HARLEM COMES TO OVERTOWN
Chef Marcus Samuelsson, one of America’s top chefs, finally opens Red Rooster Overtown
The wait for celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Overtown restaurant has bracketed a presidential administration.
For four years and eight months, Samuelsson — one of the best-known chefs in the world, who has worked to raise the profiles of Black chefs — has been working to open the newest offshoot of his Red Rooster restaurant in Overtown.
On Thursday, it finally debuted. Red Rooster Overtown hopes to be a Miami version of his groundbreaking restaurant in Harlem, which helped usher in a wave of new interest in the historically Black New York neighborhood.
Just the mention of Samuelsson’s investment into Overtown sparked new interest.
Lil Greenhouse Grill, started by a pair of Overtown residents, opened in 2017 and attracted the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who visited in January. Copper Door Bed & Breakfast, owned by another young Black couple, renovated an abandoned hotel and launched a restaurant pop-up that will become permanent when
the pandemic passes. WeWork-style shared spaces and renovated condos have opened within blocks.
All of it coincided with Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden, constantly working to tap into Black culture in his food and his life as he focused on Miami as his next destination. When he shot an episode of his PBS show “No Passport Required” in Miami, he highlighted the city’s Haitian cuisine and Black history.
“As people, we’re all searchers. When you’re not adopted, you know where your parents are from, where your heritage is from. When you’re adopted ... you have another history,” he told the Miami Herald in a 2019 podcast and video series, “La Ventanita.”
The new restaurant’s menu is based on his Harlem restaurant with Miami twists.
Find his fire-roasted wagyu oxtail, served whole with maduros. His Fried Yardbird half chicken is brightened with local sour orange hot honey. His crudo fish section includes an amberjack tiradito, referencing both Florida and Miami’s huge Peruvian
population. Haitian malanga accra fritters and a version of griot fried pork chunks uses a heritage breed of Florida pork and spicy papaya pikliz.
The two-story, 7,000 square foot restaurant will eventually have live performances, honoring its former life as the Clyde
Killens Pool Hall, where the country’s biggest Black artists, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole, stayed and performed for Black audiences after playing in Miami Beach, where they could not sleep because of segregation laws.
No doubt the head chef,
Tristen Epps, a 2017 “Chopped” champion, helped bring in those local flavors. While the restaurant closed during the coronavirus restrictions, he turned his team toward cooking meals for those whose jobs were affected by closures. Samuelsson partnered with chef José
Andrés’ nonprofit World Central Kitchen and the South Florida chapter of Food Rescue U.S. to cook thousands of free meals.
The restaurant showed what it was capable of during a brief pop-up this summer.
Now Miami gets to see the full range of what Samuelsson has in mind.
RED ROOSTER OVERTOWN
920 NW Second Ave., Overtown.
Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. to midnight.