📍Walrus Rodeo, Miami

I flew into Miami the day before New Year's Eve. A friend was hosting a NYE party in Miami, and I was attending. A few of us going to this party decided that we should also meet up the night before (the day I landed). I remembered Walrus Rodeo from 2023 when I thought it was one of my favorite meals of the year. Despite the short notice and large group, they had a 9:45 p.m. reservation. So I grabbed it.

Coordinating big group meals can be harrowing, and this was no different. Over the next 24 hours, while flying, I asked if moving the reservation any earlier was possible. To my surprise and their credit, it was! We were able to move up to a 9 p.m. reservation. It also turned out the group size grew from 6 to 7, which they were also wonderful in accommodating. Surprisingly, we all got there on time. Our table wasn't ready yet, which was fine; it was house money at this point.

It's a relatively small space inside. They offered to bring us drinks outside, where they had a few tables set up. Even in December, it was 75 degrees outside, so it was delightful. It's a beer and wine place, so most of us got beers while waiting. Miami is a laid-back place; folks took their time finishing up. As a big group, there weren't a lot of tables to fit us, and we ended up sitting around the original reservation time.

Walrus Rodeo is by the Boia De team. It doesn't have that Miami sceney vibe to it, but it has that IYKYK vibe. What it also has is a massive wood-fired oven. It's on display from most of the dining room seats. You get to watch the team use it throughout your meal. The first time I went, they described their style as a place where every menu item, including the dessert, was kissed by that oven. It's exactly like my kind of place.

Another challenge in big group dinners is ordering. My choice here is to check if anyone has allergies and, if not, order for the table. Luckily, most of my friends trust me to do this. Tonight was no different. One of my friends engaged the sommelier to pick the wine, and I took care of the food. My goal is to have variety and that no one should be hungry after all the food has come out.

We had a couple of bottles of this wine. It's a rustic, medium-bodied red blend from the northwest of Spain. I thought it paired wonderfully with all the wood-fired food we ate. While the wine was shared, the food started to arrive. I ordered Bone Marrow, an Anchovy Pizza, a White Truffle Pizza, a Speck Pizza, a Grilled Romaine Salad, Maitake Mushrooms, Gnocchi, and Steak au Poivre. One of each pizza and 2 or 3 of everything else.

We told them to bring things as they were ready. So first up was the Maitake mushrooms. You could see these mushrooms got a great roast in their oven. Crispy edges with meaty centers. The mushrooms come on top of some butter beans and below some well-cooked kale. It's earthy and satisfying. I'm biased because Maitake are my mushroom of choice, but this version and the version of this I had in 2023 were some of my absolute favorite mushroom presentations.

The Grilled Romaine is really a Caesar salad. It has the dressing and anchovies to prove it. The lettuce came out a bit warm, meaning they grilled it fresh, likely in that oven. This also meant the cheese was softening up over the salad. The breadcrumbs were crunchy. The texture of this salad was beautiful, with the transitions from fresh, crunchy romaine on the bottom to crispy bread crumbs on top, with a warm, soft, and umami-packed flavor center.

The bone marrow is really special. Each person at the table felt this was the most memorable part of the meal here. First, the bread. It's the same sourdough that they use for their pizza, and obviously, it's baked in that wood-fired oven. It came hot to the touch with steam escaping as you tore it apart. The tang permeated the bread, acting as a beautiful offset to the fatty bone marrow.

The meat of the marrow is treated with what they call a smoked shallot soubise. It's basically a smoked shallot butter that’s spread on top of the marrow. They also put a parsley salsa verde on top. The result is a wonderfully wood-fired cooked bone marrow that somehow feels fresh to taste, especially when paired with the hot bread. It's astounding that something so fatty can taste the way this does. We ordered two of these; we should have gotten four.

We unexpectedly got two plates of the Hiramasa Crudo. They wanted to help make up for the wait outside while our table was getting ready. The crudo includes blood orange, shallots, and Castelvetrano olives. I'm glad we got this. It refreshed our palates with a briny, citrusy, and peppery bite. I would have never thought to pair the olives with the fish, but it really worked here. It was the refresh we needed.

The first pizza we got was called the Rodeo Za. It's got a beautifully blistered sourdough crust, spicy tomato sauce, anchovies, and a maple brown butter crumb topping. The crust is exactly like the bread we had with the bone marrow. The bread crumbs are similar to the ones we had on the grilled romaine. The slice held together well, probably due to lighter toppings. This is their namesake pizza, and it's been on their menu from day one.

The next pizza we got was the Nonno Za. It has the same crust and sauce as the Rodeo Za, but instead of anchovies and breadcrumbs, we got mascarpone cheese and speck. The dallops of cheese added a cooling creaminess to the sauce. The speck they used wasn't as salty as I expected, and the smokiness paired nicely with the properties a wood fire imbues on a pizza.

The last pizza was the White Hot Truff Za with sausage, maitake mushrooms, and a black truffle mornay sauce. The same crust as the other pizzas and the same mushrooms as before. A mornay is a béchamel with cheese, so if we think about this pizza, it's white pizza with the cheese in the sauce. It creates this creaminess on the base of the pizza crust but feels like a singular layer instead of layers. The whole pizza acts as a base for the mushrooms and sausage, which worked well here.

Gnocchi can be interesting because how light or dense the gnocchi is can make or break the dish. In this case, these gnocchi were incredibly light. It came with sunchokes in two ways. The first was roasted alongside the gnocchi, and the other was thinly sliced and fried on top. The roasted sunchokes offered a nice contrast to the pillowy softness of the gnocchi, ultimately giving the bite some structure. The sauce on top was actually a potato skin espuma, which is like a foam. It was creamy and a little cheesy. Then the whole thing is topped with a generous shaving of black truffle. You need to love root vegetables to love this, but the way that gnocchi was prepared was perfection.

The last thing is the Steak au Poivre. We ordered 3 of them. It's a hanger steak cooked to a wonderful medium-rare. It's a pretty classic au poivre sauce. I like a lot of pepper and I would have liked more here. This potato, however, is everything anyone could possibly want. A potato pavé is a thinly sliced potato that’s layered and compressed while being baked. Then it is sliced and fried. The ends are so thin and crispy like chips, they break apart, while the center is soft and fluffy. It takes time but it's beautiful. The potato comes served on top of a Parmesan fonduta, a cheese sauce.

The question is if I ordered enough. The folks dining with me for the first time were surprised at how much I ordered. Each course came out to surprise after the second pizza. We finished pretty much everything, though. Then, sadly, we declined looking at the dessert menu; that was my only mistake of the night. Ah well, it's only the first night in Miami, and I haven't even had a burger yet.

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