat. The Siciliana fared better than the others, simply because its flavors (anchovy, caper, olive, basil) were bolder, and used decent quality ingredients (a pit in one of my olives was testament to them not using pre-pitted olives). The brie and speck also just wasn't doing it for me, but that may just be a matter of personal preference. The crust on all of their pies was good if a slight bit soggy, but likewise surprisingly lacking in flavor. Having heard some very good things about Sosta, I had expected it to fare better. Maybe we just had an off night there.

Piola -

Piola has its roots in Italy (Treviso, to be exact, which - someone please correct me if I'm wrong - is not exactly pizza headquarters of Italy; it has a location in Naples as well, but it's Naples Florida, not Naples Italy), but has an even stronger presence in Brazil where it has 9 outlets. The menu, even more encyclopedic than Sosta's with over 50 pizza options all prepared in a wood-burning oven, shows a distinct South American bent. We tried one of these, the "Curitiba" with catupiry cheese, hearts of palm, artichokes and mozzarella. While the creamy catupiry cheese was an interesting change of pace, it was something of a one-note wonder, and the hearts of palm and artichokes tasted straight from the can (and we're not talking any artisanal Spanish canned goods either). The "Piola" was bland, and the "Carbonara" had not been given sufficient time for the bacon to crisp so it tasted fatty and flabby.

The "Posillipo" was found in a separate section of the menu and was described as a version of a traditional Neapolitan style pizza, supposedly shaped smaller with a thicker crust and edges. I could detect nothing different about the crust other than that the cornicione was perhaps a wee bit wider. The anchovies it was topped with were saltier and furrier than those at Sosta (and I am a big anchovy fan, so this is no slur on anchovies generally), and the one cherry tomato I came across was green and under-ripe. I've had good pizzas at Piola, but this was also a pretty disappointing showing.

Spris -

At least we closed out the evening on a high note. At Spris we easily had our two best pizzas of the night, their Carbonara and their Patate e Pancetta. The Carbonara had nice crispy pancetta, an oozy fried egg, big shards of shaved parmesan, and a fine dusting of ground black pepper. The Patate e Pancetta, though somewhat similar, was also done well, with thinly sliced potatoes that were both tender and a bit crisp, salty pancetta, more of that generously shaved parmesan, and a whiff of rosemary. This was a vast improvement over the similar "Genovese" pizza at Andiamo we had in Round 1.

The Ortolana was a difficult pizza to share, because the assortment of vegetables - roasted green peppers, grilled eggplant, thinly sliced zucchini, portobello mushrooms - were artfully arranged in separate sections rather than scattered. Aside from the arrangement, though, I felt the ratio of topping to crust on this pizza was out of whack, way too laden with vegetables even if it was generous. The Frutti di Mare, while an interesting idea, will not cause anyone to forget New Haven style clam pizza any time soon. I couldn't really detect any seafood other than ringlets and more ringlets of calamari, which were a bit bouncy (probably breaching the "2 minutes or 2 hours" rule for cooking calamari by virtue of their time in the pizza oven).

While Spris certainly was the best pizza of the night (the two best pizzas actually), I wouldn't put it ahead of either of my winners from Round 1 and Round 2 - PizzaVolante and Racks.

Update: For other takes, here are links to Mango & Lime (with pix!) and Blind Mind's recaps of Pizza Crawl Pt. III.

Sosta Pizzeria
1025 Lincoln Road
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.722.5454


Piola
1625 Alton Road
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.674.1660


Spris
731 Lincoln Road
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.673.2020

^[*]Another crawler has suggested a "Cheesecake Factory / Nexxt Cafe" like similarity between Sosta's menu and that of nearby Spris. I'm not sure I agree. Several of these are pretty common pizza nomenclature - "capricciosa" for a pizza with ham, mushrooms, artichokes and olives, "quattro stagioni" for the same done in four separate sections, "ortolana" for a vegetable pizza, "diavola" for spicy sausage, - and others are just common ingredients - prosciutto cotto e funghi, tonno e cipolla, etc.

Pizza Poll Closed, Pizza Crawl III Approaching

My "Best Pizza in Miami" poll has closed, with Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza eking out a victory by the thinnest of slices, followed closely by Spris, and then PizzaVolante and Pizza Rustica in a tie for third. Not to dismiss the results of a gloriously democratic process, but the poll seems pretty much meaningless considering among other things: (1) those of us participating in the "Pizza Crawl" haven't even completed Round III of the crawl yet; and (2) some places started getting votes before they'd even opened!

PizzaVolante pizza, photo credit: Jacob Katel

My impression of the general consensus from Pizza Crawl I and Pizza Crawl II is that PizzaVolante took Round I, with Joey's in close contention, and that Racks Italian Bistro was the clear winner of Round II. I don't think there was any clear victor as between PizzaVolante and Racks.

Meanwhile, Round III resumes next week on July 2 for a tour of South Beach including Sosta, Piola and Spris. For more information join the "Miami Chowdown" Google group and follow the "Pizza Crawl Part III" thread. It's already a pretty big group so it may be a squeeze. Thanks to Trina of Miami Dish for playing organizer this time around.

Miami Pizza Crawl - Part II Recap

The second round of the "Miami Pizza Crawl" re-convened this past Sunday evening, exploring the offerings of the northerly pizzaiolos of Miami-Dade County -- Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza, Pizza Fusion, and Racks Italian Bistro. Readers of Chowhound may recall that the genesis of the Pizza Crawl came about as a result of me giving Miami Danny (a/k/a Danny Brody of the Daily Cocaine blog) a small raft of shit (more like a dinghy, maybe) over him declaring Racks' pizza the best in South Florida after they had been open approximately 24 hours. While giving Danny some grief is usually its own reward, this particular instance had the added bonus of leading to the idea of a "pizza showdown" among the many new pizzamakers cropping up around Miami. We had a big turnout last night with 28 people (including all of Family Frod for the first two rounds) and it was a fun group. Many thanks to Paula of Mango & Lime for playing coordinator for this round. You can see her recap and pictures here.

Here's the menu for the evening's festivities (given the size of the group it wasn't easy to get a taste of everything, and so I'm mostly going to recite what made impressions either favorable or not rather than try to do the usual granular recap):

Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza
"Paul & Young Ron" (with meatballs, sausage, hot peppers & ricotta)
Fresh Mozzarella, Sliced Tomato & Basil
Eggplant Marino
White Pizza
Meatball & Ricotta
Philly Cheesesteak

Pizza Fusion
Organic Pepperoni
Bruschetta (with fresh chopped tomatoes, red onion, basil, balsamic vinegar & roasted garlic)
Four Cheese & Sundried Tomato
Organic Eggplant & Fresh Mozzarella
Farmers Market (with roasted artichokes, red onion, zucchini & eggplant)
Founders' Pie (with chicken, kalamata olives, red onion & mozzarella)

Racks
Secchi (with sopressata, provolone, fiore di latte & goat cheese)
Sweet Sausage (with meatballs, onion, ricotta & grana padano)
Spinach (with prosciutto, smoked mozzarella & reggiano)
Portabello (with truffle oil, gorgonzola & speck)

I've had Anthony's pizza before, and am a fan of their crispy "well done" style. They use coal-burning ovens that they crank to 800 degrees, which cook the pies in 4 minutes. I know some people don't like getting their crust with black bits around the edges, but I don't mind it. I was disappointed, though, that the broccoli rabe and sausage pizza was "86'd" for the night and wasn't part of our tasting. Having said all that, I found most of the pies we got at Anthony's last night to be curiously underdone (by their typical standards, anyway). Maybe it was because some of them were too loaded down with toppings (the "Paul & Young Ron" in particular I thought was overloaded), but I found them surprisingly soggy. My favorite of the group was probably the plain jane pie with fresh tomato and mozzarella - perhaps because the topppings didn't dominate the crust which was still firm and crisp. I also enjoyed the flavor of the "Eggplant Marino" (supposedly Dan Marino's favorite) with thinly sliced rounds of eggplant sprinkled with parmesan, though again I thought there was too much topping to crust. All still good, but not as good as I've had there previously.

It was interesting to me to see that Anthony's was absolutely packed, with a full house and people waiting outside for tables, early on a Sunday evening despite continuing periodic downpours. Somehow one server tended to our entire table of 25 or so (a few stragglers got seated separately) and did so efficiently and with a smile. Bless her.

Next, Pizza Fusion. Pizza Fusion is a chain which started in Deerfield Beach, Florida and now has about 20 locations in Florida and elsewhere, with more in the pipeline. They have a strong focus on using organic ingredients - their sauce and their dough are supposedly all-organic, as are many of the toppings. Their large pies came in a 9"x18" rectangular shape - although they are offered with a regular white dough crust as well as a multigrain crust, we missed out on sampling the latter. While I appreciate the chain's dedication to organic ingredients, I was less appreciative of their pizzas. The crust was overwhelmed by the flavor and texture of the cornmeal on the bottom, and the toppings were, well - nebbish. The sauce was too sweet, the pepperoni didn't taste like much - particularly compared to the robust flavors of the Pizzavolante "Cacciatorini" - and none of the other vegetable toppings really stood out. This was not bad pizza by any means, it was perfectly fine - just not anything I'd go out of my way for, though I'd happily eat it in lieu of many other strip-mall options. Frod Jr. and Little Miss F are big fans of the organic Boylan's sodas, and I also appreciated the all-organic beer and wine list.

They were likewise very accomodating of our big, unwieldy group, and the restaurant has a nice look, going for the modern industrial loft feel with unfinished concrete walls, reclaimed wood tables and the like. I really am genuinely impressed by Pizza Fusion's commitment to environmental responsibility and there's much more info on it here, including things like countertops made from recycled detergent bottles, dual-flush toilets in the bathrooms, using recycled paper for their printed materials, and giving discounts to customers who recycle their pizza boxes.

We closed out the evening at Racks, and after suffering some attrition among the ranks, only sampled four of their pies. It was enough to make an impression, and the impression was pretty favorable. Racks also uses coal-burning ovens, cranked up hot enough to cook the dough and warm the toppings before they all turn to mush. They also go for the rectangular shape on their pies, though these were probably a bit smaller than what we got at Pizza Fusion, and probably smaller than the equivalent pie at Anthony's as well (though comparing the surface area of the rectangular Racks pie to the round Anthony's pie involves math skills I have long since forgotten; maybe Frod Jr. can help). The one pizza in particular that everyone seemed to lurch for as it came out was the one topped with spinach, prosciutto and smoked mozzarella, the smoky mozzarella making a nice complement to the thinly sliced prosciutto. But the sweet sausage pizza was also very good, incorporating several elements without completely messing up the toppings-to-crust ratio.

I somehow missed out on trying the Secchi, which sounded good. I was not as impressed by the portobello pizza as some, which I thought was too heavy on the cheese and also on the truffle oil (a note which is too easily overdone and generally overplayed, methinks). On a related note, I was somewhat baffled by a "special" pizza offering of a truffle pie for $34 (nearly 3 times as much as anything else on the menu). The baffling part is not so much the price (fresh truffles are expensive) as the calendar - it's June! Truffle season is typically October to March. I should have asked exactly what they were using, but it basically had to either be summer truffles (which are rather less fragrant, and dramatically less expensive, than winter truffles), or jarred truffles, but neither should command that kind of price tag. By comparison, Timo in Sunny Isles regularly lists a "black and white" pizza wich uses preserved black truffles for $17.

I also would have preferred a crispier crust to the more springy, doughy texture the Racks pizzas had on the outside crust. But - despite all the grief I gave Danny - this was very good pizza. Best pizza in South Florida? I'm not going there yet. But I enjoyed it.

Another nice discovery at Racks - Amarcord Birra Artigianale, an Italian craft beer that comes in four different styles which include a lager, a "double" pale ale, a "double" red ale and a "double" brown ale. I had the red ale which was smooth, intense, even chewy. I believe our waiter said that Racks is the only place in Miami that offers the beer, and if you let them know in advance you can even get a case to pick up from the Racks market.

While I'm not yet committing to any favorites overall, I will say that Racks certainly had the best showing of the evening. And once again, it was a pleasure to get together with the expanding population of pizza crawlers. I hope everyone had a good time.

Update: More on Pizza Crawl Part II here at NBCMiami.com (including video!) and Miami Dish. And if you're interested in participating in the next crawl join the Miami Chowdown Google Group.

Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza
17901 Biscayne Boulevard
Aventura, FL 33160
305.830.2625



Pizza Fusion
14815 Biscayne Boulevard
North Miami Beach, FL 33160
305.405.6700



Racks Italian Bistro
3933 N.E. 163rd Street
North Miami Beach, FL 33160
305.917.7225

Timo Restaurant - Sunny Isles

Tourists usually think South Beach is the only place to go in the Miami area. Locals going out to dinner may have figured out that some of the best dining is now in the Design District and along the "Biscayne Corridor" where nationally known chefs like Michael Schwartz and Michelle Bernstein now ply their trade. But there are still other places where good eats can be found, and Timo, up toward the northern reaches of Miami-Dade County in Sunny Isles, is one of them.

"Timo" means "thyme" in Italian, but I believe it's also a combination of the first names of the restaurant's owners, Chef Tim Andriola and General Manager Rodrigo Martinez. Chef Andriola's resume has some of the most distinguished names in local and national kitchens - Mark Militello (exec chef at Mark's South Beach), Alan Susser (chef de cuisine at Chef Allen), stints at Chez Panisse, Charlie Trotter;^[*] and Rodrigo Martinez likewise came in with some solid experience, having served for some time as the GM and beverage manager at Norman Van Aken's restaurant in Coral Gables. About 5-6 years ago they opened Timo and have been putting out great food ever since.

The restaurant is of the simple modern school of design, with lots of wood, glass and brown leather and a quietly elegant but completely unstuffy feel. There is a bar with about a dozen seats as well as about a half-dozen high-rise 2-tops, which is where we usually happily end up when showing up without reservations. (Gentlemen, and lady sports fans, a hint here: there is one flat-screen behind the bar which usually is tuned to an appropriate sporting event; pick your seat wisely and be discreet when looking over your date's shoulder). The place has a strong following among the Sunny Isles / Aventura / North Miami Beach crowd and is usually busy without being packed.

The menu has a mild but not overly pronounced Italian / Mediterranean bent and is updated fairly often (something I am convinced is key to maintaining a local following). There are usually about a half dozen salads and soups, another half dozen or so "small plates" (something they were doing before MGF&D was even a glimmer in Michael Schwartz's eye), several "gourmet" pizzas that come from a wood-burning oven, a handful of pasta dishes, and about a dozen entree choices with roughly half of those of the piscine variety. There's also a good selection of vegetable sides to choose from. Prices for starters generally range from $9-15, and almost all the entrees stay in the mid-$20s. They also offer a 4-course "tasting menu" which is a very substantial amount of food for $58. Sometimes we will do one tasting menu and add a couple additional small plates and split everything, or just order several small plates to split.

A sampling of "small plates" from a recent visit:

• Calamari, presented as four whole baby calamaris stuffed with minced Italian hot sausage, daubed with a spicy tomato sauce and served over a bed of rich polenta. The calamari were perfectly cooked, the sausage and spice added a nice dose of heat, and the polenta made for nice ballast.
  
• Scallops - wrapped with duck prosciutto and seared, plated with grilled artichokes and mushrooms, and sauced with a richly flavored and textured mushroom fonduta.
  
• Open faced raviolo of escargot, a big round of silky pasta topped with a ragout of snails and fresh tomato, all drizzled with a pungent garlic butter.

Some other favorite items (some of these long gone from the menu):

• oyster salad, with fried oysters crispy outside but still gooey within, served over a bed of frisee, white beans, and crisped pancetta;


• crispy eggplant, layered with slices of nice mozzarella and prosciutto along with fresh yellow tomato;


• short rib canneloni, super-rich and made even more so with a slather of truffle fonduta;


• a salad of lightly wilted spinach and thinly slivered red onion in a mustardy dressing topped with slices of rosy seared duck breast, with a duck-liver shmeared crouton alongside;


• calamari sauteed with chunks of salami and hot peppers;


• sweetbreads, with bacon, honey and balsamic;


• a great tripe stew served in a bubbling clay pot (haven't seen this one for years, I may have been the only person ordering it!);


• pizzas, with a thin crispy crust and done in several variations (I've liked the one with porcini and sausage, and also the "black and white" with ricotta and shaved black truffles; these are a hit with the kids too);


• fettucine with pulled chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce was a rich treat;


• grouper with white beans and escarole;


• a nicely done simple skirt steak with a pile of thick steak fries is Frod Jr.'s usual meal.

Some of the vegetable sides are also very good, including the "Roman-style" peas with pancetta and tomato, and the roasted beets tossed lightly in a vinaigrette with a sprinkle of goat cheese. Like many places, I typically prefer the small dishes to the entrees. Given the neighborhood and clientele, I think there's some pressure to have pretty sizable portions (this can still be sort of the "The food was lousy - and the portions were too small!" crowd) and I find that often palate fatigue sets in, though this is mitigated somewhat by several fish options.

The service is worlds apart from typical South Beach incivility or incompetence. Most of the waitstaff have been there for years and are real pros. The wine list is also a real treat, with about 150+ bottles from around the globe, a strong focus on smaller producers and lesser known regions rather than the same ubiquitous names, and typically fairly reasonable prices - things like the St. Jean de Barroux from Cote de Ventoux, or Bodegas El Nido from Jumilla, or a nice reasonably priced Cotes du Rhone like the Deux Albion from St. Cosme. Indeed it's one of the few places where I'd almost never contemplate bringing a bottle, in part because their inventory looks a lot like mine.

Timo
17624 Collins Avenue
Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160
305.936.1008

^[*]Here's something I didn't know. Apparently "Top Chef" Howie Kleinberg worked as a sous chef to Tim Andriola and called Andriola his "greatest inspiration in the kitchen." Make of that what you will.