Booming Miami dines with eclectic style

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 9, 1987 by Marilyn Alva

BOOMING MIAMI DINES WITH ECLECTIC STYLE

In the so-called new Miami of the 1980s a whole new configuration describes visitor and resident: upwardly mobile, well-traveled, international and multilingual.

It is a city now known more for its international trade and banking, especially with South America and the Caribbean, than for its oiled sun bathers frolicking in sun and surf. Today's bather is more apt to be a financier from Caracas than a garment manufacturer from Yonkers.

So is the diner.

Changes in the restaurant scene are especially evident with the emergence of stylish new places offering international and American regional foods, including cuisine of the region.

Even the fast food has a stylized "Miami Vice' appeal.

Although Burger King makes its home in Miami, it is a smart-looking upstart local burger chain called Rudy's that more reflects Miami's spirit. Combining a festive Art Deco and "technopop' design with freshly ground sirloin burgers, a gourmet salad bar and even a gelato parlor, the four newly opened units have sales averaging more than $2 million each on average checks well above fast-food norms.

"The times have changed,' said Miamian Douglas Rudolph, a 35-year-old former Wendy's franchisee who is president and cofounder of Rudy's. "The city is booming. It's on a big comeback.'

Miami and its environs have become increasingly proud of its home-grown resources, products and architecture. Local voters recently, and for a second time, voted a resounding "no' to a referendum on casino gambling. They want tourists, but based on the area's own merits.

Lately, they've been getting those tourists. After a notable falloff, hotel occupancies in still-struggling Miami Beach, across the bay from its shiny new sister city, Miami, last year were up 28% over the preceding year's.

Evidence of the startling changes in the Miami area is everywhere, including a new elevated mass transit system, a new arts center, a dashing city skyline and, of course, new and more sophisticated restaurants. This spring Bayside Specialty Center, a $90 million shopping, eating and entertainment project from the Rouse Co., will open on Biscayne Bay near downtown Miami.

Art Deco district takes off

One illustration of the culinary changes is, perhaps, the closing of the landmark Famous Restaurant on South Miami Beach's Washington Avenue. For decades it had been well-known for its plentiful portions of Kosher meals.

In its place is a chic, pastel-colored Art Deco restaurant called The Strand, opened by a young, trend-setting New York foursome who ventured to the South Beach to get in on the ground floor of the new Art Deco-flavored gentrification in progress in the South Beach's so-called Art Deco Historical District.

The one-square-mile district is the youngest historical district in the country, abounding in 1930s-era hotels and apartment buildings. The rundown buildings are being revitalized with new cafes, bars and restaurants, among them the Carlyle Grill at the Carlyle Hotel, the Cafe des Arts and Tropics, all on Ocean Drive.

The Strand's distinctly un-Famous menu has no corned beef or stuffed cabbage, but it does have grilled salmon with lemon basil butter, grilled pork chops with tomatilla salsa and black bean soup with garlic toast.

Said 25-year-old South Beach restaurateur Bernard Matz of the Deco district revival: "It's happening. People are fixing up and investing.' The former men's clothing designer opened The Wet Paint Cafe on Lincoln Road last November with the intention of attracting the "young, artsy, go-to-the-latest-places crowd.' His partner is Carlos Prio Jr., 21, the son of a former President of Cuba.

Joe's Stone Crabs, thankfully, has weathered the changes thanks to its ever popular Florida stone crabs, and it remains, in an expanded state, where it started back in 1913, on the southern tip of Miami Beach. The venerable, awardwinning French classical Cafe Chauveron in Bay Harbor Island also continues its tradition of excellence.

The Latin beat

The Miami area is spiced with a number of international restaurants. Many of them are South American and Caribbean --and especially Cuban. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have fled to Miami since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Miami's Little Havana district is dotted with scores of Cuban restaurants, the most popular of which are the bright, mirrored Versailles and country-Cuban La Carreta. The latter has branched out into the Miami suburbs of Kendall, Westchester and Hialeah.

Those restaurants are owned by Felipe A. Valls, a Cuban exile who is the proprietor of a total of 17 dining spots in the Miami area, including the acclaimed Casa Juancho, a Spanish themed people-watching show, where tapas, langostinos and paella abound.

Aside from the Latin food, the culinary words heard most often in the Miami of the '80s start with "New American' and then branch into distinctly regional overtones, such as "South Florida-Caribbean,' "New Florida' and "New Miami.' Or, as in the case of the new Wet Paint Cafe on Lincoln Road in voguish "Old Miami Beach'--"New Miami American Cuisine.'