Red Rooster Overtown (Miami)

This past weekend, I visited Miami, the city where I grew up but never felt at home, for the first time in a year and a half.  I caught up with my parents and brother, then hung out with my best friend.  We saw the legendary hip hop group De La Soul (my second-favorite hip hop group of all time, after A Tribe Called Quest), performing at a nice concert hall in downtown Miami.  But before that legendary concert, we also ate what turned out to be one of the best meals of my life.

The restaurant was Red Rooster Overtown (https://www.redroosterovertown.com/), one of the many restaurants created by the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, who opened his first Red Rooster location in Harlem.  If you watched the Luke Cage TV series, Harlem’s badass hero for hire Luke Cage took his ladyfriend Claire Temple to eat at the original Red Rooster in season 2, episode 1.  Back when that episode dropped in 2018, I looked it up to confirm it was a real place, checked out the menu, and remembered it when I learned a second location opened in Miami in 2019.  But this was my first chance to dine there, and I’m so glad we did.

By the way, Overtown is a historic Black neighborhood in downtown Miami that has definitely undergone some gentrification in recent years.  The Red Rooster building is literally standing in the shadows of expensive-looking high-rise condos, and we saw a “Museum of Ice Cream” and a Savage X Fenty lingerie boutique nearby.  But make no mistake, this esteemed restaurant celebrates the vibrant history of Overtown and Miami’s cultural and culinary histories.  The décor inside Red Rooster Overtown features artwork and artifacts on display in the beautiful dining room that celebrate and commemorate Black culture, including original covers and pages from different editions of the Green Book, safety guides for Black motorists, framed near the hostess stand.

Right above our table, I dug a gorgeous accordion, a cool old projector, and a reference book about the Black Panthers (not the superhero, but the unfairly vilified political activist organization that did a lot of good in so many underserved communities from the late 1960s to 1982).

Unlike the original Red Rooster in Harlem, which serves “elevated” soul food, Red Rooster Overtown combines soul food with Caribbean flavors, creating a fusion menu that is a perfect microcosm for Miami itself.  Every dish on the menu looked amazing.  I literally wanted to try everything, but my dude and I did try a bunch of stuff on our first (but hopefully not last) visit.  We went to town!

We started with the best deviled eggs I’ve ever had, and I love deviled eggs.  This quartet came sprinkled with Aleppo pepper, used the most in Syrian, Turkish, and Armenian cuisine, and each egg half was garnished with a crispy chicharron, or fried pork skin.  We each got two deviled eggs, and like a good sushi roll, they were best eaten in one bite to ensure we experienced all the flavors and textures (soft and yielding, crunchy and crackly) all at once.

Next up, we shared another appetizer: cassava papas bravas.  Cassava is probably better known as yuca, a starchy root vegetable that is usually boiled or fried, not unlike potatoes, and papas bravas are a Spanish dish with fried potatoes served with really cool stuff on them, like a spicy red sauce.  I’ve tried yuca from countless Cuban and Puerto Rican restaurants, and I must admit I’ve never loved it, especially not when sweet ripe plantains (maduros) or good French fries are available.  But this dish changed my mind and made me realize the heights that a talented chef could reach with the humble yuca.

These were perfectly chewy little orbs with lightly crispy fried exteriors, almost like the love child of gnocchi pasta and tater tots.  They were served with red curry sauce, blistered tomatoes, cotija cheese (a salty, crumbly, dry Mexican cheese similar to feta or parmesan), and lime, so it was a feast of salt, fat, and acid that formed a perfect balance.  They were sublime.  Chef’s kiss, 10/10, no notes.

My buddy ordered the fried yardbird, because he likes fried chicken even more than I do.  It came with three pieces, and I got the leg, which was magnificent.  Juicy, tender, fried to perfection, crispy and well-seasoned breading, not greasy at all.  Better still, it came with chili butter, house pickles, and braised collards, which I was very tempted to order separately until we realized it came with the fried chicken.
The braised collards are made with smoked turkey, and they were so damn fine — no getting funky on the mic for this batch of collard greens!  I always order them whenever I see them on a barbecue or soul food menu, but these were the best greens I’ve ever had.  In fact, “the best _____ I’ve ever had” is a running theme for this review.

I don’t know if I am famous for my love of oxtails, but I do love oxtails, and anyone who knows me knows that.  However, my friend is not a fan, so I opted against trying the Guyanese oxtail pepper pot with sweet plantains, piquillo peppers, and coconut lime rice, even though that seems like a winning combination.  He doesn’t dig on catfish either, so I skipped the Overtown fish fry, with fried catfish, red shrimp, and oxtail fried rice.

But since I have a lot of love for other tender, unctuous, bone-in braised meats, I ordered a new dish that had recently been added to the menu, the smoked jerk short rib, served with butter bean stew and fennel slaw.  These short ribs were served sliced on top of the creamy butter bean stew, with with all the bones removed, and tender enough to cut with a fork.  They were pleasantly spiced, but not spicy.  The fennel “slaw” wasn’t much like any slaw I’ve ever had before — not creamy nor vinegary — but thin, almost shaved shreds of fennel bulb on top of the short rib slices added some crunch and herby-sweet flavor.
We both loved this one.  I must admit it wasn’t the best short rib dish I’ve ever had (that was the Montreal-style smoked short rib dish I had at Abe Fisher, an Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant in Philadelphia that closed about a month after my wife and I ate like kings there in 2023), but it was probably the second-best short rib dish I’ve ever had.

We shared a couple of sides, too.  We know how to party!  The crispy brussels sprouts with shallot vinaigrette, topped with a snow flurry of finely shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese, was a savory, tart, umami adventure.  I’m a sucker for anything with an interesting vinaigrette dressing, so that was a hit.  I wish my brussels sprouts came out that well, but now I just need to experiment more.

And the charred candied yams with chili crunch (the hottest condiment around these days, rightfully replacing old and busted sriracha) and lime aioli was another feast for the senses, as beautiful as it was delicious, and full of wild flavors and interesting contrasting textures.  I never would have ordered this one on my own, but I sure was happy to try it.

Finally, even though neither of us are the biggest dessert dudes, we split the key lime pie, which is always one of my favorite desserts anywhere.  Since my wife doesn’t care for it, I never order it when I’m with her, but this pie was yet another platinum hit.  It was served as a round tart rather than a typical slice from a larger pie, with a light graham cracker crust and topped with wonderful coconut meringue that went perfectly with the sweet, creamy, tart pie filling.  The best key lime pie I’ve ever had is right here in Orlando, at Sister Honey’s Bakery, but this key lime pie/tart was damn fine in its own right.

So that’s my rundown of Red Rooster Overtown.  I cannot rave enough about this place.  I’ve had a handful of restaurant meals where every dish and every bite is better than the last, culminating in a culinary crescendo.  The aforementioned Abe Fisher in Philly (RIP) was one of those for sure.  This was another.  Normally I would say that nothing could top a meal like that, but then we saw De La Soul, and Posdnous, Maseo, and special guest Pharoahe Monch filled that theater with love and joy.  It was a perfect meal for the occasion — soul food before De La Soul.  Upon researching more about Red Rooster to write this review, I discovered another connection: De La Soul founded The Spitkicker Collective, a group of Black musical artists and other creative people to engage in social activism, and Chef Marcus Samuelsson — the Red Rooster founder himself — also got involved.  So our evening seemed preordained.  I wonder if the group hung out and partied at Red Rooster Overtown after the show.  Regardless, I’m so glad we went there before the show, and I certainly hope to return with my friend on a future trip to Miami.

And on that note, Red Rooster Overtown also offers a weekend brunch buffet with a DJ spinning, as well as a Sunday evening buffet with live jazz, with both buffet menus on the restaurant’s website (linked at the top of my review).  Either of those would be a great excuse to go back, and buffets and jazz are two of my favorite things!