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For restaurants, 2021 has brought some degree of hope. As workers and diners get vaccinated, restaurant dining rooms are beginning to more closely resemble pre-pandemic scenes. But the costs of 2020 linger. Many restaurants are struggling to hire staff. Months worth of deferred rent payments now due could push more to close for good; scores of restaurants already have. And then there’s Major Food Group, the powerhouse restaurant group that’s on an expansion tear.
Over the past four months, while restaurants all over the country have slowly attempted to regain their footing, MFG has opened four restaurants and announced plans for several more. The New York City-based group, founded by Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick, kicked off the year by opening a new location of Carbone, its Italian-American celebrity magnet, in Miami’s South Beach at the end of January. Just a few months later, in April, it opened ZZ’s Sushi Bar, a hybr
Food-Related Gift Ideas for the Moms in Your Life
From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week
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New York Times podcast
The Dailypublished an episode all about the struggles of pandemic parenting, including recordings from the parenting section’s open phone line where they asked readers to share what it’s really been like to raise children over this last year. It’s . a lot, and I 100 percent wept as I listened to it at 4:30 am the other day (when I woke up for the day because my kid wouldn’t go back to sleep).
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Winter is always high season in Miami. But this year, the combination of loose restrictions in Florida, tight restrictions elsewhere, great weather, a rise in domestic travel, and pent up demand has led to a major boom in the hospitality industry, or what Eater Miami editor Olee Fowler is calling “our season on steroids.”
Eater’s Digest podcast, we talk to Fowler about the influx of big name players to Miami right now and what it means for the longterm future of the local culinary industry.
Then we talk to restaurateur Simon Kim about opening the Miami location of his hit New York City steakhouse Cote during the pandemic and what it’s been like to operate in two cities that approach pandemic regulations in wildly different ways. “It’s like basically having one foot in a piping hot water and having another foot on an ice block, almost like liquid nitrogen,” he says.
The Pandemic Made Instagram an Essential Tool for Restaurants
From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week
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This post originally appeared on January 30, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week.
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I find myself on Instagram more than ever these days. Not because I’m scrolling through friends’ kid photos or getting FOMO glimpsing everyone’s takeout or illicit trips or vaccine snaps. Instead I’m obsessively looking at restaurant tag pages, researching their outdoor dining setups and taking notes on a personal spreadsheet.
Beyond Wonderland and Tomorrowland alum
Jessica Audiffred will lead an all-female lineup on Thursday night at Treehouse. The Mexico City native rose to prominence with a unique style that blends bass and trap style productions. Joining her on the decks are up-and-coming producers Stelle, who recently put out a dubstep inspired remix of Travis Scott and Pop Smoke s Gatti, and DJ Jinxx, who s on Excision s new record label, Subsidia.
6 p.m. Thursday, at Treehouse, 323 23rd St., Miami Beach; 786-318-1908; treehousemiami.com. Tickets cost $25 via eventbrite.com.
Olivia McAuley
Xperimento has played with Prince and Ricky Martin, performed at Super Bowl LIV, and was nominated for three Latin Grammys for its self-produced EP,