Blue Collar, the beloved comfort-food destination in Miami’s MiMo neighborhood, will be closing this Sunday, according to a post on the restaurant’s social media.
“After many unforgettable years, this Sunday will be our final day of service on Biscayne Blvd. There are truly no words to express how grateful we are for the love, loyalty and support Miami has shown us throughout this journey,” the statement said.
@bluecollarmiami , which opened in 2012 at 6730 Biscayne Blvd., moved to its current location in the former Balan’s space across the street in 2024. The new space was 4,000 square feet(as opposed to the original space’s 800) with a full bar and a larger kitchen. Owner Danny Serfer designed the new space by thrifting mid-century decor.
In the statement, Serfer thanked diners for the memories.
“What started as a restaurant became a place filled with memories, celebrations, friendships and so much heart. We’ll be forever thankful for every guest, every regular, every team member and every moment shared here.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Amy Reyes
📷: Michael Pisarri
Christina Brown was stressed out in 2019. Her baby son Sean died after birth. She divorced her wife shortly after.
After those experiences, Brown, who lived in Atlanta at the time, went to a rage room in Las Vegas and broke things.
“I thought about things that I was mad about and sad about,” the 40-year-Brown said. “I thought that people definitely needed this.”
When Brown moved to Miami in October 2021, she knew what kind of business she wanted to open.
Three years ago, she opened The Break Room in Allapattah, and now wants to expand into a bigger location with more offerings.
Anyone 13 and older can sign up for sessions at the @breakroommiami starting at 20 bucks, and smash glass bottles and electronics to pieces. Not in the mood to break anything? You might prefer splattering paint at a wall.
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Michael Butler
📷: @cpj_is_here
An Art Deco hotel is opening a new beach club and restaurant on South Beach.
Opening Saturday is Solei Beach Club at the Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel, a boutique property on Collins Avenue. Open to the public as well as hotel guests, Solei Beach Club offers outdoor dining, ocean breezes and the hope you’ll be able to imagine you’re in coastal Spain.
Executive chef Gaston Javier Sanchez leads the kitchen, which aims to match the hotel’s vibe.
“My inspiration is rooted in the spirit of the Mediterranean — its rich diversity, vibrant culture and timeless sense of enchantment — fused seamlessly with the energy and flavors of South Florida,” he said. “It’s about bringing that global coastal essence right here to our Miami Beach backyard, creating something that feels both transportive and deeply local.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: Solei Beach Club
When she was approached to create the menu for Cerveceria La Tropical a few years back, chef Cindy Hutson knew what CEO Manny Portuondo wanted to serve: Cuban food that would effortlessly complement the tap room offerings. The Wynwood brewery was reviving Cuba’s oldest beer, and salty fried cuisine seemed like the perfect pairing.
Owner of the formidable Coral Gables restaurant Ortanique, which closed in 2020 after 21 years, Hutson and her husband and partner Delius Shirley forged ahead with fried offerings like croquetas, empanadas and fritas.
But sometime in the last year, Hutson noticed a marked change in orders. Customers were eating a lot less.
“They’ll split things,” Hutson says. “They might get apps or split an entree. We had large-plate entrees on the menu, and people weren’t ordering them as much. They ask for something lighter, a salad or a piece of fish or chicken.”
At least part of the reason for the shift, she’s sure, is the prevalence of GLP-1 weight loss drugs — Ozempic or Wegovy or Mounjaro or Zepbound — which have gained rapidly in popularity over the past year. Hutson herself was prescribed Mounjaro, and though she’s no longer taking it she recalls clearly the feeling of staring at a packed plate and feeling queasy.
“I didn’t want to finish my food,” she says. “My whole mindset about eating and going out to eat changed.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: @aldiazphoto
A Coral Gables bakery was just named one of the best French bakeries in the country.
Tasting Table, a digital media brand and website, chose 14 of its favorite bakeries across the United States, and the Michelin-recommended Bachour in the Gables made the list.
Tasting Table praised @bachourmiami for its croissants, which are “no ordinary croissants.”
“Strawberry and mascarpone, pistachio, dulce de leche, and flan croissants are favorites, along with the croissant bread pudding,” the site read. “Delightfully decadent from start to finish, it’s not only the desserts that are standouts. Guava and cheese pancakes live up to rave reviews, and the only down side is that it’s so popular, your favorites might sell out by the afternoon.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: @matiasocner
El Cuban Diner opened late last year in the heart of Calle Ocho in the space that once housed local favorites El Santo taquería and the Spanish restaurant Casa Panza. The concept is a marriage of the quintessential American diner and the 1950s Cuban cafeteria, which was created as a tribute to classic American diners.
At first glance they might seem the same, but they are not. There is the decor —red with black and yellow accents— and the neon lights, that evoke the carefree “Happy Days” era.
But El Cuban Diner aims to channel the cafeterias of Vedado in Havana during their heyday: like the two Carmelos (the one on Calzada and the one on 23rd Street), Wakamba, El Potín and El Jardín. These were more glamorous and cosmopolitan than an American diner, where you could order a sandwich — the kind we now call “cubano” in Miami (which in Cuba was simply a sandwich). #miami #dade #food #restaurant #elcuban #diner #calleocho
🔗 You can read the full story at the link in our bio
✍️: Sarah Moreno
📸: @samdahui
Two internationally known restaurants have just opened at one of Miami Beach’s most iconic hotels, which has reopened after a $100 million renovation.
Delano Miami Beach, which was built in 1947 and became a wildly popular hot spot for celebrities and a symbol of Miami Beach excess after a 1995 renovation, has reopened after six years. Closed since 2020, the property is now home to two new hot spots: the Mediterranean restaurant Gigi Rigolatto and the Japanese-inspired concept Mimi Kakushi.
This marks the first time these concepts have opened in the United States. Gigi Rigolatto is open to the public, while Mimi Kakushi is open only to hotel guests and members of the private Delano Members Club.
The restaurants have been opened in a partnership with French hospitality group Paris Society. The group’s CEO Rizwan Kassim calls the move to the U.S. market “exhilarating.”
“We arrived in Miami with deep respect for the city and its guests, knowing that reputation only takes you so far,” he said. “When you have built something people trust, that responsibility is felt deeply, and our team takes great pride in it.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: @aldiazphoto
The Israeli chef behind HaSalon and more than 50 other restaurants around the world has opened yet another spot in a Miami Beach hotel.
Coming to the Moxy South Beach on Washington Avenue is Naked Tomato, in the former space that once housed Como Como and later acted as an event space.
The “naked” of the title refers not to the suggested attire but to the idea of uncomplicated food, according to Jerusalem-born chef Eyal Shai, who also opened Bella at the Liberty Park Hotel in Miami Beach earlier this year. He opened the first HaSalon in Tel Aviv in 2008 and joined with Major Food Group to open the Miami Beach HaSalon in 2021.
The name refers to “removing the masks and distractions and standing fully behind the ingredient itself,” said the restaurateur, who opened his first restaurant Oceanus in Jerusalem in 1989. “It requires choosing the very best, understanding its singular character and guiding it gently to its purest expression.”
Naked food, he went on, is “high risk creation. It is purity.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: Think Hospitality
Like just about every other diner in Miami, owner Marcelo Chopa was sad last summer when he and business partner Ernie Fernandez decided to close their Italian restaurant Caffe Vialetto after 26 years.
It was a bittersweet turn of events. They had sold the property at 4019 S. Le Jeune Road in Coral Gables and served the final dinner on Aug. 16. The news broke the hearts of passionate regulars, who had flocked to the restaurant for family milestones, business dinners, romantic evenings and girls’ nights out since 1999.
Now, Chopa has reason to be happy again — and so do Caffe Vialetto’s fans. Chopa is resurrecting Caffe Vialetto with a new name — Casa Vialetto — and a similar menu, in a new location at 267 Alhambra Circle in the Gables.
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: Caffe Vialetto Facebook
Can a shared meal with strangers in the shadow of The Underline cure loneliness?
Maybe not. But the creators of The Longest Table project are hoping to make a dent in what the World Health Organization has identified as a significant public health issue when the free public community event rolls into Miami on Friday.
A national program that aims to foster community spirit, The Longest Table hosted a private, invitation-only dinner earlier this year in February, but Friday marks its first public appearance.
The idea is simple: You sign up to bring a shareable dish. You don’t even have to cook it yourself — order it from your favorite local restaurant, if you want. Does the bakery around the corner make perfect pastelitos? Are the patties at the Jamaican shop better than any you’ve ever tasted? Is the pizza at your local spot better than what’s touted on social media? Buy a bunch and bring them to share.
The only rule is you must show up with something, and if it reflects your culture or who you are, all the better.
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: Caroline Elaine Photography
A Greek-Mediterranean restaurant famous in Dubai has opened its first U.S. restaurant in Miami Beach.
An upscale hit that first opened in 2018 and went on to open locations in Monaco, Doha, London and Marbella, Gaia arrives in the South of Fifth neighborhood as the first U.S. expansion for the brand. The overseas locations have become a magnet for celebrities, drawing stars like the Beckham family, Naomi Campbell, Idris Elba, Drake, Adrien Brody and Will Smith.
Whether it will have the same effect in Miami Beach remains to be seen. But Dubai businessman and founder Evgeny Kuzin, chairman of Fundamental Hospitality, a hospitality group founded in the United Arab Emirates, calls the move to the South of Fifth neighborhood “a strategic milestone.”
“Miami is the right city to lead that chapter,” he said. “It is global, design-driven, culturally rich and unapologetically bold, values that sit at the core of Gaia. This opening represents our confidence in the brand, our belief in the market and our commitment to building destinations that stand.”
🔗: Read more at the link in our bio
✍️: Connie Ogle
📷: @gaia__miami
Mayami Wynwood, the 10,000-square-foot restaurant and nightclub that’s open until 3 a.m. in Wynwood, had been open for six years when its owner, Philippe Kalifa, decided it was time to refresh the space.
The French native, who made Miami his home ten years ago, initially drew inspiration for Mayami’s décor from trendy Mexican beach resort town Tulum. But knowing a reinvention was needed, his restaurant now transports diners to another beloved place in Mexico — Oaxaca.
The southwestern state of Mexico, known for its colonial architecture and culinary delights like the many varieties of mole, is one of those paradises that always beckon the adventurous. After the renovation, the restaurant connects more with its outdoor areas, features a pastel and beige color palette and solid wood tables with artisanal touches that follow the latest décor trends—moving away from minimalism and coldness. #miami #dade #food #foodie #restaurant #mayami #wynwood #nightlife #fusion #sushi
🔗 You can read the full story at the link in our bio
✍️: Sarah Moreno
📸: @pportalphoto
