Cobaya Experiment #4 - Altamare with Chef Simon Stojanovic

The latest of our "underground dining" experiments brought us to the newly opened Altamare restaurant in South Beach. Well, sort of new, anyway. Actually, its predecessor, Altamar, quietly tucked away on the west end of Lincoln Road, was a long-standing locals' favorite for fresh seafood with an Italian bent. Altamar owner Claudio Giordano decided to move a few doors down to a bigger space, buy a vowel, and bring in Chef Simon Stojanovic (a Michael's Genuine Food & Drink alumnus) to take over the kitchen and update the menu. We gave Chef Simon free rein to craft a menu, and Claudio gave the 20 of us a cozy little semi-private corner in the back of the room behind the bar, plus a run of wine pairings to go with the dishes.

Unfortunately, I missed nearly half the meal, for reasons that are somewhat embarassing (it was Little Miss F's birthday - the date of which I had overlooked when planning the dinner - and so I joined in late, after B-Day dinner with the family). As a result, I didn't get to sample a sheepshead carpaccio, served with cara cara oranges and fresh hearts of palm (for those thinking we've gone overboard, please note: sheepshead here is a fish, not - well - a sheep's head), nor a triggerfish tempura.

Pictures: Jackie Sayet

I did get there in time for an octopus dish, the fat tentacles "confited" low and slow and then grilled, served with farro that had been spiked with local green tomato, grilled lemon and chorizo, along with a generous dollop of aioli. It's a great prep method for the octopus, rendering it tender with a nice crusty char on the exterior from the grilling (it's the same method used on the octopus dish that is a menu stalwart at MGF&D).

Picture: Jackie Sayet

Plus I always support the pairing of seafood and pork products, and the chorizo was just right here, balancing well with the rich chewy texture of the farro and the bright tartnesss of the green tomato and lemon. That combination also is one which has made appearances on the MGF&D menu, as a commenter here previously noted. Claudio took an interesting approach on matching a wine to this dish, going with a Cannonau, a red wine (grenache) from Sardinia which I thought worked well with the heartier flavors of the farro and chorizo in particular.

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Red Light Revisited - Miami Upper East Side

I tend not to retread old ground when writing about restaurants here. When there are so many new places opening up, old places I still haven't gotten around to mentioning, holes in the wall I haven't even discovered yet, it seems a bit goofy to talk about someplace that's already been written up - particularly a place like Red Light, where my initial comments here were already based upon a pretty extensive body of data.

But a restaurant is in many ways a sort of organic thing: it can change, it can grow, it can mature, it can get old. Sometimes it's for the better; other times for the worse. I'm immensely gratified that with Red Light, which is approaching its second anniversary, it seems that the changes are all to the good.

I didn't realize until I started writing this that my first visit to Red Light was almost exactly two years ago; and that my initial write-up here was almost exactly one year ago. Since then, Red Light has not lacked for attention, especially of late: a couple months ago, Frank Bruni sang the restaurant's praises in the New York Times,^[1] and more recently, Chef Kris Wessel was selected as a semifinalist for a James Beard Award.^[2]

What I so admire about Chef Wessel is that instead of just basking in the glory and resting on his laurels, he's clearly used the attention, and the traffic it's generated, as an opportunity to up his game.^[3] The location on the Little River still has the same ramshackle, bohemian funk to it; but the cooking - which I've always enjoyed - seems to have become stronger and steadier. When we were in this past weekend, the ingredients were better quality, the preparations more refined and precise - even some of the plates were new.

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CSA Carrots - Check!

I know I swore off posting pictures of my CSA share, but - check out this carrot!

There were about a dozen more of these knobby little guys in the share this week; too bad I don't have a wood-fired oven like at Michael's Genuine to roast them in.