Decades ago, Miami was one of the very first cities that Massimo Bottura visited in the United States. And in the 1980s, the Michelin three-starred chef would spend many of his vacations in the Florida city. So it’s only fitting that Bottura chose the 305 as the location for his inaugural solo restaurant in America: Torno Subito, which opens on Wednesday.
“Miami has always been a special place for me,” he told Robb Report ahead of the opening. Those vacations were “a very, very beautiful moment of my life . . . Miami has such a big personality that we have to pay homage to Miami.”
Torno Subito does that by bringing a dash of whimsy and fun to everything from the menu to the design. The restaurant is a rainbow of colors, from the red U-shaped bar to the striking yellow pizza oven that sits in the middle of the space. From there, the team is hoping to make “the best pizza in town,” as Bottura put it, but they’re also using the oven to cook items overnight, smoke certain dishes, and finish roasted octopus to make it perfectly crispy.
Tortellini
Cristian Gonzalez
The menu is a collaboration between Bottura and the restaurant’s head chef, Bernardo Paladini, who comes to Miami after heading up the Torno Subito location in Dubai, which earned a Michelin star under his purview. Prior to the opening, Paladini told Robb Report that they’ve taken an ironic approach to Italian cuisine: “Italians are passionate about the traditions,” he said, “so we try to find a way, an ironic way, to serve this big misunderstanding of Italian gastronomy to make people happy.”
Bottura and Paladini are hoping that customers will find that happiness in dishes like Pappa al Pomodoro, which is all about combatting food waste, one of the restaurant’s main focuses. The plate uses day-old bread, Parmesan cheese crust, oil, and boiled tomatoes to liven up ingredients that may have otherwise been tossed away. Or there’s the Oops, I Burned the Key Lime Pie dessert—inspired by a lemon tart at Bottura’s Osteria Francescana: It’s “a dish about rebuilding in a perfect way something imperfect,” Paladini said. “It’s a dish about the mistakes.”
If you can’t decide among the menu’s dozens of plates, Torno Subito offers a $165 tasting menu, featuring eight courses chosen by Paladini. A wine and cocktail pairing is also available for $110: The restaurant has teamed up with New York’s Dante, one of the best bars in the North America, for the cocktail menu, which includes various Martinis and Negronis, alongside seasonal sips.
Oops, I Burned the Key Lime Pie
Cristian Gonzalez
Torno Subito is a bold, brash, and beautiful opening from one of the world’s best chefs—seemingly right at home in Miami. But that doesn’t mean Bottura and Paladini are doing everything the Florida way.
“We are not going to have a classic Miami opening with 500, 600 people,” Paladini said. “We want to know our limit, grow slowly, and make sure that this project is about quality.”
“Be humble,” Bottura added. “Grow slow like a tree.” An orange tree, perhaps.
Click here to see all the images of Torno Subito Miami.
