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Florida Life - Dining
New global restaurant brands make their way into Florida
Cecconi’s
Hollywood, Miami; London
Cecconi’s, on the ground floor of the Soho Beach House, was started by Enzo Cecconi, a former manager of Cipriani’s in Venice. The Miami location includes 50 bedrooms for rent, the Cowshed spa, lounges and a “screening snug” for movie and video for members and hotel guests. The breakfast menu includes French toast made from Italian panettone and a full English breakfast. The Allday menu ranges from veal tonnato and shrimp with radish and pistachio to linguine with squid and broccolini.
Baoli
Miami; Cannes
If it’s good enough for A-list celebs on the Riviera, it has the glam and cred for South Beach partiers. Ask Leonardo DiCaprio, Timbaland, Axl Rose, Adrian Grenier and others who have been spotted among the red leather, pink neon and glittering trees of the only American Baoli. The Collins Avenue space can be reserved for cocktail parties of up to 600. Food mixes Europe, Asia and South America with an accent on luxury. You can nibble soba noodles, roasted beets or sushi. Big spenders love lobster cavatelli, bouillabaisse and what the menu calls tresors — Kobe Wagyu filet, Dover sole, Sevruga caviar and a $235 seafood tower.
Baoli roasted yellow and red beets with orange miso sauce and feta cheese
Cipriani
Los Angeles, Miami, New York; Abu Dhabi, Bodrum (Turkey), Dubai, Hong Kong, Ibiza, Istanbul, Monte Carlo, Moscow, Porto Cervo (Sardinia, Italy), Venice
Giuseppe Cipriani may have wanted only a small success when he opened in Venice in 1931, but Harry’s Bar led to the biggest name in luxury hospitality at dozens of restaurants, hotels and clubs around the world, and, as of 2013, downtown Miami. Cipriani in Miami is a two-floor waterfront space in gleaming blue velvet and white leather, filled with waiters in bowties and white jackets under Venetian glass lights. While scampi is spiced with wasabi, the bulk of the menu is classic Cipriani and mostly Italian: Carpaccio, paccheri and tagliolini, veal chop and sage leaves, Venetian calves liver and crepes flambé.
Toro Toro
Miami; Dubai
Mexican-born chef Richard Sandoval has more than a dozen restaurants across the Southwest, the South, New York and the Persian Gulf. His newest venture, pan-Latin Toro Toro, started offering ceviche and churrasco to diners in Dubai, and this year opened its only U.S. outpost in the InterContinental Miami. The menu runs from coca flatbread or arepas with short ribs to grouper, steaks and lamb anticuchos and a “cortadito” of chocolate coffee with pistachio ice cream.
