View of the Joe Allen Restaurant on Miami Beach.
Joe Allen
- 1787 Purdy Ave.
- Miami Beach, FL 33139
- 305-531-7007
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- $$$, $20 - $40
- Pizza, Salads, Seafood
- Menu
A bit north and west of deep South Beach, there's an oasis, a place where men aren't yet wearing slinky low-rise pants. It's Joe Allen, fifth in a small New York-based chain. A place that's testament to good, straight-ahead eating, where the food is filling and not fussy and if you're not ordering meatloaf and mashed potatoes, you ought to be.
Your town's not a real town unless it has a signature food, we say. Bratwurst in Milwaukee. Baked beans in Boston. Blue crabs in Baltimore. Meatloaf in Miami Beach.
That last is a bit of a stretch, of course. The Beach -- and especially South Beach, with its relentless emphasis on beauty and glamour and glowsticks -- is about as likely to embrace meatloaf as Janet Reno is to throw a campaign event at a nightclub, you might say.
But a bit north and west of deep South Beach, there's an oasis, a place where men aren't yet wearing slinky low-rise pants. It's Joe Allen, fifth in a small New York-based chain. A place that's testament to good, straight-ahead eating, where the food is filling and not fussy, where if you're not ordering meatloaf and mashed potatoes you ought to be.
This crowded, bustling, 100-seat spot might have the Beach's most loyal regular clientele, enabling lunch every day even in slowpoke summer, and requiring reservations most nights, and certainly on weekends. They flock and re-flock for comfort food, for quality service, for camaraderie. The visiting star list includes Rosie O'Donnell, Bernadette Peters, James Woods and Lauren Bacall
The place has been open 4 ½ years now; Joe spent a lot of time here in the early days, but comes less often now. He leaves it in capable hands: This is a supremely well-managed restaurant, one reason that its well-heeled crowd visits often despite scant opportunity to overspend.
You'll begin with warm Italian country bread, butter and a wide-ranging menu. Sensible food like meatloaf and liver and mashed potatoes are prominent, but so are lighter, more creative dishes -- the model is not unlike the old Strand, perhaps the first upscale restaurant of the South Beach '80s recovery.
We began with the day's soup ($5), simple tomato puree with basil, pepper and salt, given a twist with a few tortellini stuffed with spinach and ricotta. This was fruity, spicy, colorful.
Fancy can be good, too, as with arugula salad with prosciutto di parma (from the town of Parma, the king of prosciutto), Bartlett pear and shaved Parmesan ($9). This has the earmarks of the ideal salad, with variety in texture, plus something sharp, something sweet, something rich and something salty. Tartness comes with homemade lemon-shallot dressing.
A big bowl of steamed mussels ($14), about two dozen, is a real winner. They are smaller than typical, and also much more tender, and they draw plenty of flavor from a hot bath of soy, ginger, sesame and Chablis. A light delight.
Pizzas, dinner salads and sandwiches are available but perhaps best tried at lunch. Dinner means meatloaf with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach ($15). It's Joe Allen's second biggest seller (runner-up to, of course, calves' liver). The loaf is ground sirloin with celery, carrot, onion, Worcestershire, ketchup, mustard, bread crumbs, salt and pepper, Mom's recipe but somehow better, with savory brown gravy and wonderful mashed potatoes. Spinach is sautéed with garlic and oil, the old Italian way. Satisfaction.
That liver ($16) is sliced thin, not such an ominous sight on the plate, petite, even. For those of you who don't like liver, it remains liver. But a gravy of chicken stock and butter, and a headdress of onion and bacon, hide it well. Mashed potatoes and spinach with this, too.
Things get Technicolor with grilled chicken breast ($17). Sounds simple enough, but not after one adds tomato and fig cooked together into a sauce, pistachio nuts and goat cheese spooned on top, and an arugula, zucchini and yellow squash salad with lemon shallot dressing placed alongside. Somewhere in here, there is chicken, and plenty of it. The flavors are all fresh, but there might be too many of them.
Chicken and fish dishes change often, and this night's fish dish was more sensorially manageable. Halibut ($19) was pan roasted with flour and salt and pepper, and a hash of fennel, cherry tomatoes, basil, butter and white wine was cooked separately and heaped on top. The sharp fennel and bright tomato are good company for the rich fish; the dish is light but most interesting.
Desserts can be split -- one should do the whole table. Especially if it's warm date pudding ($6.50). It's more like a cake than a pudding, a molded structure centered on a giant plate and drenched with melted toffee, with sliced dates on the side. Flavor is warm and wonderful, exceptionally sweet, but hey, this is dessert, and this is Joe Allen.
Hours
11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Friday; noon-11:30 p.m. Saturday and SundayDetails
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Location
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Recent Reviews
See all reviews- Current 62.6 °F
- It's a tennis day
- Take a lesson in Brickell
Joe Allen offers consistently good food served by smart and reliable wait staff in South Beach. How rare is that? The menu is varied enough that you can bring a group safe in the knowledge that everyone will find something they want to order and the entree will be very good. Great desserts, excellent burgers, nice bar, too. A place we keep coming back to....
Posted by: rhirsch on Fri, 2008-02-29 06:42