Anyone who does not live in Florida may right now find the thought of visiting enticing, and a lot of the activity and culinary flavor is coming out of the mainland city, not Miami Beach.
One of the best new restaurants in Miami proper is MIGNONETTE (210 NE 18th Street; 305-374-4635), devoted largely to high-quality seasonal seafood via Executive chef-owner Daniel Serfer.
The restaurant is carved out of a 1930s gas station,. Feel free to drop in wearing whatever you're wearing, sit at the or take a table, order some craft beers or a bottle of wine and feast on apps like charred octopus with tazzo ham, pigeon peas and crisp hoppin' john fritters ($15). The crab cake ($17) is much in need of lump meat. A table of four may want to go for the "fancy" seafood tower of shellfish ($95).
You'll be very be happy with the plain, simply grilled Caribbean and Gulf red fish ($23), crisp-skinned snapper ($24) or grouper ($21), so don't bother with frozen South African lobster tails ($35). A far better choice is the lobster roll with a generous amount of meat piled high ($25). Why, then, would anyone go to Mignonette for bone-in prime rib ($37)? Because it is really, really delicious and has become justifiably popular with the regulars.
Mignonette is a very casual but it's got serious intent, and its location near Artopia brings in an eclectic, and attractive, crowd.
On Miami Beach, THE SOCIAL CLUB at SURFCOMBER HOTEL (1717 Collins Avenue; 305-604-1800 is one big, open room with an engaging and very colorful bar/lounge, where you can also get some of the best breakfasts on Miami Beach, like challah French toast and the buttermilk pancake is worth neglecting your beach diet for.
The Social Club packs delightful retro elements into the skeleton of an old art deco hotel. Chef Wilson Blair showcases modern Cuban cuisine, though he tends to put too many sweet elements in his food, as with alligator with shaved Brussels sprouts, barbecued pecans and honey ($16), and his "96-hour" ribs lashed with sorghum-sesame glaze ($16). Onions are caramelized and put to good use in plump, hot beignets with cotija corn and a jalapeño-laced ranch dressing ($14).
Fat local grouper was cooked impeccably, served with squash, tomato, corn and a richly satisfying beurre blanc ($28), as was a Caribbean red snapper with a shot of pico de gallo and chorizo-flecked fried rice for bite and a creamy black bean puree ($35). Caramelized onions play a part in a dish of chicken with farro risotto ($25), while the cast-iron seared ribeye is the most savory of the main courses, served with Cabrales butter, roasted fingerling potatoes and bitter greens ($38).
For dessert, there's no way to refuse the fresh donuts with dulce de leche.
If a case could be made--and it cannot just yet--that Peruvian food is the next hot trend, LA MAR in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (500 Brickell Key Drive; 305-913 8288) seems in the vanguard. The consulting chef here is Gastón Acurio, whose "500 Años de Fusión" was voted the best cookbook worldwide at the 2008 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
On site is Executive Chef Diego Oka, who credits his grandmother's cooking and his Japanese-Peruvian heritage as principal influences.
La Mar Miami is a handsome restaurant, with jewel-like colors and a long Anticuchos Bar set in front of the cooks. The dishware is folkloric, the tables bare, the lighting set in a beautiful fishnet configuration. I dined at lunchtime, so I cannot comment on what seems would be a pretty loud room of hard surfaces.
Those anticuchos ($10-$15) are a good way to go here, including unusual dishes like veal heart with potatoes, chocli, tari sauce and chaleca. There are eight cebiches ($16-$18, with a $29 sampler) that include a "clasico" with fluke and aji limo pepper, red onions and leche de tigre citrus marinade, and a delicious "barrio" of yellowtail, mussels, shrimp, crispy calamari and more leche de tigre. The Japanese influence is evident here in sashimi spiced with much the same ingredients as the cebiches, and the nigiri dishes include items like yellowtail with sweet potato and pepper sauce ($9).
There's a lot of invention in the cooking here, plenty of counterpoint flavors and textures, including very good snapper with dry potato stew, peanuts, salsa criollla and a complex ocupa sauce of peanuts, onions, peppers and cheese ($25). I loved the "chaufa aeropuerto" of aji panca fried rice with seafood ($26). Odd then that Oka serves farm-raised salmon with trendy veggies like kale and bok choy ($29).
There's more to learn from desserts like Peruvian chocolate mousse with caramelized Andes grains and lucuma fruit bombs ($11).
With such a panoply of flavors and exotic preparations, if Peruvian food is really to take off in this country, La Mar is a convincing place for it to begin in earnest.
Set on the 16th floor of the Epic Hotel, AREA 31 (270 Biscayne Boulevard Way; 305-913-8358) has a panorama of striking beauty, most breathtakingly at twilight, when the lights play across the shimmering new buildings and against the silver-blue waves. Here Executive Chef Wolfgang Birk serves some of the most sophisticated Asian-inspired food in Miami right now.
Unfortunately, the restaurant has chosen deliberately to be a very, very un-sophisticated, loud room.
We started off with a cold corn shooter with pine oil foam, then moved on to very good mahi seviche with hibiscus and grilled nori seaweed ($21). Though overcooked, the pappardelle with a rich oxtail sauce ($23) was a fine, hearty dish, and the Berkshire pork with watermelon ($42) was as refreshing as it was delicious. A whole fish--hogfish that night--done tempura style, with wild fennel salad and black bean sauce ($40) was expertly fried crisp and came in a huge portion big enough for two. The very best of the side dishes were some fingerling potatoes with a Parmesan cream, scallion and garlic ($11).