The chicken parm at Miami River restaurant Crust is named one of the best in the U.S.
The chicken parm that launched a thousand cravings has just been named one of the best in the country.
Food website Mashed.com, which calls the dish “Italian American comfort food at its finest,” just named the parm at Crust Italian restaurant in Miami one of the best in the U.S.
“Crust’s chicken parmesan is on the traditional side,” Mashed.com writes. “It’s lightly breaded chicken breast drenched in marinara sauce and topped with mozzarella and parmesan, with a layer of linguine underneath.”
If you want to change things up, you can also order meatball or shrimp parm or, for a real change of pace, breaded eggplant or grilled zucchini parmesan.
But the chicken version is what has captured the imagination of food lovers everywhere, including Eat This, Not That, which named Crust parm the best in Florida earlier this year.
The dish, which costs $26.95, easily feeds two unless one of you is very, very hungry. Created by Macedonian chef Klime Kovaceski, who runs Crust with his wife, Anita, the dish uses chicken tenders, not breasts, because Kovaceski says they’re more tender. He also substitutes Japanese panko breadcrumbs for the more common Italian breadcrumbs and — gasp! —
Alta Cucina tomatoes instead of San Marzano because he prefers them.
He also uses dried De Cecco pasta in the dish instead of fresh pasta (and don’t ask him to apologize for it).
Getting such national recognition is “amazing,” he says.
“It’s a labor of love,” he says of the chicken parm. “We work hard to keep up the consistency of preparations.”
He admits that the portion is bigger than you might find elsewhere.
“It’s a huge plate, but then, most of my dishes are huge,” he says. “I like comfort Italian food that comes in big portions.”
The chicken parm isn’t the only menu item that draws attention to Crust, which opened in 2015 on the Miami River. Earlier this year, the restaurant was named one of the top 100 pizza spots in the country by Yelp.
CRUST
Where:
Miami
Hours: 4-10 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; closed Monday and Tuesday
Information and orders: crust-usa.com or 305-371-7065
668 NW Fifth St.,
Connie Ogle: 305-376-3649, @OgleConnie