Dine Magazine South Florida

NAOE – Omakase Heaven in Sunny Isles

Today I have a guest post from Frodnesor. “Frodnesor” is the peculiar pen name of the author of “Food For Thought – A Miami Food Blog.” The Food For Thought blog features reviews of restaurants in South Florida (and wherever else its author travels), as well as other commentary like a 6-hour running diary from inside the kitchen of a restaurant preparing a 10-course tasting menu.

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With only seventeen seats, one cook, and no menu, NAOE [na-o-éh] is a restaurant unlike any other in South Florida. Chef Kevin Cory – whose business card reads “executive chef, general manager & dishwasher” – prepares all the food himself, and service is entirely “omakase” style, the Japanese equivalent of “chef’s choice.”  When you sit, either at the hinoki-wood bar that faces the small open kitchen, or at one of the few tables in the elegantly sparse dining room, you are given a menu, but the only choices are drink options (many of which are sakes made by Chef Cory’s family in Japan).  For everything else, you must put yourself in the chef’s hands.

Before opening NAOE, Chef Cory spent some time at an inn in Japan with a traditional kaiseki restaurant and tea service.  His restaurant adapts many of those Japanese traditions, including a strong focus on what is fresh, organic and seasonal.  Each night, Chef Cory presents diners with a bento box containing an assembly of beautifully pristine, artfully arranged seafood and other fresh ingredients. Some of the fish is flown in overnight from Japan, some is bought only hours before service from fishermen at the Haulover Marina less than two miles away, and the rest is brought in from wherever the freshest, most exotic items can be found.

On a recent visit, I waited with anticipation as the items for the bento box were prepared.  After savoring my sake for about twenty minutes and watching the chef’s preparations, the box was presented and its cover lifted.  Within the four compartments were a variety of treats: fresh local mutton snapper sashimi, topped with a cool sauce of okra and miso paste; cubes of ankimo (monkfish liver, called “foie gras of the sea” by some) and persimmon with soothing shiso leaf; steamed eggplant topped with fresh-water eel; scallop mantle (the thin tissue around the main muscle), marinated in citrus and quickly fried; organic tofu, topped with a thin slice of fresh sardine from Oregon and drizzled with yuzu sauce; and slightly crispy rice flavored with portobello mushroom and topped with koji-zuke daikon pickles.  Alongside was a small cup of dashi broth, thickened with organic chicken egg yolk, flavored with red miso, and studded with junsai (a bud from the water-lily family with an almost jelly-like texture).

After the bento, if you choose – and you should – it is time for nigiri, again chef’s choice, served two pieces at a time. Chef Cory slices each selection of fish to order immediately before serving, and the slices are molded onto still-warm balls of rice, placed onto a smooth olive-wood board for serving, and then brushed with the Chef’s specially flavored shoyu (soy sauce), sometimes with different sauces used for particular fish.  On my last visit, I had a procession of Scottish salmon belly, iwashi (sardine), aoyagi (orange clam) brushed with an orange-flavored shoyu, shira ebi (tiny white shrimp from Japan) over a bed of shredded nori, magnificent uni (sea urchin roe, also from Oregon), madai (sea bream) with a sheet of translucent pickled battera kombu (seaweed) and  shiso, and freshly broiled unagi (eel) brushed with sweet sauce, which Chef Cory prepares himself. When you’ve had your fill of sushi, the meal is finished simply with some fresh melon that is given a splash of some rice wine vinegar.

The bento is a remarkable deal at $26, though be warned that the nigiri, which ranges from $2-8 piece (and two pieces per round) can quickly add up. Patience is also required: while a 20-30 minute wait for the bento will pass fairly quickly, especially with some good sake and the company of NAOE’s ebullient and charming hostess, Wendy Maharlika, you can easily spend 3-4 hours here if you’re interesting in sampling all the nigiri NAOE has to offer. But for magnificently fresh, exotic fish and seafood, the price and the wait are worth it.

The restaurant is only open Wednesday – Sunday, reservations only through OpenTable, and only for set seating times at 7:30, 8:30 and 11:00 p.m. Any allergies or dietary restrictions should be communicated to the restaurant at least a couple days in advance.

NAOE is located at 175 Sunny Isles Boulevard in Sunny Isles Beach. For more information, email them or call (305) 947-6263.