Food Tours in Miami
Twice a day, every day at noon and 5pm on Miami Beach, a walking Food Tour meets at the celebrated David's Cuban Café on 9th and Alton.
Enthusiastically led by Miami resident and native Macedonian, Faruk Bishevac, this engaging young entrepreneur offers a Food Tour that combines food, culture and architecture.
In the memorabilia filled traditional Cuban café, we sip sweet Cuban espresso coffee and eat hearty slabs of Cuban sandwich – Cuban sandwich – sweet ham, pulled pork, mustard pickles.
Faruk talks of the history of Cubans in Miami, the highs and low spots of exiles from Castro some of whom were rich aristocrats with lands and fortunes confiscated by the dictator; and the others political prisoners and those released from mental hospitals and jails when America promised to shelter them from Communism.
A Cuban institution
We share the cortado – one large serving made to be divided into small cups of café con leche (coffee with hot whole milk) and handed around the group.And any person who happens to be passing by.
David's, a Cuban institution, has been in Miami Beach for 38 years. To share coffees is a Cuban tradition.
It is claimed that the reason Cuban coffee has so many devotes is the kick they get from the Ethiopian beans – discovered when farmers in the mountainous regions observed that the sheep never slept.
The shepherds decided to investigate – then they too could stay awake all night and watch their sheep.
Fortified, our small band are ready for the walking part of the tour.
Getting to know each other
Faruk warned we walk and talk and sit and get to know each other.
It is leisurely, conversational, laid back. Like Miami Beach.
But first, a trolley ride. As we wait for the free trolley that now runs all over South Beach and into mid Beach.
Faruk tells the history of Miami's settling by the Tequesta Indians in the 1800s.
They were wiped out by the diseases of the swamps of South FloridaNext came the Seminoles who now are the owners ofHard Rock Casinos & Resorts and Miccosukee Indian Villages on the Everglades.
The Seminoles were traders and the only tribe never to be conquered by the US Army.
Faruk's brand of Food Tour attracts visitors from all over the world and he points out that he has three criteria for the restaurants chosen.
No chains
Firstly they must be family run, not chains.
Second home made ingredients and third international.
We ride the trolley to our next stop on the top end of Lincoln Road, almost at the Bay is the Argentinian Panizza Bistro Buenos Aries.
The restaurant opened on 9/11 and having struggled through the dark days that followed the family have become well known for their freshly cooked empanadas/quiche / pastries.
The crispy pastry on the empanadas is produced by oven baking not the more traditional deep fried Miami style.
Deep fried – Miami style
Walking down Lincoln Road, the one mile pedestrianized area between Biscayne Bay and the ocean.
The names of Miami's founders, Mary & William Brickell, Carl Fisher, the developer of Lincoln Road and Julia Tuttle are invoked.
Carl Fisher cleared Lincoln Road of mangroves and made it habitable in 1912.
At the insistence of his young wife Jane, he built the first Miami Beach Church in a plot on Lincoln and the mission style white church still stands proudly today on the corner of Drexel and Lincoln amid all the high end designer boutiques and restaurants
Never fails to enchant
There is one enduring Miami Beach story that never fails to enchant.
That of Julia Tuttle who in the winter months when all was frozen up north,sent a box of fruit and an orange blossom to the railroad magnate Henry Flagler urging him to extend his railroad further South from Palm Beach to Miami.
He agreed, eventually building all the way to Key West, unfortunately not one but two hurricanes blew the railroad away.
Moving onto Espanola Way
Moving onto Espanola Way, a restoration of Mediterranean revival buildings, we are treated to chicken croquettes – bolnha de bacalhau and codfish and potatoes- coxinhal de frangoat the family run Brazilian Restaurant, Boteco Copacabana.
The tiled patterns of the floor mirror the waves of Copacabana Beach.
On Ocean Drive Faruk tells the history of South Beach's Art Deco buildings.How they were saved from the developer's bulldozer's and became the enduring image of South Beach.
The pastel palette has featured used in thousands of glossy magazine photos and newspapers articles.
Miami vice
Miami Vice really hit the national and international consciousness with the 80s television series Miami Vice.
Thanks to the preservationists, the 1930s buildings are intact and look exactly the same– but restored - even better.
One of the finest examples being The Tides Hotel, here we pause our walking tour to sit in the sea turtle decorated lobby and eat sweet crab and shreddedlettuce salad.
Surely there is no more we can be expected to eat on this Food Tour.But who doesn't have room for ice cream?
The Ferli Gelato Espresso Bar on Washington Avenue makes the best ice cream in town, we are assured.
The freshly prepared pistachio is rich, wholesome and tastes of creamy almond milk.A great way to round off a gastronomic, cultural and architectural tour around Miami Beach (and all food is included in the cost of the tour).
Now, Please an Uber to take me home, I can't walk another step or eat another bite.