Anatoli L.'s Profile

Great food and great prices. We stopped by for breakfast. Challah bread French toast was impeccable, and the whole breakfast platter (I had chorizo, and my friend had roasted turkey) was absolutely delicious. Huge portion size, so you should be super-hungry to eat even half - but food definitely worth it.

Good and friendly service.

Definitely recommended as a great way to start your day.

Probably should be 3.5 stars.
Food is okay, not amazing. I would definitely prefer a steak from Capital Grille at any time. Side dishes can be done better - taking into account prices, I definitely expect more interesting mushrooms than regular Champignon in the sauteed mushrooms side dish. Wine list is grossly overpriced - at least triple retail or even more - and selection is not exciting at all.

Service was good, even though the wine was forced into the glasses a bit too frequently.

Overall, definitely overpriced for the experience. Not recommended unless you have an expense account and don't really care how to spend money.

Feel a bit awkward, as I can't add much to 1200+ prior reviews - but nevertheless.
Probably the best Sushi I ever had so far. Restaurant located in the tiny strip mall, so you don't even believe that you arrived at the right place - however, once you try the sushi you understand that you are. Most memorable experience was Spanish Mackerel - whole fish is cut up and served as Sashimi, then the spine with the bones is roasted and server pretty much like chips - very original. Another highlight was Uni (Sea Urchin) - never had a fresher or tastier sea urchin before.
Very good service, great atmosphere.

If I can offer an advice - try to make a reservation in advance - if you can't be there pretty much by the opening time, as place fills up in the instant. And of course, the best place to sit is by the bar...

I feel bad giving 3 stars to this place, which is a very good place, but here is the quick rationale:

Food - 4 stars
Wine list - 5+ stars
Service - 2 stars

Food was very good, with the small exception of escargot, which was was not seasoned right in my opinion. Fried calamari were good, and chicken liver pate was ok (I had better). chicken Tortilla soup was very interesting (in a good sense), and crab cakes were perfect.

Wine list was outstanding, lots of great selections at a very reasonable price - probably one of the best wine lists ever.

Now, service really killed the experience. First, our waitress was simply not friendly at all - she couldn't care less if we exist or not. Then, the wine service. This is a wine bar, so I expect the wait staff to be trained to pour proper amount of wine in the glass and not force it - you don't push the bottle of wine into 4 glasses - there are at least 5 in a bottle! It is simply wrong and starts your evening on the bad note. Lastly, when one of my colleagues said that his steak is a bit more rare that he would like it to be, our waitress didn't have anything better to say than "I'm a vegetarian and I don't know anything about steaks" ?!?!

It is unfortunate that I have to give this restaurant 3 stars - it is still recommended, may be you will be lucky and your service experience will be different...

We stopped there for dinner, as my wife wanted a burger, and this was almost the only place on Espanola Way which had burgers on the menu.

Drinks were very good - white sparkling sangria was simply outstanding - very fresh and delicious.

We got smoked salmon soup with caviar - it was outstanding ( a touch heavy overall). Mix of fried calamari and  shrimp was also very good. Regular burger and tuna burger were perfectly cook, and served with very tasty steak fries - all food was very well prepared.

Service was prompt and friendly.

Recommended.

Stopped there for breakfast. The "specials" menu used to attract people looked boring, so we ordered breakfast from the regular menu (nothing crazy, regular breakfast items like eggs). The scrambled eggs were tasteless, and overall amount and presentation were simply mediocre. Nobody asked about preferences for the toast, so white toast was served. Coffee didn't taste much like anything - the only good thing was freshly squeezed orange juice.

Service was mediocre at the best, not friendly.

The worst part was the price - this bad meal cost us $40, thanks to also including the tip despite only two people in the party. We had much much better breakfast the day before at Paul on Lincoln Road, all for $22.

Not recommended.

We went there for lunch. Lunch salads are perfect - very big in size and quite tasty. I had Border salad, some people ordered Cobb salad and Indochine salad, and everybody liked their meal. If you want a laad which is not available in the lunch size, I recommend considering splitting the regular size salad between the two people - the point is not money saving, but sheer amount of food you get.

Service was quite fast.

Recommended.

Last year we visited Sra. Martinez, which was outstanding, so this year we decided to try Michelle Bernstein's second restaurant.

We were sitting outside in the back of the restaurant, in the nice quiet space. We wanted to do the tasting menu, but couldn't decide between two options offered - both options had warm appetizers, entrees and dessert, but one of them also had an addition of cold appetizers. W e were glad we took recommendation of our waiter for the smaller tasting, because by the end we were absolutely full.

Food was excellent - we had three appetizers, three entrees and two desserts. in the appetizers, squash blossoms were simply immaculate, perfect texture, server with a creamy polenta version which was out of this world. Foie gras and beets salad were also very good, but the squash blossoms we liked the best.

For the entree, we had pasta carbonara with home made fettuccine, slow roasted short ribs and snapper. While carbonara and snapper were very good, the short ribs, cooked for 6-8 hours, were just amazing  - the sauce was absolutely perfect.

For dessert, we got brioche bread pudding and baked apple pie - probably the best apple pie we ever had.

Wine list is excellent, showing lots of great values under $50 (quite rare in Miami, from my experience).

Service was impeccable - very very friendly and prompt, again, just perfect.

As they say on the Iron Chef:

"Thank you for the wonderful meal".

Can be actually 3.5 stars.

We visited place for dinner. Food was okay, but there were no exciting dishes. I had a gazpacho for the appetizer and ceviche as an entree - both were okay. People who had Chilean sea bass and tuna for their entree seemed to be more enthusiastic about their food, so may be I simply made a wrong choice.

Wine list was quite decent - we had Carmenere from Chile which at $36/bottle was simply perfect (it was very good without any regards to the price).

Service was friendly, but excruciatingly slow, and with lots of mistakes. Every time we asked for additional bottle of wine, the wait was very long (did I say "very"?). Bread arrived when we practically finished entree.

All in all, it was an Okay experience.

I'm neutral on recommending or not recommending this place - you will need to judge for yourself.

The 4 stars are strictly out of respect - should be 3.5 or even less as the most.

Let me explain:
Experience - 5
Service  - 5
Wine service - 5
Wine Selection - 4
Food - 3

This restaurant has a private cellar downstairs, with overall collection value exceeding $5M - definitely worth a trip ( ask for a tour - if there is no private party, you will be given a tour). Wines are starting from 1822 ( no typo - 1822). This is the experience part.
Service is impeccable - nice, friendly and not pushy.
Wine service is also excellent - head sommelier, Gino, definitely knows what he is talking about.
Wine selection - I would like to see bigger diversity in Cabernet offerings, as well as better representation of Spanish wines.

Food - unfortunately, not on par. We got salmon croquets which didn't taste much like anything. Roasted cauliflower was  very good. But then two steaks were just mediocre - seasoning and salt were not done correctly, and side dishes of duck fries and mushrooms were too small for the price and server in very awkward square dishes. Dessert was excellent - but it didn't compensate for the shortcomings of the main dishes.

Recommended for experience and ambiance, but if you are looking for the great steak - look elsewhere.