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Sep 29, 2023

Review: MIA Kitchen and Bar in Delray Beach has seriously playful food

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel The food at MIA Kitchen and Bar west of Delray

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel

The food at MIA Kitchen and Bar west of Delray Beach features creative touches from chef Jason Binder, including filet mignon "oscar" with fried soft shell crab and beet risotto, a rare tuna sandwich, and foie gras "PB&J" with housemade peanut sauce and wine gelee on brioche.

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel

Filet mignon "Oscar" topped with fried soft shell crab and Hollandaise on purple-tinted beet risotto at MIA Kitchen and Bar in west Delray Beach.

Maria Lorenzino / Sun Sentinel

This is perhaps the best Italian restaurant in South Florida. <a href="http://www.southflorida.com/restaurants-and-bars/sf-west-palm-marcellos-la-sirena-20151205-story.html" target="_blank">Read the review here.</a>

Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel

Oceano Kitchen in Lantana is one of the best restaurants in South Florida. The food is superb, the canopy-covered deck dining area is cozy and relaxed, and the small menu changes daily. <a href="http://www.southflorida.com/restaurants-and-bars/sf-oceano-kitchen-lantana-restaurant-review-20171206-story.html">Read the review.</a>

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel

Lemon bar dessert ($10) made with lemon curd on a shortbread crust and topped with blueberry sorbet at MIA Kitchen and Bar in west Delray Beach.

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel

Foie gras "PB&J" appetizer ($18) with housemade peanut sauce and wine gelee on brioche at MIA Kitchen and Bar in west Delray Beach.

Jennifer Lett / Sun Sentinel

Three and a half stars for The Grove, an oasis of cozy civility in Delray Beach's Pineapple Grove neighborhood. The Grove doubled in size with the 2018 addition of a bar and patio but remains one of South Florida's best restaurants. Opened in 2012 by CIA-trained chef Michael Haycook and manager Paul Strike, the Grove features a small, select menu of rotating seafood and meats that's prepared with care. Don't miss the portobello soup or Heath bread pudding. <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/restaurant-reviews/fl-et-the-grove-delray-beach-restaurant-review-20190516-bt5dfhtcbbcpjj7edo3cphzh3a-story.html"target="_blank">Read the review.</a>

Jim Rassol / Sun Sentinel

Sweetwater doesn't just serve drinks, but emphasizes house-made flavorings, infusions, additives, locally produced fruits and vegetables, and craft liquors and beers produced by small distilleries and brewers.<a href="http://www.southflorida.com/restaurants-and-bars/sf-sh-sweetwater-bar-and-grill-boynton-092112-20120921,0,1292899.story" target="_blank">Read the review.</a>

Mike Stocker / Sun Sentinel

Three and a half stars for Jewell Bistro in Lake Worth. Dak Kerprich calls himself "a cooker, not a chef" and you'll be hard-pressed not to like most everything he cooks in this small, quirky, cash-only restaurant that opened in 2018. The menu changes daily as Kerprich likes to prepare good, local ingredients simply. The fresh-ground burger is outstanding. <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/fl-et-jewell-bistro-lake-worth-restaurant-review-20190417-story.html"target="_blank>Read the review.</a>

Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel

Three and a half stars for Elisabetta's Ristorante in Delray Beach. This big, brash two-story Italian restaurant that's a sibling to Louie Bossi's opened in July 2019 in the former longtime home of acclaimed 32 East. It's a worthy successor, run like a well-oiled machine by Big Time Restaurant Group, with very good food and drink, lively bars, a raucous (ok, loud) main dining room and a lovely balcony that's already become prime South Florida dining real estate. <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/restaurant-reviews/fl-et-elisabettas-delray-beach-restaurant-review-20191003-422v3o5clvbdxivv3sr5eh6wyy-story.html"target="_blank">Read the review.</a>

Amy Beth Bennett / Sun Sentinel

Rare tuna burger with housemade pickles and spicy slaw at MIA Kitchen and Bar in west Delray Beach.

Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel

Some of the food may be unusual, but do not get the mistaken impression that Eathai is a gimmicky place designed mainly for millennials. It is for anyone who appreciates a good meal. <a href="http://www.southflorida.com/restaurants-and-bars/sf-eathai-delray-beach-restaurant-review-20180530-story.html">Read the review.</a>

MIA Kitchen & Bar is a mixed-up restaurant that works. This is largely because of the culinary chops of talented chef Jason Binder and his team. No matter which corner of the globe the menu wanders to, and there are many, the plates that land on tables at MIA look good and taste better. Delicious food has a way of triumphing over discordant vibes, so whatever trepidation I had in the early stages of a recent meal were gone by the time I polished off dessert, an excellent creamy lemon bar topped with a bracing blueberry sorbet.

Simply put, much of the food at MIA Kitchen is top notch, with quality ingredients prepared well and without cutting corners. One taste of the port reduction that accompanied a grilled veal chop ($45) and I could tell it was a proper demi-glace, days in the making from a veal-bone stock. Binder, 33, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and former Four Seasons saucier who cut his teeth in the Philadelphia area under demanding French chefs, takes great pride in scratch-made components. Consider, for example, the tuna burger ($21), a special on the night I dined that will soon go on the menu. Gorgeous, sushi-grade local tuna was barely grilled and served ruby red on a toasted brioche bun, but what set the sandwich apart were the housemade pickles on top, sweet and garlicky, and a sriracha-spiked slaw below, a spicy punch that didn't overwhelm.

What I did not realize until a follow-up interview was that the tuna was actually ground, subtly re-shaped to resemble a steak. Binder made the sandwich in steak form when he arrived at MIA Kitchen a few months ago, but he didn't like the stringy texture. So he tweaked it by grinding it. It's some trick, because the tuna holds its shape beautifully. "The mouthfeel is incredible," Binder says. I have to agree. Binder also goes the extra mile in hunting and sourcing good ingredients, using a domestic, flash-frozen soft-shell crab from the Boston area after tasting it at a Miami restaurant he likes, and getting a special Japanese katakuriko (potato starch) for his light tempura batter at local Asian markets on his off days. Binder is one of those obsessive chefs worth driving a distance to try.

My concerns before arriving at MIA Kitchen were many. It is never a good sign when a restaurant retools with a new chef and general manager barely a year after opening. And it is not typically a good sign when an eatery's motto is "something for everyone," with a confused menu that looks half standard Italian (chicken parm, meatballs, shrimp scampi) and half Alinea (watermelon with feta, speck, candied peanuts and basil foam; foie gras PB&J with wine gelee and brioche).

MIA Kitchen's name also lends an air of confusion, conjuring thoughts of luggage or a serviceman gone missing at Miami International Airport. The name is pronounced "mia," as in "Mamma Mia," a reference to the Italian restaurants in Boynton Beach and Lake Worth run by owner Joey LoGrasso's family. LoGrasso wanted to venture into fine-dining, so he opened MIA Kitchen in fall 2017 in a new West Atlantic Avenue shopping plaza near Florida's Turnpike, west of Delray Beach. It started as a farm-to-table restaurant under chef Blake Malatesta with offbeat dishes such as grilled fish ribs with mango barbecue sauce and braised beef cheeks. The locals did not swoon.

In came Binder, from Brule Bistro in downtown Delray Beach, and new general manager Peter Stampone from the shuttered Max's Harvest (they worked together as teens in restaurants on the Jersey Shore), along with a play-to-the-masses revamp that includes chicken picatta, pasta bolognese and straightforward steaks and fish. I can understand the thinking: Get customers in the door, then let them wander to Binder's more interesting items offered as specials and the section of the menu labelled "modern."

It seems to be working, because the restaurant was full on a recent Friday. Things got off to a rocky start when my group was seated, with our harried yet friendly server dashing between tables and seemingly more fixated on refilling our water than taking our order. We saw another frustrated party get up and leave. Utensils had not been set on the table, a lapse not detected until appetizers arrived. My ears rang from a capacity crowd in the loud dining room.

Service and nerves smoothed once wine flowed and dishes arrived. Stampone, who will soon depart for Clay Conley's Buccan, deserves praise for his fairly-priced wine list, including a newly arrived 2016 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon at $110 (it typically retails for $80 a bottle.) A markup that low is a welcome scream to wine lovers (and the scream says, "Drink me!") A fine beef carpaccio ($15) was brightened by a fried quail egg on top. Grilled shrimp toast ($14) had a winning combination of shrimp, pickled tomato, shallots and arugula atop brioche smeared with a creamy feta spread, a plate marred by a bit too much concentrated vinegar puddled on the plate. Fried oysters served in the shell and topped with citrus slaw tasted good, but the temperature and textural clash between the cool topping and warm oyster led to sogginess.

The design of the 115-seat space is modern-hipster industrial (exposed ducts, reclaimed wood, filament lighting, poured concrete floors) in a most-decidedly unhip area. MIA Kitchen is near newer, gated communities that house well-to-do Northeastern retirees. It is a demographic usually averse to wine gelee and basil foam.

But an undeterred Binder has pressed forward since arriving in August. He built a following at Brule Bistro and past patrons have been finding him.

Binder also brought that playful PB&J foie gras ($18) from his Brule Bistro repertoire, a dish I did not try until a followup visit for a photo shoot. I initially — and incorrectly — dismissed it as a gimmick because he describes it as a throwback to his New Jersey childhood. Who knew Joe Piscopo and Tony Soprano downed luxurious goose liver as kids? This is very much a grownup treat, with a warm, crusted oval of rich foie gras perched atop a rectangle of creamy brioche on a puddle of pureed peanuts with olive oil. The wine gelee resembles a mini muffin made of port jello. Put them together and you have one sophisticated bite.

I also was a skeptical convert of Binder's version of filet mignon Oscar ($39), a heaping tower that featured meat topped with a soft shell crab and aerated hollandaise atop a purple pile of beet and tarragon risotto. Asparagus and port demi-glace surrounded the mound. It was a colorful, crowded party, one I initially thought was more Instagram stunt than serious plate. One tablemate loved it, another said the risotto tasted "like sour oatmeal." It wasn't until Binder explained that all the sauces and components should be mixed with the risotto and eaten together that I understood — and liked — the dish. Perhaps the servers should get that memo, too.

The meal ended well, with smooth black coffee (I wish all restaurants would get coffee right like this) and strong desserts from pastry chef Mosengwe Beatrice Maila, a South African native. Banana bread pudding with caramel ($10) was dense and satisfying, but the knockout winner was the lemon bar ($10), with a base made of shortbread and an upper half more like lemon custard. Topped with blueberry sorbet and a mint leaf, and served on a plate dusted with sugar, it was quickly devoured. I have a feeling I’ll be making the trek up the Turnpike more often.

MIA Kitchen & Bar

7901 W. Atlantic Ave., west of Delray Beach

561-499-2200, or Mia.Kitchen

Cuisine: Modern American-Italian

Cost: Moderate-expensive. Appetizers, salads and pizzas cost $11 to $25, entrees $19-$45, sides $7, desserts $10

Hours: Open daily at 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. Sunday, 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Brunch 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

Reservations: Accepted by phone or online

Credit cards: All major

Bar: Full liquor with cocktails, local beer and good, fairly-priced wine list

Noise level: Loud when full with loud music over speakers

Wheelchair access: Ground level

Parking: Free lot

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