Celebrated Hot & Soul bistro plans put on ice
Owners move back to New Orleans after ‘bad timing’ nixes revival
Chef-owners Mike Hampton and Christy Samoy have poured cold water over their much-anticipated revival of Hot & Soul in Fort Lauderdale.
Their international comfortfood bistro, which earned great acclaim for trailblazing dishes dabbling in Cajun-Creole cuisine during its five-year run before closing in 2018, has been nixed, they told the Sun Sentinel on Wednesday.
“It’s a long story as you can imagine, but basically because of COVID we felt like we would be put into a very bad situation opening a restaurant right now,” Hampton says. “It’s bad timing for sure.”
Hot & Soul was billed to be the ground-floor centerpiece of the 11-story Six13 apartment complex on Sistrunk Boulevard, which broke ground in
April 2019 and opened fall 2020. Their 1,600-square-foot restaurant at 613 NW Third Ave. would have included a 600-square-foot patio.
Hampton and Samoy told the Sun Sentinel last February they signed a 15-year lease on
the storefront in Progresso Village, north of the art-foodie district Flagler Village, even sharing on social media plans to reopen this past summer.
“We can’t walk around unemployed forever and we’re ambitious and driven people,” Hampton said last February, which revealed his excitement at reviving Hot & Soul. “So not owning a restaurant is off the table. The challenge to do it again was too intoxicating.”
Now, Hampton says, the couple have broken that lease and moved back to New Orleans, where they lived for eight years prior to opening the original Hot & Soul.
Practically an overnight sensation when it debuted in 2013 in a strip mall at North Federal Highway and Oakland Park Boulevard (next to longtime music venue Culture Room),
Hot & Soul specialized in comfort food dishes spun from Indian, South American and European cuisine. Other dishes, such as gumbo and barbecue shrimp, were rooted in Cajun and Creole cuisine, as were fan-favorite plates such as mushroom manchego toast and gnocchi with oxtail.