The Best Things I Ate in 2023 (Round 1)

"Year in Review" and "Best ..." posts are tired and lazy. I know. But in their (my) defense, they're also an opportunity for some reflection and perspective, a change of pace from the ephemeral but unrelenting blare of most food media these days. When writing these posts, I'm not just trying to tick off some boxes – there's some thought that goes into deciding what dishes really brought the most pleasure and inspiration over the past year, and effort in trying to find words that capture what was special about them, occasionally even some consideration of how they might fit into some grander scheme. Plus, once a year seems to be about the pace I'm capable of maintaining here at FFT these days.

2023 was a big year for Miami dining, as far as recognition beyond our borders. Bon Appetit magazine pronounced Miami its "Food City of the Year," and followed up by naming Val Chang's new Peruvian restaurant, Maty's, one of its Best New Restaurants of 2023. The New York Times included Maty's, along with Smoke & Dough, among its Best Restaurants of 2023 (with a huge splash shot of Maty's tuna tiradito on the cover). Esquire magazine followed suit, including Maty's and Niven Patel's new Erba in its 50 Best New Restaurants. Val and brother Nando (soon to be reopening Itamae as an omakase counter inside Maty's) were both among Food & Wine magazine's Best New Chefs. And for whatever it might mean, Miami entered its second year of being a Michelin-rated town, with one addition (Tambourine Room) to the ten one-stars selected last year, and everyone else retaining their stars (including two-starred L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon).

That kind of attention draws a lot of big-money operators. Major Food Group started with a Carbone clone in South Beach in early 2021, and soon two hands may not be enough to count all their Miami restaurants. Clubster David Grutman (LIV) has become a restaurateur, with over a half-dozen venues under the umbrella of Groot Hospitality, including a team-up with Tao Group on the new Casadonna. Stephen Starr and Keith McNally opened a recreation of their New York faux-French bistro Pastis in Wynwood. Thomas Keller opened a Bouchon Bistro in Coral Gables. Chicago group Lettuce Entertain You opened the Mediterranean Aba in Bal Harbour. Toronto's INK Entertainment Group (which also runs Byblos) opened the Mediterranean Amal in Coconut Grove. Everyone and their brother opened a Mediterranean restaurant with a two-syllable name containing at least one, and preferably two, soft-a sounds in it, this past year.^[1] Then their cousin opened an omakase counter with a $200+ price point.^[2]

But that's not remotely the most interesting segment of the Miami dining universe these days. For me, anyway, what is most exciting to see is the resurgence of small, adventurous restaurants that don't fit into any particular mold. And not just the spots that have (justifiably) gotten so much media attention recently, like Maty's and Erba and Boia De, but pop-ups like Spanish-Japanese QP Tapas, locally-focused EntreNos, pintxos-themed Bar Gilda, Southern brunch specialist Rosie's, and pop-up-turned-permanent Vietnamese gem Tam Tam, plus quirky spots like New Schnitzel House, and Lion and the Rambler, and Aitor Berasaluze's new Edan Bistro in North Miami. Can we swap out some of the "clubstaurants" for more of these? What is the exchange rate?

As is usually the case, I'm way behind the curve. Between travel and returns to old favorites, I made it to about twenty new restaurants in Miami over the past year. Yet the "to-do" list – which is not everything that has opened, only those that actually look interesting to me – still grows ever longer. Roughly half of the dishes on this year's list are locally grown; the rest come from a variety of places we were lucky enough to visit in 2023: Northern California, England, Scotland, Lisbon, Marrakech and Spain.^[3] (You want itineraries? I've got itineraries.)

Without further ado ...

ugly mushroom pasta - Pomet (Oakland)

Early in the year we did an all-East Bay trip to Northern California, making the Moxy in Oakland our base camp and only passing through San Francisco to get to and from the airport. This is not one of those "San Francisco has become a cesspool" screeds (not that Oakland is spared from that stuff), but rather a recognition that some really interesting creative stuff is happening on the other side of the Bay Bridge (also Frod Jr.'s in Oakland). We had a great meal at Pomet, which turns the farm-to-table trope on its head: the restaurant was started by Aomboon Deasy, who runs K&J Orchards and wanted a place to highlight their fantastic produce. She recruited chef Alan Hsu to do the cooking and the results are pretty wonderful, highlighted by this "ugly mushroom" filled pasta smothered in an assortment of trumpets and other mushrooms and some Shared Cultures mirepoix miso butter. An umami bomb in a silky, delicate package. 

(More pics from Pomet)

Hong Kong egg tart - Snail Bar x Gizela Ho (Rich Table) (Oakland)

Our weekend visit to Oakland happily coincided with a pop-up dinner with Gizela Ho, CDC of San Francisco's Rich Table, at the culinarily overachieving wine bar Snail Bar. My favorite thing on the night's menu were these decadent egg tarts, flavored with chamomile and hazelnut oil, topped with oscetra caviar, and adorned with a garland of marigold petals – a traditional dish twisted in the service of new flavors. What is maybe most refreshing about the wave of new spots in the East Bay – like Pomet, Snail Bar, Day Trip, Burdell, Lion Dance Cafe – is that they aim for a more casual vibe and lower price point than the high-end temples of gastronomy that have become increasingly common in S.F., while still maintaining the focus on interesting, delicious cooking with high-quality ingredients.

(More pics from Snail Bar x Gisela Ho)

Pintxo Matrimonio, Txangurro - Jaguar Sun x Ernesto's (Miami)

Back home, but sticking with the pop-up theme: early in the year, Carey Hynes and Will Thompson of Jaguar Sun did a great series of collaboration dinners at Understory in Little River. The couple I made it to were both great experiences – a seafood-themed one with Ben Sukle of Oberlin in Providence, R.I.^[4], and this Basque-themed one with Ryan Bartlow of N.Y.'s Ernesto's. There were lots of good things this night, including gambas de Palamos and a rice with rabbit, mushrooms and truffles, but what really resonated for me was this very traditional pintxos platter: a "matrimonio" of black and white anchovies over a puff pastry baton, and a "txangurro" tart filled with sweet, tender blue crab cooked with a sofrito of tomato and onion. These were every bit the equal of the pintxos we had during our end-of-year trip to San Sebastian.

(More pics from Jaguar Sun x Ernesto's)

Celeriac, Brown Crab & Apple - Inver (Strathlachlan, Scotland)

Some meals are inseparable from the environment in which they are served. Sometimes it's because the kitchen is dedicated to sourcing from surrounding lands and waters, creating a literal connection to the environment. Sometimes it's because the locale itself is so special that it is indelibly attached to the experience. And sometimes it's both. Inver Restaurant & Rooms, in Strathlachlan, Scotland, is one of those that fits both descriptions. Our drive to Inver, situated along the Loch Fyne a couple hours west of Glasgow, proceeded along an increasingly narrow road that at one point became so wee I wasn't sure I hadn't somehow detoured onto a hiking path. Upon arriving, we found ourselves at the foot of a marsh, gazing out onto the water with the ruins of the old Castle Lachlan in the distance. What a setting.

Lodging is provided in very comfortable, contemporary bothies along the marsh; dinner is served in a spare, simple house at the end of the path. It is all exceedingly local and exceedingly delicious, like this dish with a sort of mille-feuille of celery root topped by a rich mousse of brown crab, batons of celery root and apple alongside. I could have just as easily gone with maybe the most humble, straightforward dish I was served all year: a cup of a frothy bread and butter broth with an incredibly deep, savory flavor.

You can find tasting menus stuffed with foie gras, caviar, and wagyu in just about any metropolitan city, and so many of them are going to feel exactly like each other no matter where they are. You can find roughly a dozen omakase venues just in Miami which serve fish and seafood shipped direct from the Japanese markets. What is truly rare, and special, is the meal you simply cannot get anywhere else. This is the kind of restaurant experience I'm increasingly drawn to: a place with a sense of *place*.  

(More pics from Inver)

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The Best Things I Ate in 2022 (Round 2)

Happy New Year, all! I actually managed to post Round 1 of the Best Things I Ate in 2022 before the calendar flipped over, so that's progress over last year. This is how I intend to approach 2023: be grateful for any tiny modicum of improvement. Round 1 started in the Bay Area before making its way back to Miami, then returned west to L.A. as it wrapped up. Round 2 starts off back in Miami again at an old favorite with a new look, and makes detours to Chicago, the Pacific Northwest and Iceland before finding its way home.

 

Seafood Platter - Michael's Genuine

I'll confess that Michael's Genuine had fallen off my radar for a while. But over the past year it's made its way back into the rotation, with a major remodel of the space, and new chef de cuisine Dillion Wolff (who worked his way up from line cook over several years), bringing some new energy.  My most recent meals have been some of the best I've had there in several years, highlighted by this fantastic seafood platter featuring cold, briny oysters, tender poached Florida-harvested shrimp, a ceviche of whatever is fresh with citrus and kimchi flavors, crunchy crudites, and on this visit, an especially delicious king crab tostada. MGFD, Michael Schwartz, and exec chef Bradley Herron have achieved a lot, but maybe the greatest accomplishment is keeping a restaurant fresh and relevant and true to itself over 15+ years.

(More pics from Michael's Genuine | Miami Design District).

Kohada Nigiri - Uchi Miami

Miami has seen an absolutely insane influx of omakase sushi options over the past few years. For a long time, unless you knew who to ask and when, it was pretty much Naoe or bust. Now, I can count over a dozen spots that, if not exclusively omakase venues, offer some variation on the theme. On one hand, this is a good thing: done well, this is one of my favorite dining experiences. On the other hand, several of these spots can seem like cynical machines designed to separate spendy customers from their money with maximum efficiency, where less attention is paid to technique and flavor than to flashy, status-y items that are often torched or sauced (or both) beyond recognition by relatively inexperienced hands. Better quality ingredients have been easier to come by as True World Foods (the primary distributor of Japanese products in the U.S., and here in Miami)^[1] has facilitated access to suppliers from Tokyo's Toyosu Market. So it has become more of a question of how you handle them and what you choose to do with them.

Uchi Miami has a whole section of their sushi menu devoted to "Toyosu Selections" which can run over a dozen deep, on top of a roughly equal number of selections from the regular menu. At the sushi bar they use a judicious but creative hand in how those selections are treated, with garnishes that complement rather than overwhelm. On a June visit we ordered almost exclusively from that list, and enjoyed everything, but especially this kohada (gizzard shad), one of my favorite neta, which was given a delicate vinegar cure, sliced and twisted into an elegant braid, and topped with a daub of minced ginger and slivered scallion.

(More pics from Uchi Miami | Wynwood).

Matrimonio - Porto (Chicago)

Tomato & Escabeche - Porto (Chicago)

More shiny little fish! I was intrigued by Porto when we booked a reservation during a short visit to Chicago; and I was truly wowed by the whole experience, which far exceeded my expectations. The restaurant is run by a group that has about a dozen venues under its wing, which makes its particularly focused and quirky vision all the more surprising: Porto is devoted to the flavors of Portugal and Spain's Galician coast, and more specifically to both the fresh and the high-quality preserved seafoods of that region, which exec chef Marcos Campos, CDC Erwin Mallet, and even pastry chef Shannah Primiano manage to work into just about every dish.

It is a gorgeous space, with a choreographed riot of colors and patterns on nearly every surface from floors to walls to ceiling. The main dining room is dominated by a long, three-sided "chef's island," while a second dining room in back has an almost outdoor feel, anchored by a huge, active cooking hearth. The tasting menu brings about a dozen rounds: marinated mussels crowning crispy potato cubes (served on a platter fashioned from a dehydrated flatfish carcass); a duo of oysters, both cold-smoked with a sea bean escabeche, and also poached in seaweed broth, then bathed in a cava emulsion; La Brújula sea urchin conserva atop toasted brioche along with smoked cauliflower purée and creamy Sao Jorge cheese. One of my favorites bites: this "matrimonio," a spin on a traditional tapa typically featuring white and dark anchovies, here done with house-pickled white anchovies and cured brown anchovies, served atop a delicate garbanzo bean cracker laced with stripes of red piquillo pepper and green dill and garlic purées.^[2] And another, this brain-teaser of a dessert of pastry chef Primiano, with tomato panna cotta, a San Simon cheese shortbread, sweet pimentón, plankton olive oil, plum and apricot jam, and a strawberry and mussel sorbet, all nestled into a crab carapace. I'm a big fan of savory desserts, and this is just about as far as I've seen that envelope pushed, in an incredibly successful way.

This was a sensational meal, and the most surprisingly great experience of the year for us.^[3]

(More pics from Porto | Chicago).

Salt Roasted Beets - Lion & the Rambler (Coral Gables)

I remember ten years ago seeing an intriguing preview menu for a spot that was opening as a pop-up in a little café space on the northern edge of Coral Gables. The spot was Giorgio Rapicavoli's Eating House, which after a lengthy run left its original home, and recently reopened in a new location on Giralda Avenue. Meanwhile, a new spot with a peculiar name and an intriguing preview menu showed up in that original location. The spot is Michael Bolen's Lion & the Rambler, where we had a really promising first visit earlier this year. The food lineup actually reminds me quite a bit of EH's early days – creative, flavorful, fun, and adventurous, but not so far out there as to alienate anyone.^[4] The house-baked breads (usually two choices are offered) were a highlight, and vegetables get their due, including on our visit maitake mushrooms drowning in a pool of neon-green parsley sabayon, and grilled broccolini under a blanket of mimolette fondue with nubbins of pickled kohlrabi. I was especially fond of these salt roasted beets, cubed and paired with ripe black velvet apricots,^[5] crumbled pistachios and a frothy mousse of horseradish-spiked goat cheese.^[6] Yeah, beets and goat cheese. It still works.

(More pics from Lion & the Rambler | Coral Gables).

Chopped Aji Nigiri - Mr. Omakase (Miami)

To continue a theme here: way back in 2015, I was bemoaning the absence of good omakase options in Miami, while describing my first visit to Myumi, a food truck that set up shop in a vacant lot in Wynwood. Myumi offered a 12-course, $60 omakase served by chef Ryo Kato,^[7] which you would eat piece by piece perched on a stool at a counter running along the truck's open side window. It was surprisingly good, and by the following year, the nigiri of chopped aji (horse mackerel) Chef Kato served at Myumi was one my favorite dishes of 2016.

Flash forward to 2022, and Ryo is now running Mr. Omakase, a sushi counter downtown which offers three different "experiences" ranging from $89 - $149 for between 10 and 18 courses. We went with "the works," and given the going rates these days, it is also one of the better omakase price-to-value ratios available in the Miami market. My favorite bite? That same nigiri of aji chopped with ginger and scallion to a fine tartare, and topped with toasted sesame seeds.

(More pics from Mr. Omakase | Downtown Miami).

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The Best Things I Ate in 2022 (Round 1)

Hang on a minute, folks, just need to dust this off a little bit, maybe move some things around, look under this pile over here ... there it is! Found it. My blog. Hasn't seen any action in about half a year, but seems like it still works. Let's take this thing out for a drive.

It's an annual tradition here at FFT to recap the best things I ate over the past year, even if sometimes it doesn't get posted until months after the calendar flips over. So this year's is actually somewhat ahead of schedule by my standards! For many – for us, anyway – 2022 marked something of a return to normal, or at least a "new normal," after a couple very strange years. It certainly marked a return to recreational travel, as we tried to make up for lost time with visits to the Bay Area, Southern California, Chicago, Seattle, Oregon, and Iceland (!!!) over the course of the year. As a result, my 2022 list skews more heavily toward out-of-town places than South Florida – a disparity which is ironic, given that it has been a year of pretty exciting debuts for Miami restaurants. I constantly keep a "to-do" list of local restaurants I intend to visit, and it is as long as it has ever been.^[1]

I'll try to rectify that balance in the coming year; in the meantime, here's a look back at a year's worth of good eating in 2022:

Angler Private Batch Caviar & Banana Pancakes - Angler (SF)

Soft Serve Sundae - Angler (SF)

Our first trip of 2022 was to the Bay Area, kicked off by a visit the night of our anniversary to Angler in San Francisco. With so many places to try in the city, it's unusual for us to keep going back to the same spot. But Angler makes me really, really happy. Fantastic ingredients, treated thoughtfully, with a simplicity of presentation that belies the care and labor that goes into their preparation, usually involving some form of exposure to smoke or fire. It's a tasting menu kind of experience in an a la carte package (albeit with prices that skew more toward the former than the latter). This was my first time getting the "Angler Private Batch" caviar, which they source and process on their own, and which proves to be entirely worth the effort. If the accompanying banana pancakes are too weird for you (they're great, but I get it), then I highly recommend getting an order of the Parker House rolls as an alternative. I highly recommend doing so regardless, actually. And I can't visit Angler without ordering the soft serve sundae, with embered caramel and cacao nibs, a very grown-up version of a McDonald's classic.

(More pics from Angler | San Francisco).

Celery Salad - DayTrip

Thai Chili Dungeness Crab - DayTrip

We met up with Frod Jr. the following evening at DayTrip in Oakland, which completely won me over. Flavor-forward, interesting, shareable dishes, an adventurous in-house fermentation program, lots of tasty natural wines, an anarchic, playful attitude, and a real spirit of genuine hospitality. It was somehow not a big surprise to make a cross-country connection that wine director Jenny Eagleton was a friend of Bianca Sanon, the wine maven at North Miami's Paradis. Small world.

This celery salad doesn't look like much but bursts with flavor: the stalks thinly sliced, doused in a dressing redolent with lemon verbena oil, bright green with chlorophyll, spicy with habanero, and then showered with shavings of funky Sardinian sheep's cheese. If I may make a weird analogy: not that anything about this dish tastes Thai in any way, but it does the same thing that great Thai cooking does by going in a bunch of directions at once (with Thai, sweet / sour / salty / spicy – here, grassy / lemony / spicy / funky) while still feeling like a unified dish. On the other hand: this Dungeness crab did actually venture into Thai territory, doused in chili garlic sauce, and a melting puddle of good butter spiked with fish sauce. I was still enjoying it long after the rest of the family grew weary of watching me pick at the shells.

(More pics from DayTrip | Oakland).

The Whole Crab - Harbor House Inn

Fort Bragg Sea Urchin - Harbor House Inn (Elk, CA)

We'd spent time along California's Mendonoma Coast before, but this was our first visit to Harbor House Inn in Elk – about three hours due north of San Francisco, about a half hour shy of Mendocino. I know they "only" have two Michelin stars, but this place is "worth a special journey" in every sense. We stayed two nights, had an in-room dinner one night (and excellent breakfast) before doing the tasting menu in the restaurant the following night, and I did not want to ever leave. Chef Matthew Kammerer and crew do magical, wonderful things with the local bounty – mostly seafood, seaweeds, and vegetables grown and foraged on-site and nearby. It is one of the most beautiful meals, in one of the most beautiful places, I've experienced.^[2]

Two highlights here: first, "The Whole Crab," a Dungeness crab offered up three different ways: (1) a mound of sweet, salty, tender picked lumb crabmeat dressed with a tangy gelée and allium flowers; (2) the crab's legs, rubbed with a fava bean miso; and (3) maybe most evocative, a broth made from the crab carcasses, an incredibly pure and powerful essence of the ocean. And second, sweet lobes of sea urchin (sourced from just up the coast in Fort Bragg) draped over custardy koji toast, nestled in a pool of a tart, rich ume sabayon. This is a version of a dish that I'd had years ago, the sea urchin toast at Saison, where Kammerer was exec sous chef for several years before opening Harbor House. Maybe it's just a matter of being closer to the source, but this improves on perfection.

(More pics from Harbor House Inn and Elk, CA).

Hotaru Ika - Itamae (Miami Design District)

Torta Helada - Itamae (Miami Design District)

Back home, I found myself scoring a solo seat at the counter of Itamae while Mrs. F was out of town. I said last year that every meal with the "Chang Gang" has been better than the last, and that trend continues. A couple items in particular stand out: a plate of hotaru ika (tiny, tender firefly squid, a spring seasonal specialty in Japan) served tiradito-style in a bath of squid ink, urfa biber pepper, and swirls of green chive oil; and a sensational dessert from Maria Gallina (who, alas, has since moved on) which used a traditional torta helada as a starting point for a composition that featured some of my favorite locally grown-tropical fruits: a floofy^[3] canistel mousse, topped with a gooseberry gelée veil and anchored by a sponge cake soaking in mamey pit infused milk, giving that same intriguing whiff of noyeaux / almond extract as you get from crushed peach or cherry pits.^[4]

(More pics from Itamae | Miami Design District)

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