Get your last stone crabs of the season at Joe's or any of these other places.

Stone crab season ends May 16, bringing an end to that beautiful cracking and slurping until October. We're going to miss dipping those sweet pink and purple claws in creamy mustard sauce, but are delighted the crabs have the summer to rest and mate.

We suggest a stone crab feast tonight as the perfect way to end the season. From take home to dine-in, here's where you can get your last meal, so to speak.
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Photo by Marguerite Gil

Welcome to the Belle Meade Dinner Club

​This story has been corrected. When published, it erroneously stated that Revales Ristorante was closed. This is far from correct. Revales is alive and well, located on Biscayne Boulevard and NE 86th Street, and operated by the same family that operated The Village Café in Miami Shores. It opens daily for breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and serves dinner till 10 p.m.

It doesn't have an official name yet, so let's just call it the Belle Meade Dinner Club. It was started in December 2009 by Tara Gaerjens, who, along with some enthusiastic friends/backers, strolled into Belle Meade with an idea for a magazine focusing on this Upper Eastside neighborhood. (Vanity of vanities ... all is vanity. Ecclesiastes, 1, 2; XII, 8).

Later neighbors found out that she had also "wandered" into Morningside, another affluent neighborhood just south of Belle Meade and also pitched her idea.
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All photos by Laine Doss

My Ceviche partners Roger Duarte and Sam Gorenstein with some fresh friends.

Here's an actual conversation overheard at My Ceviche last evening:

Sam Gorenstein: Hi. Welcome to My Ceviche.
Young couple: [Perusing the menu board] Hi!
Gorenstein: Is this your first time here?
Man in couple: Yes. I know someone who works at the Raleigh, and she said that Sam Gorenstein opened a ceviche restaurant.
Woman in couple: Do you know him?
Sam Gorenstein: I am him!

That's right, friends. If you call in a take-out order at My Ceviche, it's more than likely James Beard-nominated chef Sam Gorenstein is on the other end of the line. And if you walk into the small, 240-square-foot space, you'll be greeted by the chef himself or his partner, Roger Duarte, from George Stone Crab.

There's nothing to hide in these tight quarters. A large cooler holds the stone crab claws that Duarte supplies from fishermen in Marathon. A baker's rack in the front of the store is the dry goods storage, filled with spices, lemons, and some bottles of Jarritos. Look just beyond the counter and you'll see two cooks at My Ceviche breaking down an octopus. There is no seating in the actual restaurant, but there are some tables in the adjacent hostel, and the beach is a block away.
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All photos by Laine Doss

Red the Steakhouse executive chef Peter Vauthy presents a Kobe-style steak.

​Red the Steakhouse chef/partner Peter Vauthy invited Short Order into his kitchen to watch the arrival of about 90 pounds of Wagyu beef. We asked him to explain Wagyu versus Kobe and why we should pay top dollar for the Wagyu experience.

Vauthy gets his meat from Lone Mountain Ranch in New Mexico, which has 100 percent pure Japanese bloodlines. Vauthy says many ranches introduce Angus beef or something else into the bloodlines because it's easier. Lone Mountain imprints the nose of each animal to ensure correct identification -- sort of a bovine fingerprint.

The cattle are raised using the traditional Japanese method, which means no stress and free access to grazing. The animals are fed a vegetarian diet, unlike some other cattle, which are fed ground-up beef.

They're shipped from the ranch humanely, not in crowded cars, and are allowed to rest for a few weeks and chill out in Iowa before they're processed. "I want to be one of these cattle -- except I don't want to be killed," Chef Vauthy quips, large knife in hand. How did he learn about this boutique ranch in the Southwest?

"When Japanese Kobe beef was no longer available, a colleague in California said that this ranch was doing something very similar with their small-production cattle and that I should look into it," says Vauthy, who also clarifies the difference between Kobe, Kobe-style, and Wagyu.
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By Anais Alexandre

Have you ever seen a more beautiful plate?

​What does 12 hours in a sauna of hickory smoke get you in Homestead?

A half slab of extraordinary baby back ribs($13), with a side of Squealing Pig Skins ($7) and helping of sweet potato souffle ($2.30) at Shiver's .

The pig skins were essentially potato skins stuffed with a mound of pulled pork, jalapenos and a mix of monterey and cheddar. The sweet potato souffle had a mousse-like consistency and crunchy crumble topping. And the ribs: meat popsicles!

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Alive Mind Cinema

Ferran Adrià

​​El Bulli: Cooking In Progress is a 108-minute film documenting the dissection and study of food at the lab of Ferran Adrià's revolutionary Spanish restaurant. El Bulli, considered by many to be the greatest restaurant in the world, closed its doors this past year -- but the painstaking research continues, and is put to video by Germany director Gereon Wetzel.

It is obvious from the very (slow) beginning of the film that Wetzel is no Scorcese or Ken Burns or even Jacob Katel, who showed more flair with the camera in his Behind the Line shots for Short Order. Then again, the dry, quiet cinematic approach does fit in stylistically with the dry, quiet action in the lab. Dialogue is in Catalan, with English subtitles.
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​This week we are looking into South Beach 20 years ago. By 1991, Tony Goldman (Wish, Wynwood Kitchen & Bar, etc.) had already scooped up some twenty properties in the area, and owned the restaurant Lucky's in his Park Central Hotel. He described the South Beach clientele back then as "taste conscious, aesthetically aware and rather cosmopolitan."

On Lucky's menu: Smoked mozzarella and sun-dried tomato pizza; mesquite-grilled grouper; chocolate soufflé. Average check for dinner was $25. "The Deco District is not about haute cuisine," said Goldman. "It's about fun food, healthy food, places to gather, see, and be seen."
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Greg Schneider

Left to right: Aran Tantana (Thai Toni); Norman Van Aken; Johnny Circharo (Johnny's); Louis Leichter (Lucky's)

​"The Beach is a trendy place," says Lee Brian Schrager. "Who knows what will be in vogue next year or even next month?"

"It's like Cannes and Nice in the Forties," adds Tony Goldman. "More and more people are bound to start vacationing here."

These remarks come from a recently unearthed (from my closet) April 1991 issue of Food Arts: The Magazine For Professionals. The cover story, "Deco on a Roll," focuses on "a handful of risk-taking restaurateurs" and their impact on "Miami Beach's stunning Deco District...the country's hottest restaurant row."

Noted and quoted along with Goldman and Schrager were Mark Soyka (News Cafe, Van Dyke Cafe, etc.), Tom Billante (Carpaccio, Trattoria Rosalia, etc.), Tony Takorada (Thai Toni), Dino Pirola (Osteria del Teatro), Norman Van Aken, and others who still remain in the game. But they were just starting out -- as was the writer of this piece, a pre-barbecue Steven Raichlen described as "syndicated food columnist, restaurant critic and cooking teacher."

In 1991, the average tab at News Cafe was $10, and you could sign a lease for a restaurant space on Lincoln Road at $7-per-square-foot. Yeah, things were different back then. And pretty exciting, too.
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Photo by Ben Fink

Michael Schwartz to take over F&B operations at the Raleigh Hotel.

​The Raleigh Hotel has confirmed that Michael Schwartz is on board to create a new restaurant concept for the iconic South Beach hotel.

In addition, Schwartz will oversee all food and beverage operations at the property.

The opening of the new restaurant will coincide with the relaunch of the Raleigh in December 2011, following a multi-million makeover of the 70-year-old art deco gem.

Schwartz, owner and chef of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in Miami and Grand Cayman, is also set to open Harry's Pizzeria, a "casual pizza joint" in the Design District, sometime in the fall.

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Photo by Riki Altman

Still the same decor. Still the same cast of characters.

The 40th anniversary of Versailles, the Little Havana center of all things Cuban and Cuban American, turns 40 this month. Wow! Forty years means the place was established when South Beach was merely a deserted town and before the Dolphins ever won a Super Bowl (yes, naysayers, it happened twice, actually). Versailles has been around longer than this paper, longer than a good 97 percent of the Miami New Times staff has been on Earth and, interestingly enough, longer than many of our city's Cuban residents have called America "home." Yet Fidel Castro had already been comandante in Cuba for a dozen years when the place was founded.
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