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The SoBe Scene
Astor Place Bar & Grill
Hotel Astor
956 Washington Ave.
305/672-7217
This is the latest brainstorm of the Unique Restaurants group led by Burt Rapoport and Dennis and Patti Max. Responsible for Max's South Beach, the Unique team opened this rehab-rebirth featuring what chef Johnny Vinczencz calls "Caribbean Cowboy Cuisine" - including his black bean-jalapeno Jack cheese soup, lobster risotto with baby arugula and roasted peppers, barbecued swordfish medallions zapped with orange haba-ero sauce, and smoked prime rib with yuca home fries and red chili corn. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with entrees $12-$20, are served daily.
Bice Ristorante
455 Ocean Dr.
305/673-1886
When the mini-Milan chain founded 70 years ago opened its second Florida link, it imported chef Christiano Bassani, not from its Palm Beach bistro but from Bice in Chicago, where he perfected such menu-headliners as salmon tartare and swordfish carpaccio, the classic vitello tonnato, thinly sliced veal loin with tuna sauce, and snapper surrounded with eggplant and sundried tomatoes. Open for lunch Wednesday-Sunday. Dinner, with entrees $12-$26, is served nightly.
Boulevard Bar & Grill
Boulevard Hotel
740 Ocean Dr.
305/532-9069
Moroccan chef Arcoub does the best couscous in SoBe along with a few other native specialties, but I like the mixed seafood grill and the simplicity of roast chicken with mushrooms in old-timey brown sauce. Also worth trying are the incomparable crab cakes or one of the "pastabilities." Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with entrees $11-$23, are served daily.
Blue Door
Delano Hotel
1685 Collins Ave.
305/674-6400
This is a stunning rebirth of a 50-year-old, 16-story art deco tower by New York hotelier (and former Studio 54 co-owner) Ian Schrager. A magnet for the megastars, the limited space and much-sought-after restaurant is entered with a view of the pool, where there's a static display of SoBe's mod-bod modeldom. What to eat? Who cares? You come here to gape at the design of this chicquest of the chic, to see and be seen. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with entrees $19 to $24, are served daily.
Leslie Cafe
Leslie Hotel
1244 Ocean Dr.
305/538-5386
This cafe is a prototypical SoBe spread from lobby to sidewalk. The salads and open-faced sandwiches are super, the thin-crust pizzas OK. Grilled meats and seafood served on a toast plank are the right stuff for people on diets. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with entrees $11-$17, are served daily.
Lulu's
1053 Washington Ave.
305/532-6147
Reopened in January after a near-disastrous fire, this budget-stretcher with its catfish fingers, smothered pork chops and "Hellfire Chicken Wings" is an extension of Graceland with its second-floor Elvis Room, now larger than ever. Bring a healthy appetite. Lunch and dinner, with entrees $6 to $12, are served daily.
Monty's Stone Crab
Miami Beach Marina
300 Alton Rd.
305/673-3444
Monty's has been in Coconut Grove since l969 and in Boca Raton since the early '90s. Monty's cracked its first claws here in January in the former Nick's Miami Beach, the $5 million knockout spread, one of superstar restaurateur Nick Nickolas' few failures. Not far from landmark Joe's Stone Crab, Monty's Stone Crab also has a menu featuring one of Florida's greatest natural resources. But unlike Joe's, which is open seasonally, Monty's offers stone crabs year-round, using suppliers who pluck the crabs from colder, deeper waters during the May 15-October 15 off-season. There's other seafood to be sampled along with some land-locked fare. Dinner, with entrees $12-$25, is served nightly.
Norma's On The Beach
646 Lincoln Rd.
305/532-2809
It's not exactly on the beach, but a few blocks from it on the soon-to-be-prettier Lincoln Road, a popular pedestrian corridor now undergoing a $16 million facelift. Norma Shirley is famous in her own right, as Vogue magazine food stylist and as operator of Norma at the Wharfhouse in Montego, Jamaica, where she gets the spices, the callaloo, Scotch bonnets and smoked marlin she uses at her Lincoln Road restaurant. Her salads are sensational, jerk chicken wings palate-searing and steamed snapper extraordinary. (British actor Michael Caine is moving in next door; he's adding to his six London restaurants one South Beach restaurant due to open in the spring.) Lunch and dinner, with entrees $11 to $22, are served Tuesday through Sunday.
Yuca
501 Lincoln Road
305/532-YUCA
The Coral Gables oasis that blazed all kinds of new culinary trails for the Young Upscale Cuban American (YUCA) crowd opened this clone last December. Larger than the parent and with a display-style mezzanine kitchen, it was designed by Ramon Pacheco, who also was responsible for the design of Gloria and Emilio Estefan's Larios on the Beach. Gables YUCA chef Guillermo Veloso is responsible for the menu, repeating such attention-grabbers as yuca stuffed with wild mushrooms and plantain-coated dolphin saluted with tamarind tartar sauce; and introducing such surprises as honey-grilled Atlantic salmon reposing on black bean pasta, and roast loin of lamb folded into sweet plantains, enhanced mightily with a vanilla bean sauce spiked with a splash of sherry. For snack stuff there's YUCA's answer to Spanish tapas, "Bocaditos," served al fresco or at the bar. Open daily for lunch and dinner, with entrees $7-$29.
