Finding good restaurants on Miami Beach isn’t easy, and a lot of the real excitement is on the Mainland, particularly around Wynwood and downtown.  Curiously enough, modern Cuban restaurants are almost impossible to find outside Calle Ocho, but the best new restaurants take full advantage of the bounty of farms and sea that surround the city.

OBRA KITCHEN TABLE
1331 Brickell Bay Drive
305-846-9396
Photos by Miami Chefs

      The best new restaurant—opened last spring—I found downtown was happily very much in the Latin style, though not Cuban, and looked it. With its wide expanse of windows overlooking Biscayne Bay and its subtle modulations of white and light blues, the room seems to be floating on water and the dishes arrive looking like sea anemones or floating flowers.
    Carlos Garcia is proudly Venezuelan, as is his sous-chef, Estafania Andrade (who is only 23), and just about everything I tasted was teeming with their personalities.  You can tell when a chef creates a dish he wants his guests to love, not just admire, and the color and presentations are simply gorgeous.
    My meal began with something called “Vuelve à la vide” ($12),  which means “return to life” after a hard night of revelry. It’s often the name of a soup but here it is a shrimp escabeche with avocado and crisp shredded chicken arepas called “reina pepiada,” named after Venezuelan Susana Dujim, who was Miss Universe in 1955. Yellowtail kingfish of exacting freshness was served in the Peruvian tiradito sushi style ($17), with pineapple-flavored rum and a soffrito paste with crispy kale. Of so many favorites on the menu I was bowled over by a millefeuille of yuca and bacon with sautéed foie gras ($37) of very fine quality.
    There is a section of pasta and rice that includes a wonderfully al dente corn and avocado risotto ($22).  Among the seafood was a grouper confit ($32.), similar to a Spanish pil-pil’s creaminess, with a fried arepa.
   
By now you can readily see that there’s nothing predictable on Obra’s menu, including a generous dish both luscious and homey of bone marrow and a traditional Venezuelan stew ($30).     Dessert was a Venezuelan flan called quesillo ($12).
    If you're going to Miami this season, Obra is not to be missed.

 Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., for dinner Mon.-Sat. 

THREE
50 NW 24th Street
302-748-4540
Photos by Open I Studio

    Most of those Miami chefs who created the so-called “New Floridian (or Floribbean) Cuisine” have either decamped or abandoned the genre they made famous.  One who has not is Norman Van Aken (left), who first distinguished himself back in the ‘80s at Louie's Back Porch in Key West, then went on to open a series of restaurants that still show why he is one of the region’s most innovative and respected chefs. (He’s also a first-rate harmonica player.)
    The name of the restaurant, set within Wynwood Arcade, has several connotations: There are three principal partners and three “endeavors”—the Cooking School (below, right), the Rooftop No. 3 Social cocktail lounge (right) and The Restaurant—and three is a sacred number “representative of past, present and future and is considered the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding.” Whatever.
    That Rooftop starts thumping after nine o’clock, but the dining room below is a far more sophisticated and glowingly lighted space, with an open kitchen and counter.
    Van Aken and Chef de Cuisine Juan Garrido are doing a dazzling job of showing what Floridian Cuisine can and should be in 2018, albeit with some Asian inflections. Sometimes there’s too much happening on the plate, and eliminating at least one ingredient wouldn’t hurt a bit.  But by and large each ingredient does  make itself apparent beyond just looking good. Thus, first-rate hamachi is subtly enhanced by a mango aguachile of lime and chile peppers, Sichuan cucumbers and a Peruvian cream of black mint called huacatay.  Chilled royal red shrimp get a boost from tomatillo-green apple salsa and smoked Japanese red caviar called ikura.
    One of the best and homiest items is the creamy cracked conch chowder with citrus-flavored saffron, star anise and coconut milk, which is the essence of Florida flavors. Asparagus huancaina comes with smoked egg, crispy yuca, gem lettuce and preserved citrus, while grilled papaya “al pastor” is a marvelous mélange of foie gras, radicchio, agave and pickled mustards seeds.
    Sort of simple—meaning it takes real skill to produce—is the escabeche of spiced yellow jack with a coconut creamed kale and smoked carrots.  Florida grouper swims with Cedar Key clams, salt-baked turnips, grilled cucumbers, dill relish and Meyer lemon for a very tangy dish. A chicken is poached and served with grilled trumpet mushrooms, artichoke gargoyle and tarragon cream.
    A delicious rice dish, arroz calasparra, made with a Spanish rice, came with a  black garlic soffrito, tender grilled squid, salt cod and roasted pepper conserva you’d hope to find on a Caribbean seashore. Barbecued cabbage with hoisin, yuzu kosho, a crush of citrus zest, garlic, chile, and salt with a decided acidic edge and cress salad was pleasant enough, as was grilled saddle of lamb with roasted peaches, favas and Sea Island red peas.  Slow-roasted short rib was, as expected, falling from the bone, with a plantain miso, preserved peppers, guasacaca (form of Venezuelan guacamole) and aji Amarillo jus—all flavors that belong together to complement the rich meat.
    There is a plate of cheeses ($15)—none from Florida when I dined—but you’ll want to see how Pastry Chef Mame Sow is right in tune with Van Aken’s style in desserts like the corn pudding a nicuatole with corn ice cream and almond mole ($12) and Miami mango roulade with lemongrass ganache, rice crisp and an olive oil cake ($12). Three is not the last gasp of Floribbean cuisine; it is the cutting edge of a genre that van Aken helped create
   

Open Tues.-Sun. for dinner. Sun. for brunch.

THE GOLDILOCKS DILEMMA

By John Mariani

    I have drunk enough 80 degree red wines in overheated apartments and enough ice cold, headache-inducing white wines to know that many people’s idea of the right temperature for a wine is woefully misguided. 
    They go wrong in swallowing the shibboleth that red wines should be served at room temperature and white wines stuck in an ice bucket for an hour. Wines at those extremes will be robbed of their flavors and nuances.
    Like Goldilocks’s porridge, wines have an optimal temperature based on common sense and a long history. Ever since man began making wine, about 7,000 years ago, he has looked for ways to preserve its flavor and soundness for as long as possible. Nomadic desert people like the Israelites drank new, unaged wine carried in animal skins. And, since intense heat is wine’s enemy, Mediterranean people aged their wine in thick pottery jugs called amphoras (right). Later, wines were stored below ground in cool stone cellars with a constant temperature. To serve red wines at “room temperature” is ridiculous, if an air-conditioned dining room is set at 75 degrees.
    A wine cellar in Paris (like La Tour d'Argent's, left), London or Brussels is usually located in the basement and year round remains at an ideal temperature of about 55 degrees, perfect for proper aging. An additional 10 degrees over that will double the speed of the aging process, without the benefit of slow, proper aging. All finesse will disappear.
         At  many restaurants wines are stored in a temperature-controlled wine cellar; when a wine is ordered, it is brought up to the dining room: pinot noir is served at 58-60 degrees; cabernet sauvignon and merlot at 65 degrees; an oaky California Chablis or chardonnay will be chilled in an ice bucket to 50; a white wine with less oak, closer to 45 degrees. Champagne and sparkling wine will be poured at 40 degrees.
        You need not worry too much if your glass of rosé enjoyed poolside, or out of an ice chest at the beach, isn’t at an ideal temperature, but well-aged red and white wines need a good deal more care, especially if you’re bidding on rare wines at auction.
        Red wines age faster at higher temperatures but may develop chemical compounds that give the wines flabby, cooked or jam-like flavors, while white wines near freezing develop high deposits of white tartrates (right), harmless and tasteless but wholly unappealing in a wine bottle.
    Upscale restaurants usually have some kind of refrigerated wine units—many proudly display them, with hundreds of bottles arrayed—but restaurants with thousands of bottles often keep them in storage houses.
      Sommeliers will often insist that many Americans still complain their white wines are too warm. Unfortunately, some guests want their white wine ice cold. I feel more comfortable with whites at 50 degrees, although Champagne is best at 40.
        If a restaurant serves its red wine too warm, it is a telltale sign of negligence and improper storage. If so, ask the captain or waiter to stick the bottle in an ice bucket for five minutes.
    So, too, white wines served from a dripping ice bucket will be bone-chillingly cold after 30 minutes, so ask them to take it out and put it on the table.
    Assuming most people don’t have temperature-controlled cellars, the cost of converting one can be either nominal or extravagant. In my house, the cellar’s natural temperature never gets above 75 degrees in summer or below 55 in winter, which is fine for most bottles; my expensive, long-aging wines are kept in a refrigerated 50-bottle unit.