The Best Things I Ate in 2025 - Everywhere Else

Well, it finally happened – nine months into 2026, and I got around to posting my favorite dishes from last year. Now that we're back in action, let's try to keep some momentum going. In a little change to the usual routine, things are divided into the South Florida post from earlier, and now here, all the other good things from elsewhere that we ate in 2025. We covered a lot of ground last year: a much-awaited return to Japan, more than a decade after our first visit; short trips to Cape Town and Copenhagen; and even shorter trips out to the Bay Area and up north to Philadelphia, NYC and Hudson Valley.

Looking back on these meals makes me think about something that has once again become a hot topic in the food world. It seems that every five years or so, someone writes an obituary for fine dining or, relatedly, its close cousin the tasting menu. This time around, the one tolling the bell is one of its primary practitioners: chef Bruno Verjus announced in an instagram post this week that he is closing his Paris restaurant, Table, after holding two Michelin stars for the past five years and climbing his way up the "World's 50 Best Restaurants" list.^[1] In the announcement he says, "I want great ingredients. Great cooking. Great ideas. Great hospitality. But simpler. Faster. More affordable."^[2] This was followed by an interview in with he formally made this year's "Fine dining is dead" proclamation. And he's not alone. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a story querying, "Does Gen Z Have the Patience for Fine Dining?," including insights from Dominique Crenn (Atelier Crenn), Matthew Kammerer (Harbor House), Charlie Mitchell (Saga), Flynn McGarry (Cove), and E.J. Lagasse (Emeril's).^[3] For the contra position, a story on the Resy website just claimed that "Today's Tasting Menus Have Evolved With Something for All of Us".^[4]

For whatever it's worth, my experiences over last year (and more recently) would suggest that rumors of the death of fine dining have been greatly exaggerated. But – as some others have said – what "fine dining" means, or what it ought to mean, may be changing. And that's a good thing. Does it require tasting menus with courses running into the double digits that invariably feature caviar and truffles and wagyu? Does it require multi-million dollar spaces with collectible original artworks? Does it require pressed white linens at every table?  No. No. No. Every meal featured on this list was exceptional, memorable, special. Some were indeed at posh tasting menu temples. Others were at izakayas and casual counters and tables. Some featured combinations I'd never encountered before. Others were iterations of recipes that are hundreds of years old. 

One thing I definitely notice – and this may be more indicative of how my own interests have started to skew, rather than any trend – is that many of them were driven by the ingredient itself, more so than any showy, multi-component presentation. I also notice something that is not ever gong to be captured in any picture or even any recap of a particular dish: so many of these meals were made that much more special by a kind, thoughtful gesture from a chef or server: squeezing us in for an early seating at the counter in a fully-booked restaurant, a final bite of an item I'd been longing for the entire night, a comical pantomime that transcends language barriers. There's one quote from Charlie Mitchell which I think nails something about the current AI-infected zeitgeist: "The value of real-life experiences is still high."

So yeah: maybe I too want great ingredients, great cooking, great ideas, and great hospitality, simpler, faster and more affordable. But even so, sometimes I do want to see a chef stretch his wings, take chances, maybe even just indulge. We don't need to kill fine dining to move forward – perhaps just be a little more expansive in what that phrase means.   

As always, a disclaimer: this does not purport to be a definitive “best of” list, only a very personal accounting of my favorite things over the last year. While this particular post follows my travels, the primary focus here is on South Florida. And there are typically way too many footnotes. A new one for this year: em-dashes notwithstanding, all content here is generated by an actual human who pays for all his meals. These first few rounds are going to be pretty Japan-intensive. If you don't like that, well I'm not sure we can be friends, but you can just scroll down a bit. 

nodoguro nigiri - Sushi Satake (Tokyo)

Chef Takeshi Satake spent 25+ years at Kyubey (which seems to be a particularly prolific training ground for Tokyo itamaes who go on to start their own places) before opening Sushi Satake in Ginza. While many omakase sushi progressions tend to go from lighter to richer neta, Satake does something different. When the rice first comes out and is still warm, he goes with the bigger flavors, and as the rice cools he moves to the more delicate ones. The pattern repeats over the meal as the rice is replenished. So after several rounds of otsumami, including a very nice eel nanbanzuke^[5] and a hearty, intense ankimo (monkfish liver) with nitsuke sauce, the first bite of nigiri was chu-toro (medium fatty tuna), followed by buri (winter yellowtail), then hirame (fluke), then hokkigai (surf clam). Then warm and rich again, with this nigiri of nodoguro (black-threat sea perch), a surprisingly lush, fatty white-fleshed fish, lightly torched to bring out those fats and slightly crisp the skin. It's one of my favorite fish and this was one of the best iterations I've ever tasted.

(All my pics from Sushi Satake).

shrimp bisque, taro croquette - Den Kushi Flori (Tokyo)

I really wanted to go to Den, which is a favorite of many smart folks whose opinions I trust. I also really wanted to go to Florilege, which is one of the top examples of French-influenced Japanese cooking in Tokyo. Turns out chefs Zaiyu Hasegawa (Den) and Hiroyasu Kawate (Florilege) opened a restaurant together! (Cue: Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell). Den Kushi Flori is the product of their combined efforts, with an 8-course tasting menu that features several things on skewers,^[6] served at a dining counter that wraps around a big open kitchen so chefs can bring dishes directly to the diners. This was a really fun and tasty meal, the vibe of which is encapsulated in this dish which combined a frothy, intensely-flavored shrimp bisque with a crispy-outside, creamy-inside taro croquette. A little French, a little Japanese, a little something on a stick, a lot delicious. Honorable mention to the shirasu (whitebait) rice topped with shirako (cod milt) bathed in an escargot-style garlic and parsley butter.

(All my pics from Den Kushi Flori).

dashi, crab cake, bamboo shoot - Gion Nishikawa (Kyoto)

Down a stone path in Kyoto's historical geisha district, just a couple blocks from Yasaka Shrine, in an old tea house, sits Gion Nishikawa. Chef Masayoshi Nishikawa and a small team work on one side of a hinoki counter, preparing a multi-course kaiseki dinner that features an encyclopedia of techniques and seasonal ingredients. Our February visit included fugu in multiple guises (its flesh paired with steamed turnips in a hollowed-out orange; slivers of its skin suspended in a jellied broth; creamy fugu shirako over rice with grated bottarga on top), delicate flounder sashimi with baby onions, ankimo in a rich nitsuke sauce with bear^[7] yakiniku, among other things. But my favorite was among the most elemental of the dishes: a bowl of clear dashi, with a fluffy crabcake and young bamboo shoots. Nishikawa brings in wild kombu from Hokkaido to make the dashi, but it's also precision and technique that make for a broth so clear and delicate while simultaneously so vivid and intense in flavor.

(All my pics from Gion Nishikawa).

sabazushi - Nominokoji Yamagishi (Kyoto)

Chef Takahiro Yamagishi's flagship, Tominokoji Yamagishi, has one of the highest Tabelog rankings^[8] of any Kyoto kaiseki restaurant. But the kaiseki experience is not for everyone, and not for every night, and there's only so many kaiseki meals I can do on one trip and stay married. So we instead went to his more casual izakaya, the similarly named Nominokoji Yamagishi. It was awesome. The seating is all around a counter facing an open kitchen. The menus are only in Japanese, and hand-written, and mostly just befuddled every translation app I had on my phone. The crew spoke virtually no English. We managed just fine. Pristine sashimi of tai and buri. Crispy fried fugu. A little mini-bowl of oden with braised daikon and yuba. A beautifully burnished, meaty grilled chicken wing. Creamy potato salad spiked with iburi gakko (smoked daikon pickles). Airy tempura spring onions. But what I had my eye on the whole meal was the sabazushi – pickled mackerel pressed over rice, which they would slice from a big roll and sear with binchotan charcoal to order. This is a word in Japanese that I know – it's one of my favorite dishes. I'd ordered it. It didn't come. I worried. Then – literally for a post-dessert, after bringing out the pudding – chef comes by and asks, "Sabazushi?" Yes, please. I have never felt more seen.

(All my pics from Nominokoji Yamagishi).

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The Best Things I Ate in 2025 (Remember 2025?) - South Florida

I don't know if anyone noticed, but there are only four months left in 2026. Maybe it's time that I actually dusted off and finished this "Best Things I Ate in 2025" post before another year goes by? Obviously, the mission here has never been to breathlessly gush about the latest openings, but this has clearly gotten a little out of hand. So here's my attempt to kick some life into this blog, and start to catch up.

There are some consequences to delay, and one of them is that some of the places that appear in this list are now gone. Itamae AO. Awarded a Michelin star, chef Nando Chang named James Beard Foundation Best Chef - South in 2025. Entrenos. Also awarded a Michelin star. Both closed in 2025. They each had their reasons, entirely unrelated to the quality of the food and experience. Nando's reincarnation of Itamae as an omakase counter inside sister Val Chang's wonderful restaurant Maty's (Val herself was named Beard's Best Chef - South the prior year) had to close when Maty's shut down last summer – likely a victim of a mismatch between concept and venue, a very large and probably very expensive space in Midtown Miami. And Entrenos was always intended as an impermanent pop-up inside the Tinta y Cafe space in Miami Shores. Since then, chef Osmel Gonzalez went north to open Emelina in West Palm Beach (which itself picked up a Michelin star this year), and now chef Evan Burgess is in process of opening a new restaurant, Yonder, in Coral Gables.

In retrospect, 2025 turned out to be a pretty brutal year for the industry. Longtime stalwarts like Cafe Vialetto, Osteria del Teatro, Sardinia, Sugarcane, La Mar, Le Zoo, and Harry's Pizzeria all appeared in the restaurant obituary columns. So did a bunch of big-name newcomers like New York's Red Farm and Ensenada, Henrique Sa Passoa's Sereia, and Gordon Ramsay's Lucky Cat. All opened in 2024, none made it through 2025. It's tempting to try to discern some broader lesson: Miami rents and operating costs are too high, the market is too oversaturated, Miami diners are too fickle. There is some truth to all of those. If anything, it seems to me to highlight the importance of controlling costs, connecting with the local dining community, and giving people reasons to keep coming back. One thing I note is that many of the restaurants from this 2025 list that are still standing are not in the high-rent hot-spots like Wynwood and Brickell, but instead places like Little Havana, North Miami, South Miami, Little River, and North Beach.

Despite the market's challenges, last year offered some of the most interesting, inspired cooking I've experienced in Miami in quite some time, much of it from a new generation of younger chefs who were opening their first restaurants. That's genuinely exciting. I also had the good fortune to travel, and eat, very well last year outside of Miami, including a return trip to Japan, and visits to Cape Town, Copenhagen, the Bay Area and Hudson Valley. As always, a disclaimer: this does not purport to be a definitive “best of” list, only a very personal accounting of my favorite things over the last year. It is South Florida focused, but follows me around as well when we travel. And there are typically way too many footnotes. A new one for this year: em-dashes notwithstanding, all content here is generated by an actual human who pays for all his meals. We're going to do things a little different this year – let's start with the South Florida list, and then do a second round with all the rest of the ground we covered last year. Let's get on with it!

stone crab rice - Itamae AO (Midtown Miami)

Way back in 2017, I went to a one-off pop-up dinner called "Nisei" with a young chef cooking a menu from a genre I was just then starting to grasp: nikkei, the mash-up of Peruvian and Japanese flavors that is a sort of organic example of "fusion" cuisine. The chef (and part-time hip-hop recording artist) was Nando Chang, who I continued to follow as he went from food-hall kiosks to a mostly open-air space in the Design District to the omakase counter he opened as Itamae AO. Every iteration was an improvement and refinement, and every meal was better than the last. This dish is a great example, bringing Florida into the Peruvian-Japanese mixtape: local stone crab, a claw draped with anticuchera sauce, sitting atop a bowl of creamy rice enriched with more crab, chile and herb oil. Unfortunately, this would turn out to be one of the last bites from my last meal at Itamae AO. Nando has been popping up here and there for collaboration dinners since the closing – I'm eagerly waiting for the next track to drop.

(All my pics from Itamae AO).

ballyhoo - Recoveco (South Miami)

There is such a confidence in the cooking of Maria Teresa Gallina and Nico Martinez, the co-chefs and partners who opened Recoveco, that it is hard to believe it is their first time running their own restaurant. The menu is short – typically four apps, four mains, two desserts. While operating within this self-circumscribed universe, it's also typically pretty weird: one of the staples is chicken-liver mousse over speculoos crackers dotted with tropical fruit jam (could be guava, maybe starfruit, depending on what's growing); what's called "papaya salad" is a mutant hybrid of Thai som tum and Italian (actually Mexican) Caesar. And when it's not weird, it's often pretty minimalist: another staple is their "golden chicken," an Amish bird simply but expertly roasted, maybe served with a piri piri buffalo sauce. But both concept and execution are so consistently, and uncannily, on target that this has become one of my favorite restaurants to visit. This dish of ballyhoo (typically used locally as baitfish, though it's of the same family as Japanese sayori, a/k/a halfbeak) is a great example: the shiny fish fileted, cured, and cut into bite-size pieces, dappled with a white soy and sweet potato vinegar ponzu, and accompanied by a dab of fresh wasabi. Nowhere to hide; no need to.

(All my pics from Recoveco).

snow crab, corn, uni & caviar chawanmushi - Omo by Jont (Orlando)

We took the Brightline north to spend a weekend in Orlando, which has long been a haven for excellent Vietnamese food, and has more recently made leaps and bounds in all sorts of other kinds of dining experiences. We have a lot more exploring to do, but on this visit the primary focus was Omo by Jont. Its chef is Ryan Ratino, who has the Michelin two-starred Jont and one-starred Bresca in Washington DC, opened MAASS in Fort Lauderdale in late 2023 (which appeared in my 2024 list, and picked up its own star last year), and then Omo a few months later (which also picked up a star last year). Normally I would be very skeptical of this expansionist approach. But from my experiences at MAASS and Omo, it seems Ratino has some good systems, and good crews, to maintain quality control across his multiple venues. Omo is a really nice experience: the meal starts in a cozy lounge area with several small bites, moves to a dining counter in the open kitchen for several more courses, then finishes with dessert in another little lounge area. Over maybe 18 different bites, there were no misses and several highlights, the most memorable being this chawanmushi with snow crab, sweet corn, Hokkaido uni and caviar.^[1]

(All my pics from Omo by Jont).

aori ika with osetra caviar - Ogawa (Little River Miami)

Miami has seen an influx of high-end omakase venues recently. Some of these are better than others. Ogawa, in Little River, is among my favorites. Over the past several years, restaurateur Alvaro Perez Miranda has opened several Japanese spots that hit multiple points of the market: the casual Wabi Sabi (now called Midorie 79, with a sibling in Coconut Grove), the somewhat higher-end Hiywakawa, and the all-out Ogawa. Given the price (currently $395, which includes tax and service charge), it is definitely a "special occasion" spot, while I'm at Midorie 79 nearly every other week. But in my opinion, it's worth it on those special occasions. The narrow dining room with one long counter, in a building that backs onto the railroad tracks, makes me feel like I'm back in Japan. And with chef Masayuki Komatsu behind the counter, usually accompanied by Royce Appling, and sometimes Jamie Liu in the kitchen, the food gives me those feels too. The dishes change with the seasons – during this spring visit, ayu (sweetfish) tempura, sayori (needlefish) nigiri, and sakura masu (cherry trout) nigiri were all featured – but one nigiri that seems to hold steady is this one featuring aori ika (big fin reef squid) topped with a generous dollop of osetra caviar. It's a great combination: the squid slightly sticky and sweet, playing against the pop and salinity of the roe. I'm not generally a fan of the intrusion of "luxe" ingredients into every pricey omakase lineup – save your caviar and truffles and wagyu and toro, give me something perfect and peak of season instead – but this one works.

(All my pics from Ogawa).

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The Best Things I Ate in 2021 (Round 2)

I know, I know. It's already April. "What are you doing posting a 'Best of 2021' list now?" Look: time is just a social construct. Stay up late. Eat breakfast for dinner. Publish your "year in review" posts in April. It's all fine.

After more than a year of being homebound, we finally began traveling again last summer, so this list does venture outside of South Florida. But my primary purpose in doing these posts is to highlight the interesting things happening in the Miami dining world of late. Because if we're not going to toot our own horns, who else is going to do it for us?^[1] There's a mix here of some old favorites and some new additions; not an attempt at a comprehensive survey, since I don't get around much any more lately, but rather just a set of personal preferences and predilictions. (If you missed it, here's Part 1.)

passionfruit tiramisu - Lil Deb's Oasis (Hudson, NY)

You know what else is fine? This passionfruit tiramisu we had at Lil Deb's Oasis in Hudson, New York. In July 2021, we did our first traveling in over a year. And as if to show just how out of practice I was, I forgot to bring my real camera, meaning I had to rely entirely on my iPhone for the whole trip. So forgive the wonky colors here, which, in my defense, are largely due to the magenta disco lights that adorn the bar at Lil Deb's. What an absolutely delightful place: friendly and welcoming to everyone (their unofficial slogan – "If U Gay, Perfect" – was coopted from a homophobic Yelp review), with a relaxed but energized house party feel that is a model for how hospitality can be done well in these weird times. And some really delicious, sometimes a bit wacky, food. I loved everything – the oddly compelling cabbage salad over crushed avocado with little crispy bits on top, the fermented lentil dosa with wild mushrooms, the lamb skewers with salsa verde and a dusting of cacao – but especially this fluffy, tangy passionfruit tiramisu enrobed in ginger-y mascarpone and topped with crunchy buckwheat.

(More pics from Lil Deb's Oasis)

cornmeal buttermilk pancake - West Taghkanic Diner (Hudson, NY)

The Hudson Valley is also home to the West Taghkanic Diner, which Kristopher Schram took over after spending years at some of Copenhagen's top restaurants (Relae, Manfreds, Bæst). You'd never guess the chef's pedigree from a look at the place, which remains a faithfully preserved mid-century diner. And the menu doesn't hint at much either. But everything is pretty outrageously delicious: the WTD hash of house-smoked pastrami and bacon burnt ends topped with fried eggs and pickled onions, the avocado toast with fresh cheese and toasted seeds. That "under-promise, over-deliver" ethos is embodied in a simple cornmeal pancake – fluffy as a pillow, crowned with a generous pat of good salted butter melting into crisp, browned little crags and gullies on the surface.

(More pics from West Taghkanic Diner)

warm crab pimento cheese dip - The Maker Café (Hudson, NY)

The Maker is a posh, restored hotel right on Warren Street, Hudson's main drag. In their downstairs café, we had a few things that were perfectly OK, but one dish that I keep thinking about is this plate of warmed, melty pimento cheese dip, generously studded with sweet, tender crabmeat. I'm not saying this is on par with the "discovery of a star," as Brillat-Savarin would put it; I'm just saying it really hit the spot.

(More pics from The Maker Café)

Butcher's Feast - Cote (Miami Design District)

Back home, we finally made our way to one of the many new imports from N.Y. that opened in Miami over the past year: Cote. As one who cheers for the hometown teams, I admit to having an inherent bias against all out-of-towners. But Cote overcame my skepticism. The concept behind Cote is to merge the sensibilities of Korean barbecue with a classic American steakhouse. The execution is even greater than the sum of the parts. The space is a looker, with a magenta-lit alien-spaceship entranceway a la early Alinea, a circular bar that draws you like a magnet, gold-rimmed ceramic charcoal grills at every table, and some sort of turbocharged ventilation system that keeps everything from getting smoky. The service is dialed in like a Swiss watch, somehow omnipresent and unnoticeable at the same time, with someone always ready to turn something on the grill, check on your drinks, or replenish your banchan. And the "Butcher's Feast" ($58 per person when we were there, now up to $64 but still a solid value) is a pretty perfect meal: a nice assortment of banchan, a shredded scallion salad in gochujang vinaigrette that you will compulsively eat without regard for your breath afterwards, four different cuts of prime and American wagyu beef, two different stews, a puffy egg souffle, and soft serve with soy sauce caramel for dessert. This place is doing everything right.

(More pics from Cote)

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The Best Things I Ate in 2020 (Bonus Round)

I originally thought I was going to keep this year's list of The Best Things I Ate in 2020 to 36 dishes over three posts (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) – enough is enough already, right? Can't we just be done with 2020? But in going back through my pictures, I realized that there were too many things I'd omitted that had brought me some happiness over the past doozy of a year. And the last thing we need to be doing right now is rationing happiness. So here's a Bonus Round of some old favorites and newcomers that have made this year a little better.

Takeout from Mignonette (Edgewater)

One of our favorite pre-pandemic "Happy Meals" would be to secure a perch at the counter at Mignonette, order a seafood tower, maybe a couple other things, and a bottle of something crisp and white. Those are the moments I miss, maybe even more than a long fancy tasting menu. So we'd sometimes do our best to recreate it at home: there were no freshly shucked oysters, but we could still bring home lobster deviled eggs, shrimp cocktail, and smoked fish dip, the fantastic Boston lettuce salad with buttermilk dressing, and maybe a conch po'boy. Mignonette's reopened for dinner service and is still doing takeout with online ordering. Save me a spot at the counter. (All my pictures from Mignonette).

It's Brisket B*tch Croissant - Flour & Weirdoughs (Key Biscayne)

You probably have to be at least a little bit crazy to get into the restaurant business. You are probably more than a little bit crazy to do it in the middle of a pandemic. But that's exactly when Flour & Weirdoughs opened their Key Biscayne bakery, where they make everything from organic flour all milled in-house. They do some delightful breads, including some unorthodox things like their Cacio e Pepe sourdough with pecorino cheese and black pepper or the special Chicharron Loaf studded with bits of crispy pork belly. But I was especially wowed by their croissants – not just because this particular version (the "It's Brisket B*tch") comes filled with smoked Montreal-style brisket, provolone cheese and grainy mustard – but because they were beautifully laminated, all golden-brown and flaky, leaving a mess of pastry shards in your lap when you're done, as a proper croissant should. (All my pictures from Flour & Weirdoughs).

Dumplings from Li's Dim Sum

Raymond Li made his imprint as executive chef at Palmar in Wynwood before jumping to El Cielo just a few months before COVID came along. So with the shutdown, he turned his attention to Li's Dim Sum, a father and son project with Ray Sr. Their dumplings are delicate, silky and flavorful, like these pork dumplings redolent of five-spice, and these vegan trumpet mushroom and watercress versions. Li's Dim Sum is available for pickup or delivery via their website. 

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The Best Things I Ate in 2020 (Part 3)

2020 may have been a generally lousy year, but we still ate well. Part 1 and Part 2 of The Best Things I Ate in 2020 are already up; here's Part 3. 

Avocado Tuna Bhel Puri - Ghee (Design District)

One small thing that did not suck about 2020 was that as a result of the COVID restrictions, one of my favorite local restaurants, Niven Patel's Ghee, began doing takeout. Alas, in August Niven closed the Design District location, though the original in Downtown Dadeland remains open and he's now opened Mamey in Coral Gables. In late July, we were happy to secure one last order of the wonderful avocado tuna bhel puri, an inspired dish that brings creamy avocado and glistening ruby cubes of raw tuna to the traditional chaat of puffed rice, sev and spices. (All my pictures from Ghee).

Tropical BBQ pop-up at All Day

If you're a long-time reader, you know that one of my all-time favorite Miami restaurants was Kris Wessel's Red Light, a wonderful, inspired, unpredictable spot in what was originally the Gold Dust Motel on Biscayne Boulevard.^[1] So when I saw that Kris was doing a pop-up tasting-menu dinner at All Day, and that they were offering it for takeout as well, I jumped on it. It brought back memories of Red Light,^[2]] featuring all sorts of local flavors with the occasional Creole twist: yellowtail, smoked and cured, with cassava chips and pickled okra; a delicate tart of coconut butter poached blue crab; conch stuffed chayote with a creole pepper stew; tilefish with a sour orange glaze, boniato and calalloo; duck with a sapodilla glaze and a calabaza cashew hash. Rather than a single dish, it was the sum total of it all that made it so memorable. (All my pictures from the Tropical BBQ Pop-Up).

Rotisserie Chicken - Lil' Laos

I feel like I've been chasing Lil' Laos around Miami all year. The Laotian pop-up from partners Sakhone Sayareth and Curtis Rhodes (who had previously been chef at Café Roval, River Oyster Bar and Oak Tavern) was at Sixty10 in Little Haiti for a little while; then they did a residency at Fooq's downtown; now they've  found a more permanent home at The Citadel food hall. Wherever they've been, the food has been excellent. Laotian cuisine bears lots of similarities to Thai cuisine, but the spice and flavor profiles are different in ways I can taste but have trouble nailing down. In any event: Lil' Laos stuff is delicious, especially the charcoal roasted rotisserie chicken, served with papaya salad, sticky rice, and a delicate, soothing tinola soup (which I thought was Filipino, but whatever). (All my pictures from Lil' Laos).

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The Best Things I Ate in 2020 (Part 2)

My last post, Part 1 of The Best Things I Ate in 2020, began in a blissful time before a virus turned the world upside and vigorously shook it. Restaurant meals! Tasting menus! Travel! Things I always appreciated, but also kind of took for granted. Not any more. It's been a crazy, brutal year. In the restaurant world, there have been some unfortunate losses along the way, but I've actually been surprised and gratified by how many places have somehow been able to weather this long, extended storm. Part 2 of this list picks up in the early phases of the pandemic, when shutdown orders limited all restaurants to takeout and delivery only. 

pork chops and polenta @ home

With restaurants basically shut down, we found ourselves doing a lot more cooking at home. We also found ourselves with the opportunity to work with much better product than we were accustomed to, despite the shutdown. Restaurants started selling staples and straight-from-the-farm produce, restaurant suppliers started selling direct to individual customers, shops like Proper Sausages starting offering delivery options. The end result? A home-cooked dinner that takes a village: porchetta-spiced Proper pork chops rubbed with fennel, rosemary, garlic and lemon and dusted with fennel pollen, Moretti polenta from the Boia De larder cooked in mushroom broth, locally grown Paradise Farms oyster mushrooms via the All Day grocery, brined local tomatoes from Chef Jeremiah. I don't know that my cooking skills got any better, but the materials I could work with sure did.

Midday Snack - El Bagel (Upper Eastside)

After a very successful run of selling their excellent, chewy, crusty bagels at pop-ups and from a food truck for years, El Bagel took the big step of graduating to a brick and mortar location in the MiMo District – opening in early March, just in time for the shutdown. Rotten luck, but they executed their pivot quickly and effectively. They're now open Thursday through Monday from 8am to noon for takeout only, with all ordering done online and pickup times given via text notice. Between the easy ordering and geographical proximity, this has worked out incredibly conveniently for me: over the past nine months, my receipts indicate that Family Frod has consumed nearly twenty dozen El Bagel bagels.^[1] I usually just get a dozen plus some cream cheeses and lox, but occasionally I'll get one of their prepared sandwiches. My current favorite is this "Midday Snack," with lox cream cheese, thinly sliced ringlets of red onion, and chives, served open-faced as God intended, and best with an addition of smoked trout roe when available. (All my pictures from El Bagel).

pastrami sandwich - Hometown Barbecue (Allapattah)

I didn't need a pandemic to remind me how much I love sandwiches – I actually wrote on the subject late last year for Edible South Florida – but 2020 did turn out to be pretty sandwich-intensive. One of my favorites was this simple, perfect pastrami sandwich from Hometown Barbecue, which opened in Allapattah last fall. Don't try to trace the spiral path of a pastrami sandwich served at a Texas-style BBQ spot opened in a wholesale produce distribution center in Miami by a Brooklyn restaurateur. Just enjoy. (All my pictures from Hometown Barbecue).

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What's Next?

I was very grateful to have been asked to participate in a Facebook Live discussion on “Check Please! South Florida” earlier this week with host Michelle Bernstein, Palm Beach chef Lindsay Autry, and Fort Lauderdale food writer Mike Mayo, to talk about the future of the South Florida restaurant industry in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to all who joined us live; if you missed it and want to watch, I've embedded it above and you can find it here: “Check Please! Conversation with Michelle Bernstein."^[1]

I wrote down a lot of notes in preparation for the talk, and thought it would be worth sharing and expanding on some of those here. Many of these thoughts will not be anything new if you've been following the effect of this crisis on the restaurant world and food supply chains. But as we reach an inflection point – this week Miami-Dade County began the process of lifting “shelter in place” orders and authorized restaurants to reopen with limited capacity – it seemed a good time to think about where we’ve been and what’s to come.

THE RESILIENCE AND COMMUNITY MINDEDNESS OF THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY:

Let me start by saying how much I admire the resilience, the resourcefulness, the perseverance, and the care for their employees, their customers, and the community at large displayed by so many chefs and restaurant operators. When this crisis and shutdown hit, the immediate reaction from so many of the folks I know was to help: to try to take care of the employees they had to lay off as best they could, and then to provide meals and groceries for first responders, laid off workers, and anyone in the community who might be struggling to find a meal.

I do business bankruptcies for a living, and in my career have never seen a greater challenge – not just because of the shutdown, but because of the uncertainty of what comes next. To be looking to help others, while the businesses they’ve spent years of hard work and money building are facing a genuinely existential threat, is a truly remarkable response, but one that seems to come naturally to so many who have chosen this path.

(continued ...)

Miami Restaurants Doing Takeout / Delivery During the Coronavirus Shutdown

Hope everyone's staying safe and healthy. Since many have asked, here's a quick and incomplete list of Miami restaurants that are offering takeout, delivery, prepared meals, cooking kits, groceries, fresh produce, wine and cocktails as we shelter in place during the coronavirus shutdown. If there's something good that's been left out, let me know. If there's an option to order directly from the restaurant, keep in mind this will save the restaurant substantial commissions that the delivery services charge them.

Some other lists that you can check:

Miami Eats (courtesy of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau)

Curbside Miami (handy spreadsheet format, sortable by neighborhood or any other field)

Infatuation Miami Neighborhood Takeout and Delivery Guide (organized by neighborhood)

Edible South Florida with a map of South Florida restaurants open for takeout and delivery, and a list of places to buy fresh produce.

Downtown Development Authority list of Downtown Miami restaurants doing takeout and delivery, with another list of participants in its "Go Local Program" (10% off if you order direct from the restaurant).

--------- THE LIST (updated 5.9.2020)

Now organized by neighborhood!

Aventura / North Miami Beach:

Captain Jim's (North Miami) doing takeout 12-6pm, call 305.892.2812 to order.

Hadekel 1 (North Miami Beach) doing takeout and delivery, order through the website.

Houston's (North Miami Beach) open for take-out with curbside pickup, order through the website.

Bal Harbour / Surfside:

Josh's Deli (Surfside) open Fri-Sun for takeout, pre-order for pickup, menu on Instagram.

Hillstone (Bal Harbour) open for take-out with curbside pickup (and delivery at Bal Harbour), order through the website.

Makoto (Bal Harbour) open for takeout and delivery 12-8pm, order through the website.

Surf Club (Surfside) is doing take-out of a three-course family meal for $29pp, menu changes daily, check menu and order through their Tock website.

Buena Vista / MiMo District / Little Haiti:

Blue Collar (MiMo District) starting takeout / delivery Tuesday 3/24, order through their website.

Boia De (Buena Vista) doing take-out  and delivery 12-8pm  with pickup through the ventanita, order through their website.

Dogma Grill (MiMo District) open for takeout 12-8pm, call 305.759.3433 to order.

El Bagel (MiMo District) doing pickup only with online ordering at El-bagel.com (closed Tu-We).

Lil Laos (Little Haiti) popping up Saturday and Sunday 5/2-5/3 at Sixty10, check IG for details.

Luna Pasta e Dolci (MiMo District) open for takeout plus pasta kits, order through their website.

Mandolin Aegean Bistro (Buena Vista) reopening for takeout Tues. 4/28, order through their website.

Ms. Cheezious (MiMo District) taking online orders for takeout on their website or delivery through the usual suspects.

Phuc Yea (MiMo District) doing curbside takeout / delivery direct through their website starting at 6pm, use Corona10 for 10% discount.

Pinch Kitchen (MiMo District - ish) open for take-out, curbside pick-up and delivery 11:30am-9pm.

Sixty10 (Little Haiti) doing takeout / delivery 11am-8pm.

Sottosale (MiMo District) doing takeout through dedicated website or call 786.634.1005.

(continued ...)

favorite dishes of 2019: miami version

More lists! I already spilled nearly 5,000 words in my last post recounting the decade of dining in Miami. I'll try not to do that for another ten years. But this one is an annual tradition: the best things I ate over the past year. I've always made clear that this in no way purports to be any sort of definitive "best of" type of list, but is based solely on my own personal experiences and as a result is heavily influenced by my own preferences and proclivities.^[1] Something new for 2019: rather than throw them all in a bucket together,^[2] I've made one list of the best things I ate in Miami, and another for the best things I ate everywhere else. These appear in chronological order.

unagi shirayaki - Hiden

For a while, Miami was behind the curve on the trend of high-end, omakase-only sushi dens that have overtaken New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. We're catching up with places like Hiden, which opened in mid-2018 but which I didn't manage to book until January of this year. Hiden is an intimate eight-seat sushi counter hidden away in a private room in the back of the Taco Stand in Wynwood, serving a chef's choice menu of about a dozen courses of sushi and other raw and cooked things for, as of press time, $170 before tax and tip. It was excellent when I visited with chef Tadashi Shiraishi running the show, but he left in a split with ownership the following month and I've not been back. My favorite bite among many very good ones was this unagi shirayaki (grilled freshwater eel), seasoned only with salt and a dab of fresh wasabi rather than the typical sweet tare.

(See all my pictures in this Hiden flickr set).

(continued ...)

Miami's restaurants that defined the decade

It's nearly the end of the year – the end of a decade on top of that – which means it's a time for taking stock, for somber reflection ... and for posting lists. Yes, everyone hates lists, but here's the thing: everyone actually loves lists. A good list, anyway. Not the clickbait-y ones posted by uninformed bozos of places they haven't even visited and only read about on Yelp. But one that gathers a year, or a decade, of actual personal experience and tries to put it all in some kind of context? That could be a good list. And personally, anyway, I find these end of year rituals give me an opportunity to think about and say some things that I never found the time for over the past year.

This one, in particular, was inspired by a twitter post from Paolo Lucchesi, currently editorial director at Resy and before that the Food and Wine Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, which in turn was inspired by one from Jeff Gordiner (Food and Drinks Editor at Esquire):

This is a fun thought exercise/bar argument.

What about the Bay Area? What are the (12?) restaurants that opened since 2010 that defined this decade of eating in the Bay Area? https://t.co/X1StDbFTAh

— Paolo Lucchesi (@lucchesi) December 6, 2019

So: what about Miami? (hat tip to Charlie Crespo, who asked that exact question).

When I started considering the answer to that question, one of the first things I realized was what an incredibly fruitful time the years immediately before 2010 were for the Miami restaurant world. Michelle Bernstein won a Beard Award in 2008 for her work at Michy's, which had opened two years earlier in the Upper East Side / MiMo District back when it was still a hotbed for motels-by-the-hour and those who patronize them. She also opened Sra. Martinez in 2008, providing a showcase for cocktail maestro Julio Cabrera as well as a bunch of dishes I still miss (R.I.P. uni panini, crispy artichokes, eggplant and honey, white bean and butifarra stew). Michael Schwartz opened Michael's Genuine in 2007 in the then very sleepy Design District, and picked up his own Beard Award two years after Michelle. Kris Wessel opened the wonderful, quirky Red Light back in 2008, where my family spent countless evenings at the counter (R.I.P. barbecue shrimp, oyster pie, roast quail). Kevin Cory opened the original Sunny Isles location of NAOE in 2009 and blew my my mind open with a bento box that was like a kaiseki dinner in miniature for $26, followed by the best sushi Miami had ever seen. Richard Hales opened Sakaya Kitchen in 2009, an early harbinger of the recent trend of chefs with high-end backgrounds doing the fast-casual thing. Add Bourbon Steak (2008), Scarpetta (2008) and Hakkasan (2009) to that list, among others I'm surely forgetting, and the end of the last decade was a pretty good era for Miami dining.

The next thing I realized was that I was going to need a bigger list. While I instinctively had some thoughts as to which restaurants "defined the decade" of dining in Miami, I needed to reconstruct the timeline to figure out which of those opened 2010 or after, and also see if there were others that I'd overlooked. After consulting the archives, there was a long list of more than forty potential candidates, from which I chose the dozen that to my mind best fit the bill. That selection process is pretty arbitrary, but includes consideration of how much that restaurant reflected or predicted local and national dining trends, as well as popularity and staying power.^[1]

So, in chronological order below is my list of the twelve restaurants that opened since 2010 that defined Miami dining over the past decade, with brief explanations. I've also included other notable openings year by year, for the sake of posterity and context, with some occasional additional notes as well.^[2]

1. Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill (2010)

Small plates? Check. "Dishes will come out as they're ready"? Check. Sushi, a globally inspired mix of tapas, and a French bistro style roasted chicken, all on the same menu? Check. Sugarcane, which opened in January 2010, embodied much of the experience of dining in Miami over the past decade. For better or worse, some might say, but I will say this: while Sugarcane has evolved into more of a "crowd-pleaser" over the years,^[3] when it first opened chef Timon Balloo was doing some fun, delicious exciting stuff – I still crave that crispy tripe with Brussels sprout kimchi. The kicker: Timon is closing out 2019 with the opening of a small, intimate space that features a deeply personal menu at Balloo: Modern Home Cooking. It's the kind of food I always wished he would do, and a place I hope we're talking about through the next decade. (Here are my thoughts on Sugarcane from back in the day).

(continued ...)

a decade of cobaya

It was exactly ten years ago to the day that Steven (a/k/a Chowfather), Steve (a/k/a Blind
Mind) and I hosted our first Cobaya "underground" dinner. Those were interesting times. Following the financial crisis of 2007-08, the food world seemed to be at something of an inflection point. Chefs like David Chang were pulling the chair out from the pretensions of fine dining and replacing it with a hard, backless stool in front of the kitchen counter at Momofuku Ko. Food trucks were a big thing, where aspiring restaurateurs could pursue their dreams without the big capital outlay required for a brick-and-mortar build-out. The hegemony that newspapers exercised over public discourse on restaurants was being undermined from one side by Yelp, and from the other by these things called "blogs" where anyone with some rudimentary knowledge of how to operate a computer could publish their thoughts to the internet. Many would do so with actual thoughtfulness and insight, and often with a side of snark.^[1] Instagram didn't even exist yet.

Locally, Michelle Bernstein and Michael Schwartz were the queen and king, respectively, of Miami dining, with bookend Beard Awards to prove it (Michelle won Best Chef: South in 2008, Michael won the same award in 2010).^[2] Since then, Michael's opened more restaurants than I can count,^[3] while Michelle took a different direction; she recently opened Cafe La Trova on Calle Ocho with cantinero and longtime compadre Julio Cabrera (recently named Tales of the Cocktail's Bartender of the Year), and continues to run a high-end catering operation, but these days you're equally likely to see her on T.V., hosting "Check, Please!" or "SoFlo Taste," as in a restaurant kitchen. Good for her; it's a crazy life. Meanwhile, back in 2009, many of those who are now among Miami dining's most prominent names were still sharpening their knives: to name just a few, Brad Kilgore was working his way through some of Chicago's top kitchens, Zak Stern (a/k/a Zak the Baker) was traipsing around Europe, making cheese, herding goats, and occasionally baking bread at my kids' summer camp, Jose Mendin was still a year away from opening the original PubBelly.

It was a long time ago – longer than the lifespan of most restaurants.

I've told the Cobaya origin story many times when folks ask, "How did you start doing this?", but never written it down. Many of you have probably heard it before. The whole thing started in the valet circle of a Sunny Isles hotel. A couple chefs, Kurtis Jantz and Chad Galiano, had cobbled together a group of "food-focused locals" to be their focus group for a new restaurant concept. They'd found most of us online, probably primarily via Chowhound, which back in the day actually hosted a somewhat lively food discussion on its boards. That was how most of us knew each other as well, though a few of us had met in person. As the Steves and I were waiting for our cars at the end of the evening, we started talking about the then-current trend of "underground dining" groups.

Two questions triggered it: "Why not here?" And then: "Why not us?" And just like that, we decided to do it ourselves. We posted something on a Google message board that I'd used to organize a few other get-togethers,^[4] started a website, and posted a mission statement:

The goal here is a very simple one - to get talented chefs to cook great, interesting, creative meals for an audience of adventurous, open-minded diners. That may happen inside a restaurant, it may happen outside of one. It may be a multi-course tasting menu, it may be a family-style whole hog dinner (here's hoping). For those who question the "underground" street cred of this mission, those questions are perfectly legitimate. My answer is, "I don't care." We're not limiting ourselves to meals cooked in abandoned warehouses in secret locations disclosed the day before the dinner; we're also not limiting ourselves to white tablecloths and silverware changed between every course. We're very open-minded that way: all that matters is if the food is good, and we think there's enough similar-minded folks to make that game plan sustainable.

Every invitation comes with a disclaimer: there is no "menu". There are no choices. You'll be eating what the chef chooses to make for the night. If you have food related allergies, strict dietary requirements, religious restrictions; are salt sensitive, vegetarian, pescatarian, or vegan; don't like your meat cooked medium rare, or are pregnant: this meal is probably not for you. Do not expect white-glove service. Don't ask for your sauce on the side. Just come and enjoy.^[5]

Truth is, we hadn't quite honed our modus operandi yet – we let everyone know the restaurant that it was going to be at, and a preview menu got posted a couple days in advance – but the basic idea was that the chefs were going to get to cook whatever they wanted and the folks who showed up would get to eat it. We had no idea what kind of reaction it would get, but we wound up with a group of sixteen who wanted in.

On August 4, 2009, we hosted our first "Cobaya" dinner at Talula. Andrea Curto-Randazzo was the chef, along with her then sous chef, Kyle Foster.^[6] It is still one of my favorite Cobaya meals, and I still pine for that tripe risotto.

What we found out is that there was actually tremendous demand in Miami for this kind of thing. We announced our next event a couple months later, and got so many responses that we added a second seating for the following night. Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog wound up doing two rounds of seven courses for 36 diners in a penthouse suite in Midtown Miami. I brought Frod Jr., who was 12 years old at the time, along to one of those, and he still remembers Jeremiah offering him a cigar and a beer as we hung out on the balcony post-service.^[7]

Since then, we've put on a total of 77 of these "experiments." We've worked with some of Miami's most highly regarded chefs,^[8] an even greater number of skilled and creative but less-celebrated talents, and the occasional visitor from places further afield.^[9] We've had Andrew Zimmern join us for a dinner, which wound up being featured on his show "Bizarre Foods America,"^[10] and then later cook for us at a couple events we co-hosted with the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. We've eaten with our hands at "kamayan" Filipino feasts in fancy South Beach restaurants, and we've eaten at a backyard farm in Homestead.

We've been served pig's heads, lamb's heads, goat's heads, pig's brains, veal brains, pig skin noodles, lamb's livers, rabbit's livers, beef tendon chicharrones, sweetbreads, duck testicles, mushroom dinuguan, morcilla toast, beef heart tartare, grasshoppers, silkworms, waterbugs, ant eggs, abalone, geoduck, turtle, blowfish, suckling pigs and smoking cows and kangaroo and rabbit and venison and goat, not nearly enough tripe, and enough foie gras to stuff a flock of geese. We haven't actually had guinea pig yet, unless you want to count a guinea hen stuffed with pig (a noble effort). We've had a dinner with truffles for every course, and another where we drank liquors from the 1950's-1970's with every course, and another – Cobayapalooza! – with seven different chefs for each course.

We've had roughly a thousand different people attend our experiments, and now routinely have to deal with the fortunate but nonetheless demanding challenge of receiving 250-350 requests for the 25-35 spots we typically have available for each of these events. We've spent a lot of time and effort trying to find ways to handle those requests fairly and in a way that maximizes the most people's opportunity to join us, while also making sure we can timely fill the spots that we have.^[11]

Through it all, we've remained faithful to that mission statement, encapsulated in that first sentence: "The goal here is a very simple one - to get talented chefs to cook great, interesting, creative meals for an audience of adventurous, open-minded diners." I feel very fortunate to have been able to do exactly that for the past ten years, and to meet and eat with so many wonderful people along the way. Thanks for your support.

^[1] R.I.P. "Eat Me Daily."

^[2] No South Florida chef has won the award since 2010, though I think Miami can still claim as one of its own the wonderful Nina Compton, 2018's winner for her New Orleans restaurant Compere Lapin.

^[3] Let me try from memory, without cheating: Michael's Genuine, Harry's Pizza, Ella, Genuine Pizzas in Coconut Grove, Atlanta, and Cleveland (?), Amara at Paraiso, Tigertail & Mary, and Traymore at the Como. (edited to add: I was close. The Atlanta Genuine Pizza closed but there's the original Harry's in the Design District plus Coconut Grove, Aventura, and Dadeland; and it's a Michael's Genuine that recently opened in Cleveland, not a Genuine Pizza. And while I thought Schwartz was no longer affiliated with Fi'lia because of a split with SBE, it's still included on the Genuine Kitchen website?). (edited again to add: so literally a day after I posted this, Schwartz announced he's closing the Dadeland Harry's. I guess I wasn't the only one not paying attention.)

^[4] Again reflecting the centrality of Chowhound back then, we called these events "chowdowns," as they did on the other Chowhound regional boards, and I wound up with the idiotic "miamichowdown" email address that I still use for food-related things.

^[5] Some of this was unapologetically stolen from an event announcement from Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, who should probably see if he knows any lawyers he can talk to.

^[6] Talula closed the following year, and it is still one of my all-time favorite Miami restaurants. Andrea continues to run Creative Tastes Catering with her chef husband Frank Randazzo. Kyle moved to Denver, where he's chef-owner of Julep. Kyle made some of the best offal dishes I've ever had, and I'm glad he's continuing that work at the Southern-inspired Julep, where the menu includes scrapple fries, chicken tail skewers, and rocky mountain oysters rockefeller. Another name you might recognize from the Talula kitchen: the outstanding pastry chef Antonio Bachour, though I think by the time of our dinner there he'd already moved across the street to work at the W South Beach.

^[7] Another great connection from that dinner: the owner of the Midtown Miami condo that hosted our dinner ran a digital design company. One of their web developers was at the event and struck up a friendship with Jeremiah, then began working for him on the side, and ultimately wound up devoting himself full-time to the food business. Steve Santana – a/k/a @SliceDiceCode – now runs Taquiza, making the best tortillas in Miami, with locations in South Beach, North Beach and at The Citadel. I'd like to think that Cobaya can claim at least a small measure of responsibility for advancing Miami's taco game.

^[8] A special acknowledgment here needs to go to Michelle Bernstein, who agreed to do a dinner with us back in 2011, when we'd been at it less than two years and hosted less than a dozen of these things.

^[9] Sometimes when I look back at the list of experiments, I'm still flabbergasted by the names I see there: Bernstein, Schwartz, Norman Van Aken (a longtime culinary idol of mine), Nina Compton, Andrew Carmellini, Francis Mallmann, Carlo Mirarchi, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske, Justin Smillie, Katsuya Fukushima, Alex Talbot. What a thrill it's been to be able to approach these people and just say: "Cook for us."

^[10] Zimmern gave a nickname to the sous chef working that dinner at Azul: "Wall Street," for his hair, which he wore slicked back, Gordon Gekko style. "Wall Street" no longer wears his hair slicked back, but found his way to success: Brad Kilgore now heads up Alter, Brava, Kaido and Ember.

^[11] It continues to be a perennial problem that people ask for spots and then don't book them, so that we're always left to back-fill from the wait-list. When I hear restaurateurs complain about reservation no-shows, I listen with complete empathy.