"I didn’t want to finish my food."
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.
Read more at the Miami Herald