When I first heard that Upland was opening in Miami Beach, the place was something of an enigma to me. I thought of Justin Smillie as a New York City chef (one whose NYC restaurant, also named Upland, I'd never tried), but the menu felt like it came from the other coast. As it turns out, Upland is a town in San Bernardino County inland of Los Angeles where Smillie was born, and his cooking style is indeed very much inspired by the "California cuisine" idiom: seasonal, vegetable forward, casual in presentation but still precise in execution.
The South of Fifth spot, which Smillie opened with restaurateur Stephen Starr (whose Miami products also include Makoto and Le Zoo) has become one of my favorites among the latest crop of "Sixth Borough" restaurants in Miami. I love the dining room, designed by Roman & Williams, with its green leather banquettes and walls lined with backlit jars of preserved lemons. But even more, I love the food, whose superficial simplicity usually belies a sonorous depth of flavor.
We were eager to do a Cobaya dinner with him, and the interest was mutual, but since Smillie is not in South Florida regularly this was a challenging one to schedule. We finally lined up a date, and even though it was only a week after our last event, we jumped on the opportunity.
As always, our request to the chef was simple: do whatever you want, just don't do anything on your regular menu. Smillie's response was entirely off-menu, but also entirely in keeping with the spirit of his restaurant.[1] Here's what he made:
(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Upland with Chef Justin Smillie flickr set).
Smillie started things off with a salad – served family style – and my immediate reaction was, "It's not going to be as good as his little gem salad," a combination of perky gem lettuce, avocado, cucumber, and shaved ricotta salata in a walnut vinaigrette that hits all the right notes for me. I was wrong. This was every bit its equal. Here were all sorts of early spring things: tender spinach leaves, asparagus, fava beans, artichokes, frilly little mushrooms that were crispy like croutons. Crumbled cotija cheese added some creamy richness, a precisely balanced vinaigrette added structure and brightness.
Mrs. F thinks I hate salads. I don't. A good salad makes me very happy, and this was a very good salad.[2]
Spring is also the season for soft shell crabs, when they molt from their hard exoskeletons and basically the whole critter can be eaten. Smillie gave these a crispy new shell of flaked coconut, and served them with a hemp seed aioli and a bouquet of fresh soft herbs. There was a sneaky bit of nostalgia here which it took me a while to pinpoint: this was like a gussied up version of coconut shrimp!
Speaking of nostalgia – when was the last time you had mango salsa? When was the last time you actually saw mango salsa on a menu, even here in the erstwhile capital of Mango Salsaville? Smillie described this dish as "hot smoked tuna cheek, spicy mango," but let's call that "spicy mango" what it is: MANGO SALSA! And it was delicious! The smoked tuna cheek, like the Japanese izakaya staple hamachi kama (yellowtail collar), was somewhat fiddly and took some work to extract the good bits, but the reward was some of the fattiest, most unctuous, flavorful flesh on the fish. And yes, it tasted great with the sweet and heat of that "spicy mango," as well as the blistered shishito peppers and huge basil leaves draped on top.
If the Miami Heat can break out some neon pink and blue Miami Vice uniforms this year, it's only fitting we bring back mango salsa too.
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