There’s a smoky aroma as soon as you walk into Ember, the American bistro that opened in Miami’s Design District in May. It’s because chef Brad Kilgore, a James Beard Award finalist and Food & Wine Best New Chef in America among other accolades, is all in on grilling, a throwback to his early years in Kansas City and the steakhouses in which he once worked. (He later moved on to Chicago’s esteemed Alinea and Miami’s J&G Grill under star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten before opening the Progressive American restaurant Alter in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and the Tokyo style cocktail lounge Kaido above Ember.)
The smoke is well earned since the wood burning grill gets a real workout here And it’s not just for the burgers and house dry aged Black Angus filets, Japanese A5 Wagyu and bone in ribeyes served classic or “Embered” with a mix of green and white peppercorns, tellicherry peppers and coriander along with truffle butter, classic Bearnaise, smoky horseradish and others.
Dishes you don’t expect also wind up on the grill, among them: a charred shrimp cocktail with spicy Thai bird cocktail sauce, fire roasted lasagna with maitake mushrooms taking the place of beef in the Bolognese all on a base of gruyere fondue and roasted cornbread custard with bone marrow butter and beef ragout—delicious and rich. Even the region’s classic dessert, key lime pie, has a toasted coconut meringue.
There are exceptions, however, particularly on the lunch menu. Leaner but equally delicious are a citrus salad with watercress, shallots, yogurt and an aperol vinaigrette, perfectly crispy, greaseless fried oysters, coffee and cardamom cured salmon with pickled red onion, fried almond butter and roasted beets.
Desserts veer straight into overdrive, though. Apart from the key lime pie, the tempting short list includes maduro cream pie composed of the fried sweet plantains, bananas, toasted coconut meringue and coquito ice cream, chocolate truffle cake with hot fudge sauce and rice crispy a la mode with puffed rice and grains, marshmallow and dulce de leche ice cream. Perhaps diners can walk them off perusing the designer shops on the streets alongside.
