People love their Hialeah French restaurant. Now they’ve opened a ‘California-inspired’ spot

UPDATE: The restaurant has opened.

Hialeah’s funky French restaurant is sprouting a new location in North Beach — but with a wholly different flavor.

The owners of La Fresa Francesa will open a new restaurant, Silverlake Bistro, influenced by the couple’s time together in Southern California. The “California-inspired” menu will reflect dishes the French-born Benoit Rablat experimented with at La Fresa but which didn’t fit the menu.

“Ben needed a creative release for his American food influences,” says his spouse and co-owner Sandy Sanchez.

Instead, Silverlake will draw on the fresh farmer’s market products Benoit and Sanchez used when they were working at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles. So expect everything from hormone-free fried chicken and burgers to seasonal vegetables — the kinds that rotate from month to month at South Florida farmers’ markets.

Some of the menu items include homemade gnocchi mac and smoked gouda, braised short rib sandwich with aged cheddar, salmon belly burger with red pickled onions, le puy green lentils and salami salad. Natural wines from California, as well as France and Italy, will highlight the wine list.

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The restaurant is named for the Silver Lake area north of Los Angeles, which Forbes magazine called “the hippest neighborhood of Los Angeles.”

The 30-seat restaurant will have a Southern California wine-bar vibe, Sanchez said, and will open to a small outdoor patio. The couple expects to open the first week of May.

Silverlake Bistro

Address: 1211 71st St, Miami Beach

Hours: 5-10 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. 5-11 p.m., Friday and Saturday. Closed Monday, Tuesday.

This story was originally published March 19, 2018 at 11:03 PM.