Thursday, June 4, 2009

Slàinte! Artisan Scotch Dinner @ Neomi's

Scotch barrelsIn follow up to the "Great Whisk(e)y Debate" a couple months ago, Neomi's Grill in Sunny Isles will be doing an Artisan Scotch Dinner on June 25 in conjunction with Cellars Warehouse. The event features five courses of food pairings to go with selections from two independent bottlers of single malt Scotch whiskeys, Gordon & MacPhail and Signatory.

For more than a century, Gordon & MacPhail have been buying whiskeys directly from Scottish distilleries, aging them in cask and bottling them when determined to be at their best. Though they are only bringing four examples to the party, their inventory includes more than 450 of their own-bottled single malts, ranging from 5 to 60 years old. Signatory likewise is an independent bottler, producing what it calls "single, single, single malts" - bottlings from a single distillery, only particular distillations or batches from that distillery, and bottling only one cask at a time from those selections. There's a good rundown of a Signatory tasting on this Chowhound thread.

The menu, listed below, features several courses, each designed to pair with a particular whiskey (no doubt after much sampling in the kitchen).


‘warm ups’
foie gras, 85% chocolate, granola crunch
spinach pakora, curried raita
st. andre fondue, rye crisps
jamon iberico, sweet corn, almond

Benromach Traditional, Speyside, Gordon & Macphail

bbq’d copper salmon
ginger pickled daikon, toasted nori
honshemiji, wasabi froth, barley sushi rice, oyster emulsion

Laphroaig 7 year old, Islay, Signatory

malt duck
accents of fennel, drambuie, vanilla, citrus, soft herbs

Smith’s Glenlivet 21 year old, Speyside, Gordon & Macphail

arugula & watercress
‘brown butter’scotch, shropshire blue cheese
scotch quail eggs, grilled orange vinaigrette

Tullibardine Vintage 1993, Highlands, Signatory

wagyu & tatties[*]
low smoked brisket, black garlic, sea salted Kennebec potatoes
25 yr. scotch + 25 yr. sherry vinegar = glace de viande

Strathisla 25 year old, Speyside, Gordon & Macphail

cocoa & oats
honey almond sable, coffee-vanilla toffee, chocolate cremoso
oatmeal caramel & streusel, scotch air

Dunkeld Atholl Brose, Speyside, Gordon & Macphail



Festivities start at 6:30 pm with dinner starting at 7:00 pm. The price is $85, tax and service included.

Scotch Dinner

Trump International Beach Resort
18001 Collins Avenue
305.692.5770


[*]What gives? Everyone knows those tatties should come with neeps.



Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Miami Pizza Crawl - Part II

Part I of the Miami Pizza Showdown was a rousing success, with visits to Joey's Wynwood, Pizzavolante and Andiamo reported on here, as well on Mango & Lime and Miami Dish, and this Chowhound thread. The sequel is now being released.

The northern expedition of Miami Pizza Crawl Part II (a/k/a the Return of the Pizza Crawl) will convene this Sunday, June 7, at 6:00 p.m. at Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza in Aventura, and then move to Pizza Fusion, and conclude at Racks Italian Bistro. Thanks to Paula of Mango & Lime for playing coordinator this time around.

If you want to come along, please join the Miami Chowdown Google Group and RSVP on the "Pizza Crawl Part II" thread. Hope to see you there.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Brosia Closing in Design District

Just received word that Brosia, which opened a little more than a year ago in the Miami Design District, has closed. Supposedly the restaurant is being sold, though not clear exactly what the buyer has in store. Another one down.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Au Pied de Cochon - South Beach - First Look

[Sorry, this restaurant has closed]

Au Pied de Cochon The original Au Pied de Cochon was opened in Paris shortly after the conclusion of World War II. Its owner was a pork butcher in Les Halles market, who wanted someplace to feed his staff when they came off their shifts. Since that was often early in the morning, the restaurant was open 24 hours a day. The restaurant endeavored to serve all of Paris' social classes, from aristocrats to butchers, with simple traditional French fare. Though Les Halles market has since been moved to the outskirts of Paris, Au Pied de Cochon remains, and supposedly has never closed its doors (indeed, the story is that there are no keys).

The Miami Au Pied de Cochon just opened its doors this past Friday evening, in an old Art Deco building a block down the street from Joe's Stone Crab. Mrs. F tells me this was a pretty decrepit building previously, and since I don't remember it, I have to believe her. It looks quite nice from the street now, and inside it's done up in typical Parisian brasserie style, with long banquettes with brass-railed glass partitions and lots of red leather on the seating surfaces. It's a somewhat peculiar layout - some might say cozy, others slightly claustrophobic. The main dining room space is sort of chopped up by a long banquette, there is a large curved bar in the middle and directly across from it a big seafood case stacked with oysters, lobsters, crabs and big head-on shrimp, and then more seating to the far side of the bar. Piggie motifs abound, from the pink pig vases on the tables to the pig imprints around the bar to the murals painted on the walls.

When we arrived early Saturday evening the staff (which is a small army) were still getting briefed and ready for service, though there were a couple tables already being seated. We settled in at the bar, where they had a short list of wines by the glass (they plan to expand it) and, surprisingly, no cocktails menu. Since this is de rigeur on South Beach these days (along with the $15+ price tags), I'm sure it will come soon. Meanwhile, Campari and soda and a Makers' Mark old-fashioned were about $10 per. It was only after I'd ordered my drink that I saw them setting up an old-fashioned absinthe drip on the bar.

The menu reads like a lengthy greatest hits list of French brasserie cuisine - the well-stocked seafood bar (with items available either by the piece or in plateaus of various degrees of extravagance), terrine of foie gras, escargots, onion soup gratinée, steak tartare, bouillabaisse, duck confit, braised veal cheek, rack of lamb, several prime aged steaks ... and making a decision was not easy. Even though I've got no French roots and indeed only spent very limited time in France, there's something oddly reassuring and comforting about this kind of traditional line-up. Mrs. F stuck with apps and went with a smoked salmon platter, followed by steamed mussels; I had the "Perigord salad," followed by the namesake pig's trotter.

Before our appetizers were delivered, we were each brought a nice, warm, crusty baguette, tucked into a little wax paper bag, along with a little ramekin of creamy salted butter. So far so good. The Perigord salad was a garden variety mix of soft-leafed lettuces, with slivers of smoked magret (duck breast), several croutons topped with foie gras, toasted nuts, and grapes, dressed in a walnut oil vinaigrette. This is how to get me to eat a salad. They were very generous with the smoked duck and foie croutons (about five long thin slices of toasted brioche, topped with thin slices of foie gras terrine). Unfortunately, some tomatoes that someone had gone to the trouble of fileting (cutting off the seed pod and leaving just the "flesh") were unripe and rock hard. It could have stood some perkier lettuce as well. I'm also partial to the traditional addition of green beans, but that's just a matter of personal preference.

The smoked salmon appetizer was brought out on a long narrow platter and looked like it was practically an entire side of salmon, served with the traditional accompaniments of chopped hard-cooked egg yolk and white, capers, and diced onion, along with a couple of blini. As Mrs. F was starting to dig in, one of the service staff was unhappy with how she was going about it and offered to "prepare" it for her; intrigued, Mrs. F accepted his offer, and he set up a tray next to our table and dressed the salmon with all of its accoutrements, a charming gesture. It was good salmon and a remarkably generous portion, though the blini were unusually fat and doughy, almost more like crumpets.

Mrs. F's steamed Prince Edward Island mussels, done simply in white wine and herbs, were again a massive portion for an appetizer, brought out in a big cast-iron pot. This seemed like a 1-kilo serving, and the mollusks were fresh and briney, though I prefer the daintier Mediterranean mussels to the fatter PEI's.

The pièce de résistance was the namesake pig's trotter, again a massive portion including not just the foot but pretty much the entire next joint of shank as well, given a very light coating of bread crumb, and laden with all the slightly mysterious textures of which pig is capable - crispy skin, tender shreds-with-a-fork meat, rich fat, gooey gelatinous bits. This is not for anyone who doesn't like to work some for their dinner, as it requires a good bit of picking among various knuckle-bones and other inedible bits, but for aficionados of the porcine, it's all worth it. It also is not for those seeking a lean, low-fat piece of pork tenderloin. Let me put it this way - when a dip in the béarnaise sauce (just slightly overthick in texture, but nicely spiked with tarragon vinegar and herbs) cuts the richness of a dish, that's a bit of a heavy meal. I came nowhere close to finishing this, but happily brought it home and chopped up the remaining meat and other bits to have with some eggs and toast this morning. I wonder if there's any chance they will bring to Miami La Tentation de Saint-Antoine, a pigalicious fest of trotter, snout, ear and tail served at the original Parisian outpost.

The accompanying fries were a bit skinnier than I'm accustomed to at French and Belgian places, and also a bit soggier. These could use some refinement, though Mrs. F and I still managed to finish most of them off (they were awfully good dipped in the béarnaise).

Though we didn't need anything more, I felt obligated to try a dessert, and we split a crème brûlée. Again, this was not an easy choice, with lots of other French classics on the menu - ile flottante, crêpes flambeed with Grand Marnier, warm chocolate timable, apple tart, Grand Marnier souffle ... I'm certainly glad we ordered only one dessert, as this was a massive portion - usually served in a small ramekin, this crème brûlée came in something more akin to a trough, nearly a foot across. The burnt sugar topping was nicely crispy, but the custard base was almost too soft and quivery, feeling slightly underdone.

The wine selections were fairly limited but decent, with about 8 bubblies, a few Rosés, about 15 whites (with one French representative from each of Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhône, Loire and Alsace and the remainder from the rest of the globe) and about 30 reds (roughly half from France, and those mostly Bordeaux and Rhône). Prices range from $30s to upwards of $100 and most markups appear to be in the range of a 2x to 2.5x retail. One frustration is that vintages are not listed on the menu, though I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Vidal-Fleury Gigondas we ordered was a 2000 with some bottle age on it (this appears to be a late release from the winery).

Service belied both South Beach and French stereotypes, and was warm, friendly, solicitous and helpful. Everyone there seemed to know the menu well, and was eager to make recommendations. For only having been open one day, they seemed to be running pretty smoothly, and we had no notable service issues. There's also many old-school French touches like tableside preparations on several of the dishes - I felt a rush of heat on the back of my neck as the veal kidneys in mustard sauce were prepared for the next table over.

The food was not perfect, but it was good and showed promise, and a good French brasserie is always a nice thing to have around, especially one that is open 24 hours a day. But there is a bit of a disconnect between the quality and sophistication of the fare at Au Pied de Cochon and the prices in some instances. The Perigord salad seemed perfectly fair at $15.50, but $27.50 for a terrine of foie gras appetizer seems awfully steep even for this luxe ingredient (though I was sorely tempted by the $29 foie gras and apple tarte tatin appetizer, I refrained both due to the price and in anticipation of my trotter entree). A pork chop can be had for $21.50, but a Kobe beef burger is $25, duck leg confit is $27, the braised veal cheek is $33, and the steaks (all USDA prime and aged 21-28 days) are all in the $40s. On the other hand, the portions on some of the other items (like Mrs. F's $14.50 mussel appetizer or the gargantuan crème brûlée for only $7) made them seem like incredible bargains.

I'd just as soon see them work on the portion sizes and smooth out the menu pricing all around, rather than have such extremes. It's possible to have a reasonably priced meal here, but it can also quickly become quite expensive. While it's nice and cozy, it is simply not a fancy enough place to feel like you're having a $100 meal; and at some of these rates, the Miami Au Pied de Cochon is going to have a difficult time drawing in the butchers. But if they can straighten out some of the food miscues and pricing oddities, and make this more of an "everyday" rather than "special occasion" type of place, I suspect it will do quite well with the South Beach crowd.

Au Pied de Cochon
81 Washington Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.674.1844

Au Pied de Cochon on Urbanspoon

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Miami Pizza Crawl Part I

The first leg of the Miami Pizza Crawl kicked off last night, covering Wynwood / Design District candidates Joey's Wynwood, Pizzavolante, and Andiamo. We had a nice group of bloggers, chowhounds, and pizza fans on board for the crawl.

Four pizzas apiece at each place yielded the following menu:

Joey's Wynwood
Margherita - with mozzarella & tomato
"Joey" - with tuna, salami, gorgonzola, capers & spinach
"Carbonara" - with bacon, eggs, mozzarella & asparagus
"Dolce e Piccante" - with figs, gorgonzola, honey & hot pepper

Pizzavolante
Margherita "DOP" - with Italian tomato, oven dried Roma tomatoes, bufala mozzarella & basil
"Volante 100" - with local mozzarella, dandelion greens, tomatoes & arugula
"Bianca" - with fontina, 2 mozzarellas, goat cheese, arugula & thyme
"Cacciatorini" - with Italian tomato, local mozzarella, grana, California pepperoni & guanciale

Andiamo
"Soprano" - with broccoli rabe, Italian sausage, tomato sauce, parmesan & mozzarella
"Putanesca" - with olives, capers, anchovies, red pepper flakes, tomato sauce & mozzarella
"Genovese" - with rosemary potatoes, pancetta, caramelized onions, mozzarella & gorgonzola
"Popeye" - with spinach, roma tomatoes, tomato sauce, ricotta, mozzarella & basil

With 15 of us dining, we were able to get tastes of everything by splitting slices, and fortunately everyone shared nicely. Happily, bloggers less visually impaired than me, Paula at Mango & Lime and Trina at Miami Dish, got some great pictures and have already given their recaps. Probably the true highlight of the night was the chance to get together with several other kindred spirits who will happily spend several hours jumping from one pizza place to the next and debating which was best. Here are my thoughts:

Joey's -

First off, the space itself is really very nice. Right in the middle of a pocket of Wynwood's converted-warehouse art galleries, there's not much to look at outside, but inside the restaurant has a simple but sophsticated modern look with marble-topped tables and Globus chairs throughout. A solid selection of wines by the glass (including a fruity, slightly frizzante Lambrusco) was pleasing too, though I've been told by others who have gone there that they refuse to permit any corkage, which seems a foolhardy policy.

We started off the Crawl with the intention of trying a Margherita pizza at each place as a "baseline" reference standard, and then also explore some of each place's specialties. Yet we must not have had many pizza purists in the group, as the Margheritas at both Joey's and Pizzavolante seem to have not made many memorable impressions. I agreed that Joey's version was unexceptional. I did like the crust at Joey's, which was thin but firm - possibly my favorite of the night - and the tomato and cheese were in good balance, but their flavors didn't exactly jump out at you in any way.

It would seem you'd have to try the "Joey" at Joey's, yet I'll confess I didn't have complete confidence in the combination of tuna, spicy salame, gorgonzola, capers and spinach. I figured it had to either be outstanding or a complete disaster. It turned out to be much closer to the former than the latter. This was no doubt loaded with robust flavors, but the tuna and salami subconsciously played on my prediliction for the seafood/pork combo, and the other elements contributed their distinct flavors without overwhelming. I wouldn't exactly say they blended into a perfectly seamless whole, but this was actually much better than I anticipated and was one of my favorites of the night.

The "Carbonara" didn't quite work for me. It's hard to go wrong with bacon and eggs, but the bacon was indistinct, the asparagus was unnecessary and distracting, and it was missing the freshly ground black pepper that is the genesis of the name.

The "Dolce e Piccante" was another one that I was wary of, though it was highly recommended by our server. The combination of figs, gorgonzola and honey sounded cloying. Yet once again, this was much better than I expected. A dash of red pepper flakes provided some needed contrast, though I still thought there was too heavy a hand with the (good Italian) honey. This fell somewhere between dinner and dessert on the sweetness spectrum, and while I don't think I'd ever want to eat anywhere near a whole pie (half of a slice was more than enough), I enjoyed what I tried.

Pizzavolante -

[sorry, this restaurant has closed]

Next stop was Pizzavolante, the new pizza joint from Pacific Time chef Jonathan Eismann, which just opened last week. As I noted in my earlier comments, Pizzavolante is a very simple primitive layout - mozzarella bar and counter to one side, a few tables on the other, some bright orange plastic chairs, and a few more barstools around the windows where there are some more countertops for eating. While Joey's is someplace you might take a date, Pizzavolante is someplace you come to grab a pizza. Personally, I'm OK with that. I was surprised that some people were put out by the appearance of the mozzarella bar, where the cheeses are kept in large stainless bowls of cold water (as you must do with fresh mozzarella to keep the cheese moist). Anyhoo ... there are only five pizzas on the menu, and two of them are margheritas (one with local cow's milk mozzarella, and another, the "DOP", with fancy Italian bufala mozzarella), so narrowing down the choice to four was pretty easy.

The "DOP" Margherita was very good, though I couldn't say that it was appreciably better than the "plain Jane" Margherita I had last week on our first visit. Again, the real standout in the dough/sauce/cheese trinity was the cheese, though I'm not sure once they've melted in the wood-burning oven that the difference between the cow's milk mozzarella and the bufala mozzarella is worth the $4 price difference.

The "Volante 100" (made with toppings grown or produced within a 100-mile radius) really caught the attention of my tastebuds with the dandelion greens, which were just barely wilted and still perky and vibrant, along with local-grown tomatoes (mostly smaller red and yellow teardrops, I think) and arugula, as well as some of Vito Volpe's mozzarella.

I also liked the "Cacciatorini," topped with a scatter of nicely spicy California pepperoni and guanciale (jowl bacon). Of all the meat-topped pizzas we had, this was my favorite. I missed out on getting a good taste of the "Bianca," but white pizzas usually don't excite me that much anyway (though even some folks who were not white pizza fans liked this version).

I liked the thin crispy crust of Pizzavolante's pizzas, but thought it was perhaps taken to too much of an extreme, as the uncovered edges of the crust were so crispy as to be almost cracker-like. I understand they are still working on their dough recipe and hope they can find the perfect middle ground. They could also use a bit more variety to their pizza selections. I understand they've just opened and also that they're taking a simple approach to the menu, but no doubt Jonathan Eismann can come up with some more varied and creative toppings than what is currently on offer.

Another nice thing about Pizzavolante is the very reasonably priced selection of wines. A few of us split an $18 bottle of Mattabella Famiglia red (produced by a friend of mine in Long Island) which went down very easily with the pizza, and there are a number of other wines all priced at $18.

Andiamo -

Andiamo was something of a letdown after Joey's and Pizzavolante. I still love the funky location in a working car wash, with the big screen hung up outside showing the Lakers/Nuggets game, but the pizzas disappointed.

The Soprano had a nice layer of fresh, pleasingly bitter broccoli rabe, but the sausage was just bland, grey slices of mystery meat. The tomato sauce (very chunky, with some big hunks of whole tomatoes left in) also tasted somewhat industrial. The Putanesca was a twist on one of my favorite combinations for a pasta dish, but this was overwhelmingly salty (and yes, I fully anticipate that a dish with anchovies, olives and capers will be salty). The Genovese promised an interesting combination with the potatoes and pancetta, but the one overwhelming flavor was of garlic, which obscured everything else. The Popeye had nice fresh spinach leaves, but my slice pretty much missed out on any ricotta. The crust on all of these was somewhat doughy and gummy, compared to the nice thin crusts we had at Joey's and Pizzavolante. I'm OK with a nice doughy crust like a foccacia, if that's what a place is shooting for, but this wasn't that either.

While the pizza at Andiamo was perfectly serviceable, it paled in comparison to either Joey's or Pizzavolante. A good selection of beers did help wash it all down.

Favorite so far? If I could get the crust from Joey's done in the woodburning oven at Pizzavolante, and topped with Pizzavolante's fresh dandelion greens and the pepperoni and guanciale and Vito's mozzarella (and maybe a few other more varied combinations), I'd be quite happy.

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

Joey's Wynwood on Urbanspoon

Pizzavolante
3918 N. Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33127
305.573.5325

Pizzavolante on Urbanspoon

Andiamo
5600 Biscayne Boulevard
Miami, FL 33137
305.762.5751

Andiamo on Urbanspoon

And Now for Something Completely Different ...

Hey, it's not all just New York chefs opening satellite restaurants here in Miami (even though it may seem that way with Scott Conant / Scarpetta, Alfred Portale / Gotham Steak, Laurent Tourondel / BLT Steak, Michael Psalikis / Eos ...) - there are L.A. chefs doing it too! UrbanDaddy reports that Apple Restaurant & Lounge, from Los Angeles chef Bryan Ogden (son of the legendary Bradley Ogden), will be opening Friday evening. Now, however, New Times reports that the opening is being delayed to next week on account of weather.[*]

I've been biting my tongue on this one, concerned that I've been too harsh on the influx of imported restaurants. Then I read this quote from one of the owners:

Bryan [Ogden] is the best chef I've ever worked with. In fact, I don't think Miami has ever seen anything quite like this before.
Haven't seen what, exactly? Arrogant out-of-town restaurateurs thinking they're bestowing magnificent gifts upon an unsophisticated, knuckle-dragging Miami culinary audience? The dubious proposition of an exclusive, clubby "VIP" restaurant/lounge in a depressed economy? Or is it the menu, which features such revolutionary items as shrimp cocktail, ceviche, tuna tartar, beef carpaccio, lobster bisque, caesar salad, $40 steaks, and truffled mac and cheese? Wow - to think we've been subsisting on grubs and roots all this time.

Apparently unafraid of setting the bar too high, Apple's website already describes it as "Miami's premier dining destination" and promises it will "feature a menu that maintains the highest level of quality to reflect the best of South Florida's bounty." That menu features Alaskan king crab, Maine lobster, oysters from British Columbia, Washington and Maine, and Maryland crab cakes (not quite local), along with Florida stone crab claws (not quite seasonal any more). A reference to "grilled local asparagus" was intriguing, but of dubious accuracy since it does not appear that asparagus is a viable Florida crop (though I'd love to be proven wrong on this). On a more positive note, ceviches feature Florida shrimp, yellowtail snapper and cobia, and fish entrees include grouper, red snapper and line-caught swordfish, all of which are at least potentially locally sourced.

I know when another L.A. guy, Govind Armstrong, first opened Table 8 in Miami, he expressed dissatisfaction with the ability to source local seafood and produce, but eventually found his way. Maybe Apple will be able to do the same. Or, maybe they won't need to bother, since they're already Miami's premier dining destination before they've even opened.

[*]Just as a sidenote, this has got to be the lamest excuse ever for delaying an opening. Delayed on account of rain? What is this, a baseball game? If you're waiting for the thunderstorms to stop, you're going to be waiting a few months. Welcome to Miami.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Michael's Genuine Food & Drink - Miami Design District

As much as it is a favorite of mine, I've found it somewhat difficult to write about Michael's Genuine Food & Drink. Maybe it's because I fear not being able to capture why I enjoy the place so much - it's pretty simple food, mostly - why do I find it so satisfying? Maybe it's because I can no longer count the times that I've been there since they opened two years ago. Do I try to describe the sum of dozens of visits over the past couple years, or simply describe one meal there as an example? I'll try to do both, and hopefully it'll all become clear.

I first experienced Chef Michael Schwartz's cooking more than a decade ago when he was the chef at the then newly-opened restaurant Nemo on South Beach. The food at Nemo was full of flavor but still executed with something of a light hand, and for years the place was one of my favorites. Schwartz left Nemo several years ago after a falling out with partner Myles Chefetz, and pursued a few other ventures. Some of these went by pretty quickly - a brief stint at Atlantic in the now-demolished Beach House Bal Harbour then owned by the Rubell family (both the restaurant and the hotel were hidden jewels for a brief period of time); a menu of "beauty cuisine" at the short-lived restaurant Afterglo in South Beach.

If there were a culinary award for "Comeback Player of the Year," Michael Schwartz would have won it in 2007. Following about a year behind Michelle Bernstein, who took a first bold step by opening up Michy's on a dodgy section of Biscayne Boulevard in 2006, Michael opened Michael's Genuine in late March 2007 in the Design District, another neglected neighborhood with no evening traffic whatsoever at the time (in any legitimate business activities, in any event). And people came.

My first visit there was about a week after they opened, and I was immediately hooked. Here was a restaurant that felt like a neighborhood place but was still classy enough to bring a date or a client; food that was creative without being goofy, made with high-quality ingredients and a focus on local products; the "small plates" menu options made it possible to try a number of different items; and the prices weren't crazy. You can follow something of a chronicle of my MGF&D experiences on this Chowhound thread. I said after my first visit:

My only hesitation in recommending it is the fear that it will become impossible to get in.

Oh well. Too late now.

The furnishings are low-key but classy, with simple wood tables covered with white paper and a polished concrete floor, the primary decoration being a few large artworks on the walls and some big red-shaded rectangular lamps hanging from the ceiling. It reminds me of the kind of places we've been to in the Pacific Northwest - comfortable, casual, but still nice enough for date night. There's outdoor seating in the atrium out front which is nice in the cooler months, and a second dining room adjacent to the main space has been added - though it has something of a Siberian feel to it, the food still tastes just as good there.

The menu is divided into "snacks," small, medium, large and extra-large dishes, as well as several vegetable side dishes. When they first opened, snacks were $4, and in two years that's only increased to $5-6. Prices across the menu have generally held steady, with most "small" and "medium" dishes being mostly in a $10-15 range and larger items (including the "extra-larges" which are meant to be shared) in the $20s-$40s.

The food at Michael's Genuine has a few defining characteristics: a focus on artisanal, high-quality ingredients; a dedication to local and sustainable products (including neglected species and cuts); and a purity and vividness of flavor. This is a place that features things like Poulet Rouge chicken (an heirloom breed descended from French stock now being raised in North Carolina and Georgia), Fudge Farms pork (more on this below); locally sourced fish that you'll almost never see on a restaurant menu[1] like pumpkin swordfish, cero mackerel, triggerfish, and golden tilefish; fresh local produce from Paradise Farms and Bee Heaven Farm; house-cured bacon and sausages; and "variety meats" like chicken livers, sweetbreads, beef cheeks, and pig ears all put to great use. Chef Schwartz styles himself as a disciple of Alice Waters (the chef, not the more annoying public persona of late)[2] and it really shows in the menu. He even has a "forager" regularly hitting the produce markets and farms to source great product for him.

But to focus exclusively on the ingredients and their provenance would pay short thrift to the creativity and quality of the cooking here, which puts out combinations like a beef cheek over a celeriac mash with a chocolate reduction and a garnish of celeriac salad (since replaced on the menu), or a crispy pork belly and watermelon salad with a soy-inflected dressing. Yes, much of the good stuff happens on the farm, but a good bit of it still happens in the kitchen too.

A Sample Meal

Let me start by describing the last meal we had at MGF&D a couple weeks ago. The "snacks" section of the menu is always a good place to begin, and this time around we had the crispy hominy, the puffed kernels fried and dusted with a sprinkle of chile powder and a squeeze of lime; the potato chips with caramelized onion dip, a favorite of Frod Jr. and Little Miss F (it also hits all the right nostalgic notes for the grown-ups); the falafel (another of Little Miss F's favorites, the balls of mashed chickpeas crispy outside and tender inside, and flecked with fresh parsley and mint); and a newer addition to the menu, crostini shmeared with a fresh goat cheese, an apricot thyme jam and a little sprinkle of micro-greens so fresh they seemed to still want to stand upright, a nice light warm-weather starter.

Michael sent out a new item he's been working on for us to try, a crispy corned beef dish. Keep your eyes out for this one. Many of MGF&D's dishes work with what I think of as "complementary contasts" - crispy and tender, salty and sour, the contrasts keeping the palate refreshed - and this was a great example. A slab of super-tender house-cured corned beef is given a bread crumb coating and seared for a crispy exterior, and is paired with a creamy remoulade/Russian dressing sauce, and some finely julienned sauerkraut-like pickled cabbage. Crispy, tender, creamy, salty, sour - like the best Reuben sandwich you've ever had. Mrs. F literally grabbed my arm after her first bite, she was so excited by this (but then she has a serious Reuben fixation - she basically subsisted on Reubens when pregnant with Frod Jr.).

We shared a couple more of the smaller dishes. The crispy pig ear salad is loaded with strips of shatteringly crispy strips of pig ear, tossed with tiny leaves of baby arugula, slivers of red onion, and thin disks of pickled radish (again with the pickled flavors - Chef Schwartz often makes great use of this flavor note). The strips of pig ear still visually reflect their origin (with a lighter strip of soft cartilage in the middle) but actually with the frying lose much of the ear-y texture some people find, well, eery.[3] Frod Jr. wouldn't stop picking these off my plate. A local grouper ceviche, with a dice of mango and avocado, was one of the few disapppointments - not bad, just lacking the punch that MGF&D usually delivers.

I followed with a Fudge Farms pork chop which nearly brought tears to my eyes. This is, simply, some of the best pork I have ever tasted - rich, sweet and densely flavored. A server once described this to me as the "prime beef of pork" and that's probably pretty close to the mark. And one of the things I so admire about Chef Schwartz's cooking is that he knows how to stay out of the way of a great ingredient. The pork chop is just brined and grilled, and served with simple pairings of an apple chutney and mashed turnips. And - as if to prove a point - this is not presented as a composed plate, but rather each of the accompaniments is in its own small bowl, so as not to mess with this great pork unless you choose to do so.

Mrs. F had the grilled octopus as a main. The octopus (a big fat whole tentacle served as a "medium" dish) is first slow-cooked in olive oil at a low temp, and then briefly finished on the grill for a little crisping of the exterior and light infusion of smoky flavor, and served over a bed of fat white gigande beans, roasted red peppers, olives and a salad of torn herbs and leaves, all given a good drizzle of olive oil. Frod Jr. tried a new item for him - the Harris Ranch shortrib, which is roasted, cooled, sliced off the bone into planks and then also finished on the grill, served with a hearty romesco sauce. Little Miss F had a pasta dish of home-made fettucine with shrimp, strips of zucchini, shards of fiore sardo cheese and a generous dusting of black pepper. On prior occasions I've found Chef Schwartz's pasta almost too silky and slippery, so much so that it doesn't effectively hold the condiment. This iteration was tender and soft but had enough traction to grip the buttery sauce.

The standout dessert of the night was a bowl of Meyer lemon curd topped with strips of candied peel, with a couple of dainty currant scones alongside as well as a couple Meyer lemon jellies. Like a mini English tea service for dessert, this perfectly captured the perfumey aroma of the Meyer lemons. Frod Jr. had his favorite, the chocolate cremoso. I'm still not sure exactly what "cremoso" translates too, but I know this dessert features a lusciously rich quenelle of dark chocolate, almost ganache-like in texture, with a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, a drizzle of peppery olive oil, a crispy sourdough crouton for scooping, and a cold espresso parfait for contrast. Though the combination of chocolate, salt and olive oil sounds exotic, it is actually a delicious spin on a traditional Catalan dish.

A Tour Through the Menu

I should note that some of the dishes I describe here may no longer be found on the menu. In fact, the menu changes quite regularly, and while there are some stalwarts, new dishes appear frequently, old ones come and go, some are just momentary inspirations based on what's fresh that week, and still others get tweaked here and there depending on what ingredients are at their best and what's interesting to the kitchen at that time. I have often said that I think this approach is one of the keys to a successful restaurant in Miami as, among other things, it gives the locals reason to come back repeatedly and provide a base business not subject to the fickle and seasonal whims of the tourist crowd. Indeed, I suspect the menu at Michael's Genuine probably changes more in any three-month span than the menu at Nemo has changed since Chef Schwartz left several years ago. Given the number of things I've tried, it should not surprise that I've not loved them all - but even when a dish goes off the mark, it rarely strays far.

Snacks

One of the nice things about the "snacks" is that these almost always hit the table within 5 minutes of ordering. Several of the snacks are mentioned above - the crispy hominy, the falafel, the chips & dip, the goat cheese crostini - but my favorite item is the chicken liver crostini, a few slices of bread smeared with a rich chicken liver puree with just a hint of sweetness, mostly contributed by a scatter of caramelized onions. MGF&D's kimchee is an interesting take on the Korean staple, without any real whang of fermentation but with a fresh, crisp flavor and enough spice to perk up the taste buds. Deviled eggs are creamy, rich and, like the chips & dip, nostalgia-inducing, but not anything special unless you're really in the mood for deviled eggs (I often am).

Small & Medium Dishes

The designation of dishes as "small" or "medium" has often seemed somewhat arbitrary to me. Both are usually appetizer-size, though some of the "mediums" are more substantial and could serve as a small main course.

house salad - the components of this vary from week to week but almost always involve some nice cheese, some nice fruit, and toasted brioche croutons. One variation I recall had champagne grapes, shards of manchego cheese, and a veil of thinly sliced serrano ham. The current menu iteration includes pickled rhubarb, Georgia peaches and the wonderful Midnight Moon goat cheese. There's often another nice salad that features butter lettuce, oranges, hazelnuts, and avocado.

BLT salad - house cured bacon, cut thick, in a classic combination with curly frisee (with a bacon fat dressing, I believe), heirloom tomatoes, and Roaring '40s blue cheese.

panzanella - a simple salad of brightly flavored heirloom tomatoes (you will often see a huge stack of them along the bar in front of the open kitchen) and cubes of toasted bread tossed with a vinaigrette.

pork belly and watermelon salad - cubes of crispy pork belly and cool juicy watermelon, tossed with some slivered onion in a soy-inflected dressing. A happy combination of crispy, salty and sweet.

sweetbread salad - this one didn't stick around long but was nice, a salad of well-salted frisee, tossed with a tangy vinaigrette and some julienned preserved lemon, bits of bacon, and several nubs of fried sweetbreads, crispy on the outside and tender within. My kind of salad.

mussels - steamed with a spicy tomato harissa broth and served over sticky black rice. This boldly flavored dish was a carry-over from the Nemo menu, and is still good. It used to be a regular rotation item but I haven't seen it for a little while.

tuna tartare - Chef Schwartz has previously expressed his chagrin at the difficulty of taking this item off the menu even though he's not able to consistently locally source the tuna to be used for it. Tuna tartare is a ubiquitous dish these days but his is a nice version, paired with grapefruit and chile oil. Interesting that in the latest menu iteration, the original tuna tartare is gone, replaced with a yellowfin tuna crudo with preserved Meyer lemon and fresh hearts of palm.

tuna conserva - yellowfin tuna (brownie points for sustainability), presumably cooked low and slow in olive oil and then served cold in a 1/2 pint mason jar, along with toasts and accompaniments for some "DIY tuna salad" - aioli, capers, thinly sliced radish, finely diced preserved lemon. Like a good quality Spanish canned tuna, this is another item - like the roast chicken discussed below - where I suspect some inspiration has come from Zuni Cafe in San Francisco, which has for some time done a similar dish. (I should mention here that the Zuni Cafe Cookbook is one of my all-time favorites not just for the recipes but also for Judy Rodgers' wonderfully vivid, passionate and useful descriptions of cooking processes and concepts).

"buffalo" frog legs - little tiny frog legs, fried in a light-as-air tempura batter, and served with dipping bowls of a seriously fiery hot sauce and a cooling blue cheese sauce.

crispy grouper cheek - a tender nugget of meat from the "cheek" of the fish, given a crispy coating and served over lemon-infused fregola.

cero mackerel - a local fish which is not usually commercially fished, house-cured, and served with almonds and raisins and a fennel salad. I"m a fan of all the silver-skinned fish and enjoy seeing them put to good use. A more recent menu features a Spanish mackerel done two ways - one cured, the other grilled - and I'm looking forward to trying it.

yellowjack - only saw this dish once, a small filet quickly seared, topped with sea urchin roe, fresh lychee and served in a pool of dashi broth. This is about as "precious" as Chef Schwartz ever gets. While his food is usually more robust and straightforward, he is capable of successfully going elegant and delicate like this when the mood strikes him.

double-yolk egg - cooked in the wood-burning oven in a little ramekin with some melting cheese and roasted tomatoes. Outstanding when cooked right, but sometimes the wood-burning oven can be temperamental and this comes out under- or over-done.

rabbit pâté - a nice slab of house-made pâté, tasting more meaty than liver-y, and studded with pistachios. Usually served with some seasonal jam - may be a tomato jam, may be rhubarb, may be a pomelo mostarda. I actually prefer the rabbit pâté to the duck and foie gras terrine, which I found a little too tight-textured when I tried it once (but I'm always willing to try again).

chicken wings - not a fancy dish at all, the wings are doused with a Thai-style sweet chile sauce and served with a cool raita-like creamy cucumber sauce. More like bar food or "staff meal" than high dining, but for $8 that's nothing to complain about.

duck confit - MGF&D does a good confit, and the pairings change often. For a while this was done with a cauliflower mash and a pear & raisin chutney; more recently it gets a minneola glaze and is served with some frisee tossed with some spiced pumpkin seeds.

lamb-stuffed onion - a big fat Vidalia-style onion is stuffed with Moroccan-spiced ground lamb and roasted in the wood-burning oven and served over a bed of peppery arugula. A server suggested I peel off the charred outer layer of onion and cut up the rest and toss with the arugula like a salad, which worked out well, though this item is not one of my favorites.

porchetta di testa- a head cheese made with pork's head boned out, rolled and tied, and braised for a long time, then cooled, sliced thin, and served with some greens, thinly sliced radishes and capers. This was basically the recipe done by Chris Cosentino of Incanto in this video. The porchetta was more a textural experience than anything else, with each bite giving a little of the meat, the fat, the slightly crunchy ear. Chef Schwartz is an avid proponent of the nose-to-tail school of dining, and I recall one visit when he gleefully shared with us that they had a whole hog in the walk-in and were busily plotting everything the kitchen could make with it.

pork belly - one of the classic MGF&D dishes, a slab of pork belly is cooked slow till tender and then crisped on the outside, topped with some fresh kimchee, toasted peanuts and Paradise Farms pea shoots. A beautiful combination and possibly the greatest pork belly dish I've had. Also a Frod Jr. favorite.

crispy beef cheek - this was one of my favorites when they first opened up, a slab of tender cheek given a crispy coating, served over a bed of celery root puree, sauced with a chocolate reduction (not nearly as odd as it sounds), and plated with a mound of celery root salad for a nice tart contrast to the rich flavors of the beef, puree and sauce. This is another item that's gotten a recent update, with Chef Schwartz turning up the tart flavors even more by pairing with a mustard sauce and pickled onions and artichokes.

crispy pork cheek - another example of the crispy/tender salty/sweet thing, a pork cheek is braised down and then given a light breadcrumb coating to crisp the outside, served with a tangy BBQ sauce and a celeriac slaw. I've also seen a similar prep done with a pork short rib.

Fudge Farms pork shoulder - a different dish from the standard "large" Berkshire pork shoulder done with the parsley sauce and pickled onions described below, this one was slow-roasted till just about ready to fall apart, and served on top of a crouton to soak up the juices and topped with a fennel slaw. Melt-in-your-mouth tender, this was the dish that started my love affair with Fudge Farms pork.

Large and Extra-Large Dishes

At most restaurants that offer "small plates" I tend to gravitate towards those instead of the entree-sized dishes, both because they provide an opportunity to try more things and also because they tend to be more interesting. But there are several dishes at Michael's Genuine that belie this generalization.

kingfish - another of the mackerel family, this was cooked in the wood oven in a terra cotta cazuela along with some shrimp, mussels, calamari and chickpeas, bathed in a harissa-spiked tomato broth, and drizzled with aioli. A nice version of an under-utilized and sometimes difficult fish.

pumpkin swordfish - a local swordfish, grilled, and served over a vegetable ragout studded with tender cippoline onions, fennel, and artichokes, and drizzled with a vibrant saffron aioli. I've seen him do similar preparations with other fish include tilefish and golden trout.

Alaskan salmon - not local, but still a wonderful item when they're in season, I recall shortly after MGF&D opened having an Alaskan sockeye salmon steak (cut crosswise with the central bone intact rather than as a filet), a beautiful dark red, served over a flavorful potato, mushroom and fennel hash.

pork shoulder - a Berkshire pork shoulder is roasted till fall-apart tender, topped with some red pickled onions (making it reminiscent of a cochinita pibil), and the plate drizzled with a bright green, vividly flavored parsley sauce. The Anson Mills cheese grits which come with are just as good as the pork.

skirt steak - this one is a Frod Jr. favorite, a Harris Ranch steak is grilled and served over a potato, asparagus and fennel hash, accompanied with a brightly flavored herb salad and a black olive aioli.

pizza - cooked in the wood oven with toppings that change from week to week. An early iteration of the pizza featured shredded pork, sliced figs, caramelized onions and a sprinkle of cheese. More recently I had one with wilted stinging nettles. Savvy diners may notice that the pizza often is a vehicle for using up some other menu items (roasted pork, short rib), which I see as the mark of an efficient kitchen looking to avoid food waste.

whole "poulet rouge" chicken - I've only had the whole wood oven roasted chicken once and it was one of my favorite dining experiences ever. We sat at the kitchen bar, nursed a bottle of Oregon pinot noir, nibbled on some snacks, and waited (roughly an hour) while Michael tended to the bird in the wood-burning oven. When it came out, it was perfectly cooked and moist, dripping in its own juices, but with wonderfully crispy skin and a bit of smokiness from the oven. The bird is served with some plumped raisins, toasted pine nuts and a toss of arugula, and - if you wish - brought out whole to the plate. They'll happily portion it out for you, but then you'll miss the chance to pick at the carcass. Michael's recipe is basically a dead ringer for the famous roast chicken at Zuni Cafe. I happened to have a chance to try Michael's chicken and the Zuni chicken within a month of each other. My favorite? Michael's.

Vegetables

The more I try them, the more the vegetable sides become one of my favorite sections of the menu at Michael's Genuine.

brussels sprouts - so many people say they don't like brussels sprouts. I think they're just prepared wrong too often. Boiling or steaming just brings out the sulphurous odors - dry heat is the way to go, and Michael's, roasted in the wood-burning oven with cubes of juicy, salty pancetta, are delicious.

local green onions - I first saw these long fat spring onions at the local farmers' market last spring and within a week they were on the menu at MGF&D. Looking like fat scallions that are just starting to form a bulb onion at the base, these were wilted on the grill and served with an herb-infused provencal vinaigrette.

ramps - also quickly wilted, and served with a Vidalia onion coulis to give layers of onion flavor.

cauliflower - roasted in the wood oven and doused with a bright green parsley sauce. Simple and delicious, this is one of our favorites and I love to have leftovers for an omelette the next morning.

wood roasted carrots - big fat knobby carrots which I think came from Bee Heaven Farm, simply roasted in the wood oven to bring out their sweet earthy flavor.

Desserts

Shortly after he opened Michael's Genuine, Michael Schwartz succeeded in luring his fabulous pastry chef from the Nemo days, Hedy Goldsmith, back into the fold. Her desserts match Chef Schwartz's cooking - unfussy, homey, and delicious. The classic dessert at MGF&D is the chocolate cremoso, but we've also really enjoyed the lemon curd, also mentioned above, a peanut butter and banana panini that would have made Elvis happy, a saffron panna cotta, and a great selection of homemade ice creams. One evening we got a sampler and tried a salted caramel (fantastic - Mrs. F wanted a pint to take home), Mexican chocolate (loaded with cinnamon and chile spice), and kumquat creamsicle (a classic old school combination, made new with the tart pucker of the kumquats).

There's always a "cheese of the week" and they're often worth trying as well, which is what I'll sometimes do in lieu of dessert. Probably my favorite discovery was La Tur, a luscious Italian triple-cream cheese, which was plated very simply with a square of oozy honeycomb from local Paradise Farms.

Service at Michael's Genuine can be either outstanding or adventurous. There is a core group of veteran waitstaff who are consummate pros and an absolute pleasure to dine with, but there's simply not enough of them to handle the entire restaurant. For the remainder, there's unfortunately a lot of turnover, and while a few of them have stuck around and succeeded, there are usually always at least a few fresh faces. It's almost never a matter of bad attitude, just sometimes a lack of experience.

The wine list has always done a pretty good job of providing decent value, and of late has made some notable improvements. I've always felt that the list slanted too heavily toward California cabs and Bordeaux blends, which I don't see as the ideal match for MGF&D's food. The selection of pinot noirs in particular has been bolstered lately, but I'd still love to see more options from the Rhone and Spain, which I think would be a better complement to Michael's menu. There's also a somewhat unheralded (at least by me) list of more than 20 mostly craft beers, including a creamy, malty Old Speckled Hen pale ale we had one evening in lieu of wine.

Michael's Genuine has certainly not lacked for champions since it opened, with the New York Times' Frank Bruni naming it fourth last year in the solipsistic list of Top 10 New Restaurants Outside of New York and Gourmet magazine listing it in its Top Farm to Table Restaurants. Now a little more than two years old, it's refreshing and gratifying to see the restaurant is still regularly finding new and interesting things to put on the menu, still dedicated to local, sustainable and artisanal foods, and still absolutely at the top of its game.

Michael's Genuine Food & Drink
130 N.E. 40th Street
Miami, FL 33137
305.573.5550

Michael's Genuine Food & Drink on Urbanspoon

[1] Other than Hiro's Yakko-San, that is.

[2] I happened to be in the restaurant last year on the weekend of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival when Alice Waters was paying a visit to the restaurant along with Jamie Oliver. I have never seen Chef Schwartz so nervous and giddy.

[3]Personally I still fondly recall a stew of ears and trotters I had at El Meson de Candido in Segovia, but such things are not for everyone.