Restaurant Reviews

The Spice Detective Brings an Israeli Taverna to Hallandale

The Katherine Tells a Love Story Through its Food

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Cuban Sandwiches and Donkey Sauce: Guy Fieri's Flavortown Invades South Florida

By Laine Doss
Mar 26, 2021

Amid a pandemic, the celebrity chef tiptoed into Florida to open Guy Fieri's Flavortown Kitchen.
Humble, Hearty Flatbreads at Fort Lauderdale's Noor Bakery and Deli

By Zachary Fagenson
May 2, 2017

It's just before 9 a.m. and Marcel Az still hasn't had breakfast. Standing on the sidewalk outside Fort Lauderdale's Noor Bakery, the slender, baby-faced trucker cups his hands around his eyes and desperately signals for help. When the door of the beige building with a red clay-tiled roof clicks open,...
Geoffrey Zakarian's Point Royal at the Diplomat Is Not a Typical Hotel Restaurant

By Nicole Danna
Apr 11, 2017

Of all the dishes on the menu at celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian's new restaurant, Point Royal, the lobster roll is the item worthiest of a trip to the strip of A1A where Hollywood meets Hallandale Beach. There's no chopped or minced meat here. A whole Maine lobster is steamed until...
Family Comes Full Circle at Louie Bossi's Ristorante, Pizzeria, and Bar

By Alona Abbady Martinez
Dec 21, 2016

Christopher DePasquale Seiler is a rock star. At 6’1”, he is lean and handsome, sporting a goatee speckled with white hair and a shiny bald head. He walks through the bustling aisles of his workplace, Louie Bossi’s Ristorante, Pizzeria, and Bar, seamlessly and at ease. He is not due into...
The Story of 4 Rivers Smokehouse Founder John Rivers

By Nicole Danna
Dec 6, 2016

A single mistake can change the course of your life. For John Rivers, whose growing barbecue business 4 Rivers Smokehouse began "very unintentionally," that couldn't be truer. Rivers launched a charitable fundraising cookout to help a local couple pay the looming medical bills in their daughter's battle with cancer. He...
Bubbles & Pearls Specializes in Champagne and Oysters in Wilton Manors

By Nicole Danna
Nov 22, 2016

There's simply no getting around some truths: Grass is green, Trump is president, and Wilton Manors is the last place in Broward County you'd go for a raw bar. Until now. When Bubbles & Pearls chef/owner Josie Smith-Malave left her hometown of Hialeah nearly 20 years ago, she had no...
At Poke House, Fast-Casual Poke Debuts in Broward

By Nicole Danna
Nov 8, 2016

The first time Memphis Garrett tried poke — real Hawaiian poke, pronounced po-kay — he was on a trip to celebrate his friend's wedding in Maui. "Getting poke was just part of the trip. Everyone was talking about it," Garrett, the cofounder of Poke House in Fort Lauderdale, recalls. "They...
Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale Stimulates the Senses

By Nicole Danna
Oct 11, 2016

Tonight I am dining in a private room, and though that might sound fancy, it's not as luxurious as it seems. This room is devoid of light. An intense, inky blackness pervades like an impenetrable fog. This is dining in the dark, a longstanding tradition at Fort Lauderdale's Market 17...
One Door East in Fort Lauderdale Offers Internationally Inspired Small Plates and Cocktails

By Nicole Danna
Sep 27, 2016

The best dish at the newly opened One Door East might not be the signature tuna tacos but the crispy duck salad — a moist, tempura-battered breast offset by an omnibus of flavors that includes pine nuts, citrus, charred scallions, and a punchy lime hoisin. There's also the white gazpacho,...
Ciao Cucina & Bar in Coconut Creek Offers Modern Italian Riffs

By Nicole Danna
Sep 13, 2016

South Florida has two types of Italian restaurant: the upmarket ristorante with regional specialities aligned into indecipherable menu items that require a Google search, and their no-frills, red-sauce kinsmen that dole out the type of hearty, oleaginous fare any Sicilian grandmother would feel compelled to stuff every family member with...
American English Adds a Touch of International Cuisine to Every Dish

By Nicole Danna
Aug 30, 2016

Nearly two decades ago, American English Kitchen + Bar chef/owner Russ Simon wasn't cooking in any fancy kitchen. Instead, he was studying business management at the University of Central Florida. At the time, no one — not even the future chef himself, who would go on to cook alongside a...
Bar Red Beard Is a Father-and-Son Endeavor

By Nicole Danna
Aug 16, 2016

If you like tater tots, you'd be missing out if you didn't try the ones served at Bar Red Beard in Fort Lauderdale. They aren't your average thimble-size, deep-fried, hashed potatoes. These are as close to from-scratch tots as you'll ever get, each one a mashed potato sphere the size...
Blue Willy's Bring Smoke and Love to Oakland Park

By Nicole Danna
Aug 2, 2016

"Pork rib plate with collard greens and mac 'n' cheese... two-meat combo, a double order of May's cornbread... jumbo rack and half-chicken to go!" It's the sound of a typical lunch rush at Blue Willy's Barbecue, where the cashier barks out orders as she works the interminable line behind the...
Thirteen Restaurant & Bar Wants to Lead the Charge for Change in Wilton Manors

By Nicole Danna
Jul 26, 2016

Everyone knows the number 13 is synonymous with bad luck. Many buildings don't list a 13th floor, skipping from room 12 to 14, and you'll rarely see someone get married — or celebrate any other important life milestone — on the day marked by this number. But for Wilton Manors...
Zaika Grill in Pembroke Pines Puts a South Asian Twist on American Classics

By Clarissa Buch
Jul 19, 2016

Inside a nondescript strip mall, Arabic writing and trite photos of Indo-Pak cuisine are plastered across an obscure, darkly tinted storefront. Zaika Grill, located in a quiet Pembroke Pines neighborhood, is one of the area's only restaurants specializing in Indo-Pak cooking, a blend of Indian and Pakistani influences. The restaurant...
Flagler Village's Brass Tap Breaks the Franchise Mold

By Nicole Danna
Jul 6, 2016

In our modern age of food snobbery — one bombarded by foodie Instagrammers and Yelp Elites — it's becoming increasingly difficult to convince people that a franchise restaurant can offer good food for a good price. The men behind Flagler Village's Brass Tap Beer Bar are looking to change that...
JWB Is a Steakhouse in Paradise at the Margaritaville Resort in Hollywood Beach

By Nicole Danna
Jun 28, 2016

Forget cheeseburgers in paradise. At the Margaritaville resort in Hollywood Beach, you can get a perfectly seared prime bone-in rib-eye, local spear-caught fish, and a homemade banana cream pie that's better than your mom's — all in our own little slice of South Florida heaven. When the 17-story, 349-room Margaritaville...
At Arun's Indian Kichen in Coral Springs, It's Service Above All

By Nicole Danna
Jun 21, 2016

A juice bar in Dania Beach where the "Green Goat [smoothie] and Happy Hippy [wrap] is a favorite combo." A sandwich shop in Sunrise that offers "without a doubt... the BEST SUB EVER." A breakfast place in Margate that bakes up giant cinnamon rolls "that will blow your mind." An...
Accomplice Brewery & Ciderworks Is a South Florida First

By Nicole Danna
Jun 1, 2016

Question: What was America's first craft brew? Answer: hard cider. Today, whether it's shelving at grocery stores or taps at the local bar, hard cider is steadily taking over real estate that once belonged exclusively to beer. These days, it's becoming increasingly redundant to talk about the U.S. craft beer...
It All Comes Together at Ends Meat in Hollywood

By Nicole Danna
May 24, 2016

It's a good play on words — ends meet, Ends Meat — a clever reference to a tight household budget. For Ends Meat chef-owner Kevin Dreifuss, making ends meet has an even more poignant meaning. A good portion of his professional culinary career has been spent working day and night,...

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The Spice Detective Brings an Israeli Taverna to Hallandale

The Katherine Tells a Love Story Through its Food

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