9 July 30 - August 5, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Dig in Twenty-five years later, Miami Spice is still hard to resist. BY OLEE FOWLER M iami Spice Restaurant Months is back again, August 1 through September 30, with more than 300 restaurants confirmed, $40 brunch and lunch menus, dinners at $50 to $65, and a new premium tier, Miami Spice Reserve, starting at $95. It is also a major milestone for the pro- gram. The Greater Miami Convention & Visi- tors Bureau (GMCVB) created it in 2002 as post-9/11 damage control, and 25 editions later, the emergency measure has outlasted a recession and a pandemic and seems to keep getting stronger with each passing year. Miami Spice launched in August 2002, in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Tourism had cratered, planes were empty, and the GMCVB needed to give peo- ple a reason to book a table during the city’s slowest weeks. The bureau partnered with American Express on an August promotion. Participating restaurants would serve a three-course prix fixe lunch for $19.99 and dinner for $29.99. The idea came from restaurateur Steven Haas, a Soyka partner and Delano and Forge alum who was the first from the restaurant industry to chair the GMCVB board. “Think of him as the architect of Miami Spice, and the organization the engineers,” then-GM- CVB chief operating officer Rolando Aedo told New Times in 2023. “I had to do some- thing to help our restaurants recover, so I lit- erally created Miami Spice,” Haas told FIU News in 2021. Today Haas runs China Grill, the Jeffrey Chodorow favorite that reopened at Bal Harbour Shops in June after more than a decade away. The launch was bumpier than the anni- versary press materials let on. In July 2002, the then New Times critic Jen Karetnick re- ported that while promotional flyers prom- ised “more than 75 of Miami’s best restaurants,” the program’s own website listed what she called “a meager 16 participat- ing restaurants” at press time. By opening day, the list had grown to roughly 50, includ- ing the Capital Grille, which is still on the lineup today. The bureau’s aim went beyond filling seats. “Our hope was that these deals would demystify these places and create more regular patrons out of locals,” Aedo said in that same New Times interview. Miami Spice can now be found in every neighborhood in the city, from Aventura to South Miami and from Brickell to Wyn- wood. Last year the GMCVB had a record 387 restaurants participate, and more than 300 are confirmed for the 25th season, from Michelin-recognized restaurants like Stub- born Seed, Ariete, Cote, and Le Jardinier to first-timers like Tâm Tâm, the popular downtown Vietnamese restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand. A handful have grown with the program, according to the GMCVB’s legacy list; places like A Fish Called Avalon are in their 21st year partici- pating in Miami Spice, while Novecento Brickell is on season 24. “What began as an economic development initiative to support our restaurant commu- nity during the quieter summer months has grown into a beloved tradition that reflects the remarkable evolution of the destination,” says David Whitaker, president and CEO of the GMCVB. For restaurateurs, the math hasn’t changed since 2002. August and September are still famously brutal for business, and Spice fills seats. What has changed is how op- erators use it. Few have used it longer than Mareva 1939, the Spanish restaurant at the National Hotel with a two-decade Spice run. Food and bev- erage director Alejandro Delgado, who has worked with the program for eight years himself, treats the promotion as a creative ex- ercise. “It’s the time to innovate,” Delgado says. “We forget about the cost. What can we do to put out a good dish, something memo- rable enough that you gain a new guest?” This year that means a tuna fideuà, the Valencian cousin of paella made with thin noodles in- stead of rice, which he says few Spanish res- taurants attempt because it’s so hard to execute in service. “We have guests from Fort Lauderdale who had never been to the beach, and now they come down to South Beach,” he says. “They discovered the restaurant through Miami Spice.” Delgado also credits Miami’s churn of new residents, transplants who arrive already knowing New York’s restaurant week and find the city has its own version waiting. In Sunny Isles Beach, Rose Cafe & Res- taurant is in its third Spice. Founder Alex- andra Milton opened the spot as an all-day café in 2020 and relaunched it as a full res- taurant last fall. At the far northern edge of the city’s map, the promotion solves a spe- cific problem for them. “The hardest thing for us, and for any restaurant during the summer, is getting people through the door,” says Milton. Some diners need a big- ger reason to make the drive, and Spice is that reason. The menu leans on the restau- rant’s Italian signatures like branzino with tagliolini, eggplant Parmigiana, gamberoni al curry, and tiramisu, plus the gelato the team says sold out at New Times’ Taste of Italy event earlier this year. Mo Alkassar, the 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist who co-founded Ghee Indian Kitchen with chef Niven Patel and first learned the program working for Michael Schwartz at Michael’s Genuine, is entering CHŌ Asian Bistro, his four-month-old Miami Beach spot, in its first Spice. “Now more than ever, I just think cost of living and the prices of everything went way out of whack,” Alkassar says. “If there’s any- thing I could support, it’s a program that is budget-friendly, that allows guests to dine for a reasonable price again.” “I know my margins will shrink a little bit, but I’m going to gain new guests,” he says. “I’m going to showcase my restaurant to guests that maybe otherwise would not have come, and they will be my guests in the fu- ture, because I’m going to win them over.” He’s watched restaurants pad Spice menus with cheaper items. He goes the other way, pulling straight from the regular menu — think mango coconut and wasabi cabbage salads, scallop crudo, kung pao chicken, pad see ew, shrimp nasi goreng, and a chocolate and coconut pani puri dessert with hazelnut praline and dark chocolate milk. He ▼ Café Gekko photo provided by Miami Spice Jarana Aventura photo provided by Miami Spice MORE THAN 300 RESTAURANTS ARE CONFIRMED FOR THE 25TH SEASON. >> p10 Madai crudo at Gekko Lomo saltado at Jarana Aventura
