OLA Miami » Press

Ola featured on 72M Magazine

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:21:43 +0000

Chef Horacio Rivadero has won Food & Wine’s Best Gulf Coast Chef!

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:00:38 +0000

OLA/Dining Room Chef Horacio Rivadero has won Food & Wine's Best Gulf Coast Chef!

Click here to view the Best New Chef results on FoodandWine.com and a congratulatory post from Eater.com here and a one from TheFood-e.com here.

RESTAURANT The Dining Room (Read a review)

LOCATION Miami Beach, FL

WHY HE’S AMAZING Because he’s making exquisite, gimmick-free Latin food with passion and precision.

BACKGROUND Ola (Miami Beach)

MUST-TRY DISH Braised pork with white bean puree, radishes and green mustard sauce.

HOMETOWN DESSERT Rivadero was born in Argentina; his playful take on baked Alaska is called baked Patagonia: pistachio cake with dulce de leche ice cream, passion fruit sauce and gorgeous meringue.

DOUBLE DUTY Rivadero also oversees the kitchen at Ola for his mentor, Nuevo Latin cuisine pioneer Douglas Rodriguez.

OLA Chef Horacio Rivadero on NBC Miami

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:41:32 +0000

Chef Horacio Rivadero and owner Zach Lieberman of OLA and The Dining Room Restaurants on NBC Channel 6 in Miami

A Mango Gangster grows up

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:32:45 +0000

A quarter-century on, Douglas Rodriguez’s fusion fervor has given way to a focus on ingredients — and a disdain for ‘molecular’ cooking

By Liz Balmaseda Palm Beach Post
When I first met chef Douglas Rodríguez, he was doing improv at a Lincoln Road spot called the Wet Paint Café. Of course, instead of making jokes he made yuca, and instead of serving up punch lines he served up plantains. Gussied-up yuca and plantains, that is.

This was 1988, and the 20-something Cuban-American kid with a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales in Providence, R.I., was concocting some crazy dishes for the day, pairing ingredients foreign to the Cuban vernacular.

Green plantain linguini with bacon-sherry-shallot cream sauce? If you closed your eyes, you might find it tasted as comforting and rich as a traditional Cuban fufú of mashed green plantains and pork rinds. But I guarantee that no shallot had dared to venture into the kitchens of Little Havana. And no self-respecting Cuban black bean would have been caught dead as a flavoring agent in pasta.
v But Rodríguez, part of the Mango Gang that put Miami on the culinary map in the 1980s, forged ahead with his “nouvelle Cuban” ways along a hairpin-curve route that landed him in high-profile Miami and New York restaurants, earned him a coveted James Beard Rising Star Chef award in 1996, turned him into a cookbook author and restaurateur and ordained him America’s godfather of “Nuevo Latino” cuisine.

“He understood the cooking of his parents and all of the Cuban émigrés. … Then he did what chefs do if they have the mad chops — he turned it on its head,” says fellow Mango Gangster Norman Van Aken, another pivotal figure in Miami’s fusion cuisine.

Like a pop artist, Rodríguez fused “the common with the classic in a kind of street cred way,” Van Aken says.

Now at 46, “DRod” is downright mainstream. That’s due in part to the fact that Miami’s culinary scene has exploded in eclectic ways and in part to the chef’s refocused approach to food.

“When you get older you mature in a lot of different ways,” says Rodríguez. “My cooking, I think, is a little more mature. I’m trying to source better ingredients, use local ingredients, do more traditional dishes. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel anymore.”

The enthusiasm he once displayed for new-wave flavor combos is now lavished on his selection of ingredients — the local cobia coming in this day for his raved-about ceviche, the 60 pounds of heirloom tomatoes he bought from a local farmer, the beef he buys from a farm in Clewiston and the suckling pigs he just scored for a weeknight roast.

What shifted is Rodríguez’s sense of who he is as a chef in the larger world.

“The big thing that changed the way I think about food is this molecular cooking,” he says. “I tried it, tried eating it — and never wanted to do it. I’m not crazy about that stuff. I don’t get the meat glue thing.

“I have these young cooks who come into the kitchen and go, ‘Are you doing molecular gastronomy?’ They’re interviewing me. I say, ‘If you want to learn to cook, you’ve got to start from the bottom. You’ve got to learn the basics before you can glue food together.’ ”

Some notable chefs have blossomed under his tutelage. Iron Chef José Garcés’ star rose after Rodríguez tapped him to lead the kitchens of two Latino-concept restaurants in Philadelphia, Alma de Cuba and El Vez. And Food Network favorite Aarón Sánchez ( Chopped, Heat Seekers), with whom he hosted a Brunch at Sea Sunday for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, calls Rodríguez “my great mentor.”

Now Rodríguez hopes to inspire the incoming generation of chefs at Miami-Dade College’s new Miami Culinary Institute, where he sits on the advisory chefs’ council.

“I want to put together a laboratory for them on Latin foods and Latin cooking. There’s no culinary school out there that will teach you about ceviche and mole and arepas,” says the chef, whose four restaurants are Ola Miami and De Rodríguez Cuba on Ocean on South Beach, Alma de Cuba in Philly and Deseo in Scottsdale, Ariz. “I want to take a plantain and take it through the cuisines of Latin America — how do they cook that plantain in the different countries?”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/01/2667182/a-mango-gangster-grows-up.html#storylink=cpy

Vote for Ola’s Chef Horacio Rivadero on FoodandWine.com

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:26:41 +0000

FoodandWine.com names America’s 10 most brilliant up-and-coming chefs every year.

Please log on and vote for OLA'a Chef Horacio Rivadero as the most talented new chef in America.

Click here to cast your vote now!

OLA featured in WaterGlobe Blog

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:56:42 +0000

From http://www.waterglobe.blogspot.com: "In the evening it was time for another good restaurant, Ola, where we I had delicious meatballs made of kobe beef, then slow-cooked pork with beans in a kind of Cuban way. Very good." Click here to read the full post including more photos from OLA.

OLA’s Polished Staff and Artful Ceviche Shine

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:59:41 +0000

Tucked away inside the Sanctuary Hotel in Miami Beach, OLA is tidy in name, appearance, and cuisine. Chef and owner Douglas Rodriguez, or "El Jefe" as the menu refers to him, oversees the menu with executive chef Horacio Rivadero, who kindly came out of the kitchen and invited us to a tasting of the menu.

Starting things off were a couple of cocktails. The traditional Cuban mojito ($14) is made with Don Q rum, lime, mint, and sugar. It's a well-balanced mojito served in an oversize rocks glass. The vodkajito ($14) is made with Charbay pomegranate vodka, pomegranate purée, lime, and mint. It is both a unique take on the traditional and not overly done-up with the pomegranate, as the description might suggest.
Click here to read the full article on MiamiNewTimes.com

National Post Press

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:03:59 +0000

"The outside world suddenly felt strange, unfamiliar and non-spa like. I went over the wall one night, heading to OLA Miami at the Sanctuary Hotel for a sensational meal of tart ceviche, tender, braised pork and marlin tacos (happily defying my aforementioned commitment to moderation), but I had become so relaxed in just two days at Canyon Ranch that I initially left the property without my wallet, cash or keys. It’s a miracle I remembered my shoes."

Click here to read the entire article at NationalPost.com

There is no Che in Ceviche

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:09:33 +0000

You may be wondering, what does an Argentine know about ceviche? Truthfully, lots! There is no doubt that meat is in my blood (in fact I may share some of my fave steak places soon!), but give me a taste or choice for ceviche and the ché is all but gone! Well, for the course of dinnertime at least.

Seriously though, when most people think of Miami, they think of sunny days, our beautiful beaches, and our fabulous nightlife, but under the radar comes a fantastic niche of amazing seafood….and a definite local favorite: ceviche! Certainly, great seafood in our magical city is plain common sense to most, since we are on the water and just a few miles from the gulfstream waterway that runs along the entire eastern seaboard of the US. Thanks to a heavy latin and south American population, Miami has gone beyond traditional seafood and added a mélange of ceviches that have become a local staple!

OLA is by far one of our favorite “off the beaten path” restaurants in Miami… Off the beaten path due to its nondescript location, but with Chef Douglas Rodriguez at the helm, there is no disguising this revolutionary and extraordinary Nuevo Latino heaven! Featuring the most delectable ceviches, OLA focuses on local seafood as well as traditional latin dishes with a twist. Among our favorites: the Lobster ceviche, the Hamachi Nikkei, the “Fire and Ice” made with cobia, and the “Ceviche Mixto” with octopus, shrimp, and white fish. Other must try items at OLA are the smoked marlin taco’s, their plantain crusted mahi served over oxtail stew, the pescado a lo macho with aji amarillo sauce, and the puerco asado (a 24 hour braised pork) that is scrumptious… OLA is also the only place in Miami where you can learn to make Miami’s signature items…Mojito and Ceviche classes also offered on their roof-top lounge with advance reservation for small to large groups.

Click here to view the full article on thequintessentialconcierge.com

HG2: A Hedonist’s guide to Miami

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:38:40 +0000

Chef Douglas Rodriguez gained foodie props for Yuca in Coral Gables and Patria in New York City back in the 90s. Ola (which opened in Downtown in 2003 but moved here in 2008) produces a serious mixture of Latin-American recipes that most chefs in Miami would never consider. Ceviches, however, are what Douglas is renowned for; in fact, he has written a book called The Great Ceviche.

The menu is anchored by ten worthy choices but two, the wahoo (it’s a fish) and the fire-and-ice, are standouts, creating acidic heat and soothing it simultaneously (with cucumber sorbet and pear granita, respectively). The rest of the card, like a name-dropping CEO, references a number of Caribbean and South American nations, though the carefully prepared combinations hang together nicely. Additionally, Ola offers ceviche and mojito making classes for groups, so you can export something of the chef ’s hand to wherever you call home.