Ogawa, translated into “Little River” is a one Michelin Star sushi restaurant in an area that looked very sketchy and barren. As a visitor to Miami, we took a ride-share to arrive here. From several online reviews of this compared to the other Japanese Michelin starred restaurants, they all spoke highly of this as being more inventive compared to the others. Having been to several NYC Japanese omakase or kaiseki restaurants already, I was hoping for something that was a bit more exquisite considering the rent prices here were probably far less than NYC.

Ariete has been around for many years, and it received notoriety due to its duck press. It was one of the few restaurants in the United States that had this contraption, where you squeeze out the innards to extract the juices and reuse it for a sauce. Ariete has been featured in the Michelin Guide and has received a Star for a few years now. We were tempted to try the tasting menu, which was a sampling of their menu, but we opted to go for the duck. I recall previously you used to be able to add the duck to the tasting menu, but we felt that would just be too much food. Ariete has been defined as a upscale restaurant that merges old Latin traditions, South Florida ingredients, and high-level French technique. It could only have been born in Miami.

For our trip to Miami, Florida, we booked a series of restaurants to try out. Our first restaurant was Stubborn Seed. This was highly rated by various Miami bloggers and food reviewers as a consistent Michelin dining restaurant. This restaurant also holds a Michelin Star for both dining and sustainability. It was quite easy to get a reservation a few weeks ahead of time, so we stopped by on a Wednesday evening at 5:30 PM.