South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)

Restaurant openings bring sense of hope

Survey reveals about one in six eateries have closed nationwide during pandemic

- By Phillip Valys

After a harrowing year for restaurant­s, we can only feel hopeful about South Florida’s restaurant scene in 2021.

This year we lost treasured watering holes, landmarks and haunts that weathered years of hurricanes and recessions — only to succumb to the ravages of the coronaviru­s: Chuck’s Steak House, Brown Dog Eatery, Valentino Cucina Italiana, Etaru Fort Lauderdale, Jackson’s Prime, the Frog Lounge, One Door East, Skyline Chili. We think of the restaurant­s that remain in are-they-or-aren’t-they-closed limbo: Timpano and Lulu’s Bait Shack in Fort Lauderdale, Grampa’s Bakery in Dania Beach.

A National Restaurant Associatio­n survey in December offered yet another grim milestone: 110,000 U.S. restaurant­s, about one in six, have closed nationwide in the COVID-19 pandemic. There are 2.1 million fewer restaurant jobs now than there were in February. The full scope of those permanent closures won’t be felt in South Florida until next year, when still-closed restaurant­s don’t renew their leases, when new signs replace old.

Still, nine melancholi­c months of lockdowns and curfews, meat shortages and revamped menus, layoffs and denied PPP loans, has given the survivors a new steely-eyed confidence, tempered by pain. Our dining scene can and must be brighter.

“The restaurant­s that up their game with innovation, safety and personal touches will be key,” said Michael Cheng, a hospitalit­y expert and dean of Florida Internatio­nal University’s Chaplin School of Hospitalit­y and Tourism Management. “It’s not the rosiest future, but restaurant­s can survive if they reinvent themselves.”

These five new restaurant­s opening in

2021 also show us South Florida’s dining scene is alive and innovating.

Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar

800 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-314-6500 or CubaLibreR­estaurant.com

Delayed three months by pandemic-fueled constructi­on slowdowns, this modern Cuban eatery and rum-centric den will finally debut in late January, breaking up the rash of samey Italian restaurant­s on ritzy Las Olas. (For that reason alone, we’re thankful.) Yes, it’s a chain — Fort Lauderdale is Cuba Libre’s fifth nationwide location — but co-owners Barry Gutin and James Beard Award-winning chef Guillermo Pernot are doing modern twists on traditiona­l Cuban repast. Dishes such as slow-cooked Guava BBQ ribs and truffle- and citrus-marinated baby octopus, and even pineapple-guacamole Cuban sandwiches, are inspired by the culinary ingenuity Pernot found in Cuba’s coastal cities, where new crops of young entreprene­urs thrive with family-run, non-government-owned eateries called paladares. The 9,200-square-foot restaurant will also showcase 90 premium and aged rums behind a cavernous bar.

Tropical Smokehouse

3815 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach; 561-323-2573 or EatTropica­l. com

You’ll find no shortage of Texasstyle brisket or Kansas City pulled pork in South Florida, but have you noticed your local barbecue is always inspired by somewhere else? Co-owners Jason Lakow and chef Rick Mace’s new “Florida barbecue” restaurant, opening mid-January, is their attempt to marry smoked meats with SoFlo soul. Mace, who left Palm Beach’s Café Boulud in November after a seven-year stint as executive chef, drew on local Cuban, Venezuelan and Jamaican flavors for dishes like jerk turkey chili and coconut blackeye peas and rice, mojo pulled pork and medianoche hot dogs. The centerpiec­e of Mace’s casual menu (all dishes are $15 or less) is his custom-built cabinet smoker, which will turn out Florida-caught smoked fish such as cobia, salmon and mahi-mahi.

Momosan Ramen & Sake

415 NW 26th St., Miami; 305-8518450 or MomosanWyn­wood.com

You may balk at driving to tourist-throttled Wynwood for an izakaya, but “Iron Chef ” Masaharu Morimoto’s new ramen eatery, which debuted Dec. 18, takes advantage of two pandemic trends: comfort food and food that’s built to travel. In other words: Pick it up and leave. The Food Network star who launched a thousand chef-versus-chef spinoffs deals in street-food simplicity at Momosan, dishing Peking duck tacos (a Masaharu specialty), spicy wontons, pork dumplings and soft shell crab baos. But not too much simplicity: There are 20 varieties of sake and exquisitel­y marbled A5 Wagyu is on the menu for those who crave premium cuts in their tonkatsu.

Sorella’s

33 SE Third Ave., Delray Beach (inside Delray City Market); 561-562-7000 or DelrayBeac­hMarket.com

To your growing list of excuses to visit Delray City Market — the sprawling, soon-to-open food hall off tony Atlantic Avenue — permit us to add Lake Worth-raised chef Jimmy Everett’s Italian-focused eatery. No menu exists yet for Everett’s handmade pasta house, but if the chef-owner’s other inventive eateries (Driftwood in Boynton Beach, Marea in New York City, Al Molo in Hong Kong) offer any clue,

Sorella’s should top your mustvisit list. Inside the four-story, $60 million foodie village, the restaurant is one of 25 vendors curated by taste-makers Clique Hospitalit­y (Lionfish and Johnnie Brown’s in Delray). The food hall will feature classes, chef tutorials and full-liquor bars when it debuts next spring.

Sweet Alchemy Confection­ery 4431 SW 64th Ave., Davie; 954-5335833

Remember when sugar-starved customers queued up around the block for banana-fritter doughnuts at Max Santiago’s pop-up in Davie, Sweet Alchemy Confection­ery? That was a test run for Santiago’s new ice-cream and doughnut shop with partners Toula Amanna and George Thiakos, the husbandand-wife owners of Flashback Diner. But after a quiet breakup with Miami’s doughnut king last summer, Santiago is out and Sweet Alchemy has grown in ambition.

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