Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Guess which Calif. restaurant set its sights on Delray Beach?
Lionfish, in case you didn’t know, is an invasive species roaring into Florida waters, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
Lionfish restaurant, which is coming to downtown Delray Beach in late March, plans on doing something about that.
This will be the second location for the San Diegobased eatery that opened in 2017 and since has been recognized twice as a
James Beard Foundation Smart Catch Leader. That West Coast original has earned a reputation for a socially conscious, locally sourced, sustainable-savvy menu that it hopes to be duplicated with the first East Coast location.
Executive chef and Lionfish partner Jose “Jo Jo” Ruiz says that lionfish has been underestimated by foodies.
“I think lionfish is a great taste in sushi and other seafood dishes,” says Ruiz, who is also executive chef at San Diego’s Seréa. “The other side of it is it’s great sustainability … it’s such an invasive species. It really is destroying all the coral and all the reefs.”
Andy Masi — Lionfish’s other partner and the founder of Clique Hospitality, with restaurants and lounges in Las Vegas, Washington D.C. and San Diego — adds that Lionfish in Delray Beach will include menu items with grass-fed meats, grains and
wild catches.
If the San Diego restaurant is any indication, dishes on the menu here in South Florida could include New York Steak Tataki, Big-Eye Tuna Pizza, Pan Roasted Lamb Striploin, Spicy Grilled Octopus and Duck Confit Tostadas. Prices on the San Diego menu range from a $9 for a Striped Bass sushi roll to $85 for a Bone-in 30 ounce Natural Rib-Eye.
“Believe me, if you have our lionfish ceviche you realize how tasty [lionfish] are,” adds Masi. “Once you taste the flavors of the lionfish, you want to get it out of the sea and onto the grill.”
For his part, Ruiz says, “We want people to look at the food and not be scared.”
But that’s not really how Lionfish got its name
“Lionfish, the name, came from [Masi’s] daughter,” recalls Ruiz. “It’s a good story. You need to ask him.”
It turns out that the original Lionfish wasn’t named after its menu staple as much as a beloved toy for his then 4-year-old daughter.
Masi explains: “When we were working on the restaurant in San Diego it wasn’t really really about that fish. My daughter kept saying to me ‘Lionfish dada, lionfish.’ She has this stuffed lionfish. She kept holding it above her head and saying over and over, ‘Lionfish dada, lionfish’ until I finally thought to myself, ‘Hey, that’s a great name.’ ”
Why Delray Beach
Masi grew up in Long Island, New York, and visited South Florida frequently as a tourist, eventually living in Boca Raton for five or six months and coming back every now and then for the last 30 years.
Before starting Clique Hospitality, Masi spent 14 years in Las Vegas as a co-founder, managing partner and CEO of the Light Group, which is credited for bringing a cool factor to restaurants and nightlife at the Bellagio,
Mirage, Mandalay Bar, Aria and Red Rock. He even oversaw the culinary makeover of the Delano in South Beach.
Thinking back on entering the Las Vegas scene with the Light Group 20 years ago, he remembers, “I knew instantly something was happening there. You could feel it. There was no Bellagio, no Mandalay. And in San Diego you could see the same thing — this young redevelopment.
“When I came down to visit Delray a year or two ago, I’m thinking, ‘You know Palm Beach. You know Boca,’ ” he continues. “But you walk into Delray and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ You’re not losing the old, you’re revitalizing it. You can see the people and the culture up and down the street. I’ve gotten lucky over the years introducing successes, to take part in the revitalization, the reinvigoration of the soul of the city in a little bit of a way.”
Masi also says that Delray Beach, in addition to being a foodie enclave, is also a good fit for Lionfish because of the culture of the people “…who respect the ocean. You can’t do that in other cities. There are very few cities that create that energy. San Diego and South Florida have that, that ocean culture.”
The restaurant will seat 110 people, most in the dining room with a few tables available outdoors. “It’s a really light, airy restaurant,” says Masi. “It will have light wood, bright tones. It’s very open to the street. The whole front of the restaurants opens up. It’s very open and very, very clean in design, so it feels like it belongs in the beach
community.”