San Lorenzo Ristorante
Italian restaurant · Shorecrest
620 NE 78th St, Miami, FL 33138
Highlights
No menu concept; authentic Italian with seafood linguine.
No menu concept; authentic Italian with seafood linguine.
"There is no menu at San Lorenzo. Dinner for two is priced at $140 and starts with a simple question: “Carne o pesce?” The meal is almost charming enough to convince you that the faulty antipasti, solid seafood pasta, and dessert (not included) are worth that price. This restaurant at the mouth of 79th Street Causeway is from the team behind Cotoletta, which is also menuless and only serves veal milanesa. Here, you have slightly more decisions to make. photo credit: San Lorenzo photo credit: San Lorenzo video credit: Julia Malave Pause Unmute Your server will give you the spiel with the gusto of a clever best man’s speech. In their words, the concept is all about minimizing choice, quality over quantity—all that good stuff. And we’re on board with the concept, especially while under the spell of a waterfront sunset view and suited servers cracking perfectly-timed jokes. You’re wrapped around San Lorenzo’s finger before the food even arrives. Then the check comes. The $140 meal is designed to serve two (come alone and it’s $85). It starts with an assortment of antipasti. Then, you have two choices (carne o pesce) that actually turn into four choices. There are two options for both the carne and pesce categories. For meat, there’s lasagna bolognese and sirloin served on a ripping hot plate. For seafood, it’s a linguine they’re very proud of and a catch of the day (which they’ll probably tell you to ignore in favor of that linguine). video credit: Julia Malave video credit: Julia Malave video credit: Julia Malave Pause Unmute Allow us to make this decision even easier for you. Get the linguine. It’s good, but more importantly, it’s better than any other entrée option. Go the carne route and you’ll feel slightly ripped off while picking through a forgettable russian salad, caponata, and soggy bread soaked in tomato sauce. If San Lorenzo were about thirty dollars cheaper and tossed in dessert as part of the $140 menu, we’d be more eager to recommend it. But if they’re going to offer less, they need to deliver better (and more consistent) quality on the pared-down menu. Food Rundown Antipasti This is the part of the meal you have absolutely no say in. It includes a bread basket and five assorted small plates. We like the beet carpaccio with dollops of goat cheese and the creamy vitello tonnato. It goes downhill with the lukewarm russian salad, bread soaked in tomato sauce, and a caponata that clashes with the chocolate they shave on top of it. photo credit: Mariana Trabanino Carne In case it wasn’t clear by now, pesce should be your answer here. The carne options include lasagna and a sirloin steak that overcooks on the sizzling plate it arrives on. It feels more like a snack than an actual entrée, since you end up ignoring the underdressed fennel salad it comes with. photo credit: Mariana Trabanino Pesce They have a catch of the day, but go with the linguine San Lorenzo. Your server will probably suggest the same. It comes with a generous amount of lobster, clams, and prawns. The pasta absorbs all the salty bits from the crustaceans. It will be the best thing you have here. photo credit: Mariana Trabanino Crepe Suzette Oddly enough, dessert is the longest part of the menu. There are about six options, and this is the only one that’s prepared tableside. They don’t make the crepes in front of you. They just flambée the sauce. It’s citrusy, sweet, and would taste even better if the crepe was also made on the spot. PlayMute video credit: Julia Malave" - Mariana Trabanino
"A new waterfront Italian eatery in Miami is taking an extreme no-menu approach: offering four items priced at $140 for two people, where diners make one choice—fish or meat—and receive three antipasti and an entrée (desserts available for an extra charge; vegetarians can be accommodated by request). “In a world of infinite choices, where distractions are around all the time, to be guided is actually welcome and a bit of fresh air,” says co-founder Andrea Fraquelli, who explains that the main choice is simply coming to the restaurant and asks diners to “let us do the rest.” The concept is the latest from 84 Magic Hospitality (Fraquelli, Ignacio Lopez Mancisidor, and Mattia Cicognani) and opens Saturday, May 31; reservations can only be made by phone or by walking in. Designers Eduardo Suarez and Milan’s Alessio Bernardinito created a breezy, coastal space with warm tones, crisp white tablecloths, fresh flowers, and Venetian lighting: the indoor dining room seats 44 with a standing bar area, and an outside Italian terracotta terrace seats 30 at candlelit tables with views of Little River. Tuscan‑born Giulio Rossi leads the kitchen and is resurrecting a signature from his past: a lobster, crab, and king prawn seafood pasta he served at Panacea (a seafood-focused restaurant that earned a Michelin star in 1991); Rossi also ran restaurants in Italy in the 1980s, including Ristorante Mario Fiesole, which he owned for 18 years. Fraquelli frames the experiment with past tests—“Milanese [at Cotoletta] has been my test case for this experiment, and we couldn’t be happier. People are not bored,” he says—adding, “It’s like, you go to a pizzeria and they don’t have antipasti, pasta, secondi… they have pizza. This way of working with restricting the menu creates trust and consistency.” He also invokes his favorite philosopher, Alan Watts—Watts is famously known for saying, “In giving away control, you got it,”—and urges diners to stop agonizing over choices: “Control is an illusion. Stop choosing, let us do it.” The beverage program is tightly curated—four red wines, four white, a rosé, and two sparkling wines (including a Franciacorta), a single brand of each spirit for classic cocktails, and a selection of digestivos—featuring interesting finds like the Greek Kástra Elión vodka distilled from green olives and locally made Harry Blu’s gin. Practical details are intentionally old-school: the restaurant is named for Fraquelli’s grandfather, opens Saturday, and advises guests to be ready to answer: carne o pesce?" - Henna Bakshi
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