The Steakhouse Roundup
We've got three new steakhouses coming our way, because clearly we have not yet had our fill of red meat. These really seem like the wrong types of places to be opening during a recession, right? Anyway, here they are:
• Morton's hasn't quite saturated the market enough, despite the recent opening of the branch in Coral Gables. A new Morton's will open up in The Crown apartment building on 40th Street and Collins Avenue on Miami Beach sometime either late this year or early next year. We imagine it'll likely be the latter. The company is also planning to open its first branch in Broward County later this year in the Broward Financial Center in Fort Lauderdale.
• BLT Steak, Laurent Tourondel's take on the American steakhouse, has chosen Miami Beach as its fifth location. It'll be located inside the Betsy Hotel. We made a couple of phone calls, but no one could give any specific information about the progress of the restaurant, except that it will be opening in the fall.
• Cita's Italian Chophouse definitely has an opening date: July 22. It's opening at 3176 Commodore Plaza in Coconut Grove. The focus, we're told, will be premium cuts of beef, fresh fish and homemade pastas. We're still working on getting a menu, but here are a few sample dishes: veal-pork-beef meatballs topped with whipped ricotta, fried basil and tomato sauce; papardelle with beef tenderloin, porcini mushrooms and wild herbs in a Cognac sauce; short ribs marinated in Barolo for 24 hours before being braised topped with whipped ricotta; and for dessert, something called chocolate sabotage, a sampling of five chocolate desserts.
