There was quite a bit of buzz about Dolce de Palma when it opened last spring — everybody I ran into wanted to shove me against a wall and yak into my ear about Anthony de Palma’s new paninoteca. De Palma had opened Dolce in a frighteningly eccentric location —…
A view of Volcan Arenal from a hiking trail that traverses old lava flow from its 1992 eruption. Arenal is the third most active volcano in the world. We hiked through rainforests and gasped at volcanoes, lounged on white sand beaches and wound our way around perilous mountain passes. Oh…
Of course, you could just hire a waitress and a scullery maid, but in this economy, who has the extra dough? If you’re starting to melt down at the thought of serving 20 people on Thanksgiving from nothing but the hot plate and a microwave in your crappy apartment kitchen,…
Sandy Skoglund, “The Cocktail Party” Got 100 people coming for a holiday shindig? Stupidest idea you EVER had, right? Believe it, we’ve been there. But four of Palm Beach’s top chefs are taking pity this season and throwing a bash at Cafe Boulud that might help prevent us from totally…
I just love ethics questions, and lucky for me, there’s an unending supply of morality dramas in the food biz. Like, for instance, is it ethical to put “grouper” on your menu when all you’ve got in the deep freezer is panga or swai, as dozens of restaurants in South…
Michelle Bernstein had wanted to name her upcoming Design District restaurant “Buena Vista”, as it is located in the historic Buena Vista Post Office, and would also fit the Spanish nature of the place. Alas, there is already a Buena Vista Cafe, so Michelle has decided to call her tapas…
‘Tis the season for South Beach restaurants to bloom like so many poinsettia at Christmas. The neighborhood south of Fifth Street is going to get especially crowded with new eateries during the coming weeks and months. Topping our Pavlovian anticipations is Au Pied de Cochon, which will debut at the…
John Currin, Thanksgiving, 2003 I’ve volunteered to do Thanksgiving again this year, complete with Heritage bird, and though there’s a part of me that really gets off on shoving my butter-coated fist into a turkey cavity this isn’t a job I’d really wish on anybody. It’s just too messy, too…
Two restaurants. Two cities. One menu. The restaurants aren’t even remotely related. Yolo is a flashy newcomer on Las Olas Boulevard operated by high-rolling dining duo Peter Boulukos and Tim Petrillo, the team responsible for igniting the fire under the Fort Lauderdale restaurant biz. In a decade, they’ve opened Himmarshee…
Photo by John Mariani December’s Food & Wine Magazine gives a shout-out to Miami chef Michael Schwartz and the Design District in a recipe-laden article by Victoria Pesce Elliot. Elliot credits Schwartz, who opened Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink last year, with aiding and abetting a Design District Renaissance –…
For those of you who’ve been waiting to grub out at chef Toby Joseph’s new Bova Prime, your moment has arrived. Bova is still operating under its old marquee — it was Riley McDermott’s, and so it shall remain for a week or three — but the menu is all Bova…
Teaching an old town new tricks? It looks like the island of Palm Beach is going to try to shake its image as the most boring resort city on the planet. I don’t know what happened — when I was a teenager the island was fun: We actually had a…
My job as a restaurant critic is great fun, but there’s a sad irony. I never become a regular customer. Budget and time limitations conspire: after a second or third visit I rarely have the opportunity to go back to a place I’ve written about. The job has the novelty…
Don’t forget that New Times’ ultimate food and wine event, Pairings, is coming to the Broward Center this Thursday night. Tickets are just $29 if you order online now, as opposed to $40 at the door, so get yours fast. Click here to get a more info on the event,…
Ahnvee, a Cajun-Creole restaurant and “laid-back lounge” will open at 621 Washington Avenue (the old “Strand” location) in late-2008/early 2009. Executive chef Tom Azar, most recently having served the same function at Emeril’s Miami Beach, will be putting out skillet cornbread with honey butter glaze; fried alligator; crawfish-and-rice croquettes, and…
Even the stateliest among us lose all pretensions over a bowl of good soup. Soup is soul food. The simplest food. The food you first experiment with as a child — whether it’s using the letters in your alphabet soup to spell dirty words or playfully slurping up noodles in…
There’s nothing like a dame, particularly if the dame cooks good. And no dame cooks as good as Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international group devoted to supporting and mentoring women in the culinary professions. The new cookbook Les Dames have just published was almost enough to make me get off…
There are a couple of rules for visiting the West Palm Beach Greenmarket, pictured here. You gotta bring a lot of dough. You gotta bring a dog…
Getting ready for a slooooow night. I managed to get the world’s worst photos of the lovely Navajo Churro lamb dinner hosted by Slow Food Miami on Wednesday night at the Standard Hotel, so I’ll have to rely on whatever powers of description I have left. The dinner was one…
Come January, chef Jonathan Eismann of Pacific TIme fame will be opening Pizzavolante (“flying pizza”) at 3918 N. Miami Avenue, in the Design District. According to Eismann, the contemporary-styled 900 square foot space will be offering “creative wood-oven pizza” with organic and local ingredients, and “some gluten-free products”. Emphasis will…
Tickets for the 2009 South Beach Wine and Food Festival go on sale this coming Monday, October 27. We mention this because in past years tickets have sold out very quickly — especially for the more popular events, such as Rachel Ray’s Burger Bash ($200), Bubble Q ($350), and Wine…
This past week the Miami Herald’s “Diet and Nutrition” page featured a “Nutrition Quiz” that touted the benefits of niacin. These include raising “good” HDL cholesterol by as much as 35% — “plus, it purportedly helps your skin and hair”. What specific foods does this quiz — which “purportedly” is…
