Keeping it Simple

A Taste of The Riviera From A Six-Starred Chef

Top Left: Beef Carpaccio Drizzled With Tuna Fish Sauce With Capers And Parmesan Cheese
Top Right: Chef Michael White Says His Dishes At Mika Are “Super Simple And Straightforward.”
Above: The Interior Is Bathed In A Soft-Warm Light For Both Business And Romantic Dining

Over three decades into a career that has spanned the world and amassed him six total Michelin stars, Chef Michael White is now just trying to keep things as simple as possible.

Chef White began his career at culinary school in 1989, then spent seven years training in Italy and France before becoming executive chef at New York City’s Fiamma Osteria in 2002. There, he earned his first Michelin star. He spent the next two decades opening restaurants in New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C., Hong Kong, Philadelphia, London, and Istanbul, before finally opening MIKA in Coral Gables this year.

“As a young chef, you’re constantly trying to outdo yourself,” White explains. “But as a chef in this stage of [my] career, I’m always looking to see what I can take out of a dish.” That’s the ethos behind MIKA, which celebrates “coastal Riviera” cuisine – a bit of a redundancy as “Riviera” basically means “coastal,” but we’ll let that slide. White describes the restaurant as “user-friendly,” with dishes “that are super simple [and] straightforward.”

The menu ranges from steak to pasta to crudos, with an entire section devoted to the latter, fan-favorite raw dishes. Our foray into this section of the menu was the sea scallop ($26), extremely tender and smooth pieces dressed at the table with citrus colatura, an Italian fish sauce made from anchovies. Thai basil, a little spicier than sweet basil, is sprinkled deliberately on top, along with yellow gooseberries and slim curlicues of fresno chilis to round out a slightly acidic flavor that stops short of spicy. “Because we’re in this tropical climate, I’m taking little liberties and using ingredients I probably wouldn’t usually use,” White says of his crudos, describing the ingredients as akin to those used at a “Greek beach club in the summertime.”

Another starter is the beef carpaccio, a dish somewhere between a traditional carpaccio and a vitello tonnato. Instead of bathing thin slices of beef in tuna fish sauce, as you do with the latter, White drizzles the sauce lightly on top of a dish already dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. Crispy capers and shavings of Parmesan cheese finish things off, like a trip up the Amalfi coast for a light bite and some fresh sea air.

Left: Whole Branzino, Served Boneless And Gently Grilled, Fresh Each Day
Top Right: Sea Scallop Dressed With An Italian Fish Sauce Made From Anchovies
Bottom Right: Gnocchi, Stuffed With Ricotta And Bathed In Pomodoro Sauce

As we made our journey to the entrees, the room was suddenly filled with diners; a development we hadn’t noticed, tucked into our corner booth. Though navigating to the restroom was a bit of an obstacle course, with tables and diners packed together, it was a good reminder to keep ourselves svelte and our meals light. Cocooned in soft warm light, with a Boho-esque interior of woven chandeliers, imitation olive trees, and beigey curtains draped around the perimeter, we were comfortable and still (happily) able to hear each other over the background cacophony of business convos and romantic dinner dates.

That set the scene for our next dishes, each as simple and unassuming as the interior, or perhaps even White himself, who has the vivacious charm and energy of a man with a true passion for his craft. We started with the gnocchi, stuffed with ricotta and bathed in a pomodoro sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes. The sauce is cooked for an hour with sliced garlic – not minced or toasted, so as not to overpower the dish – until it’s reduced. The basil, meanwhile, is wrapped in cheese cloth and steeped in the sauce, “like a tea bag,” says White. The sauce is then blended smooth; a perfect pomodoro, lighter and without the usual acidity of a tomato-based sauce.

Finally, there was the branzino, which Chef White acknowledges “is everywhere,” though MIKA’s is “treated with care.” The dish is served boneless and gently grilled and still warm; an outcome harder than you’d expect. “We really work on a way of… having a whole branzino but getting it right to the table when it comes off the grill,” says the chef. Even better, the fish are delivered to the restaurant every day to ensure freshness.

Though Chef White has been New York-based, his foray into Coral Gables, he says, was a no-brainer. He finds many of his customers in New York are also in the City Beautiful for half of the year or more. “There’s a lot of back and forth between the two cities,” he explains, and he loves MIKA’s location at The Plaza, where he also lives in order to be close to the restaurant. Even better, many of his purveyors in New York have also relocated to Miami, so many of the ingredients are not only locally sourced but come from trusted vendors. Perhaps we’ll see another Michelin star coming to the Gables soon.

3007 Ponce De Leon Blvd.
The Plaza Coral Gables
305.404.2200
Mikacoralgables.com