Description: Casual, elegant, excellent. My gourmet friend was looking for a great meal during our stay in Miami. Joe’s Crab Shack doesn’t need to offer reservations, and therefore doesn’t, making it difficult to get a table for a larger party. We ‘settled’ for 7pm reservations at Mark’s South Beach, located in the ground level (actually, sub-ground level) of the Nash Hotel at 11th and Collins.
The Nash is one of many SoBe hotels from the 1930s, as the framed memorabilia demonstrate (a week, with meals, ran $11 per person in 1937!). The restaurant is separately owned and operated, and reached down a short set of steps from the lobby. You descend to the small, dark-wood lined bar, which seats 8 at the bar and 12 more, tops, at the two-tops. As you round the corner on your way to the dining room, you pass an impressive arrangement of AAA four-diamond awards, which appeared to be a complete set for the 21st century.
We were seated on the patio, however, tucked back about 30 yards from the street. A U-shaped area with a narrow neck, it’s bounded on three sides by the hotel and its neighbors, whose modest number of stories still keep the night sky as a main part of the surroundings. In addition to the hotel’s three small, attractively lit pools, the plant-lined area held about 8-10 round wicker tables with wide armed chairs.
From the outset, this was a terrific meal. Mark’s offers ‘American contemporary cuisine’, and although the founder now oversees a successful quartet of Miami —area establishments, leaving the culinary vision, etc., in the hands of an executive chef, you can see why the claim of putting South Florida on the restaurant map may have something to it. I passed on the salads, and opted for the soup with English pea as an appetizer, as did the dining companion to the left. We each offered to finish the other’s serving; neither offer was welcome. The eight pastas were too good to overlook, and I opted for something that nodded in the direction of the ocean just two blocks away: saffron linguine with a Florida lobster tail, accompanied by tomatoes, basil, and fava beans (with two prosciutto and garlic crostini crossed over it as protectors for its journey from kitchen to table).
As with everyone else’s meal, it was delicious. Our server was professional: polite, friendly, attentive, and as much of a presence as we wished. We chatted with her while I was still recovering from the intense dose of chocolate from the pastry’s chef’s native Venezuela (we did call him out for an ovation).
Somewhere mid-meal, the full moon emerged above the hotel roof, another fine addition to the setting. From the seating to the service to the food, this was an excellent experience from top to bottom. Entrées run $18–$52, with pastas occupying the lower end. The wine list is long, excellent, and expensive. But if you’re after such an experience, you won’t be disappointed.
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