West Kendall loves this hidden Peruvian spot. Now it’s coming to Downtown Dadeland
Gian Carlo Accinelli and Vanessa Rivera had a choice: pay for the wedding of their dreams or open a restaurant.
For a couple of chefs, it was a no-brainer.
Next month they’ll celebrate their five-year anniversary as owners of west Kendall’s Mr. & Mrs. Bun by opening a second location in Downtown Dadeland. They will take the keys from Niven Patel’s Erba, which opened as an excellent pop-up in the former Harry’s Pizzeria space and will close until they finish building their permanent location a block away.
“After five years, we are renewing our vows,” Accinelli joked.
The couple came from Lima, Peru in 2003 with a clear plan and a simple goal: Stay for 10 years, raise money for an all-out wedding and move back to their home country flush with enough cash to continue their lives.
Instead, after 13 years, they started a family and opened a sandwich shop that has been the obsession of Peruvians, who gladly make the trek west to find them.
Here locals discover dishes from their home country — butifarra roast pork and asado pot roast — stacked in sandwiches where everything from the meats and buns down to the ketchup, mayonnaise and house-special sauces are made in house.
“People fell in love with our story and with our food,” Rivera said.
Theirs is no rustic cuisine, either.
Accinelli and Rivera graduated from Lima’s Le Cordon Bleu, where their friends and classmates would go on to become stars. Virgilio Martinez’s Central became one of the best restaurants in the world. Diego Oka rose as a disciple of the renowned Peruvian restaurant couple Gastón Acurio and Astrid Gutsche to take over La Mar in Miami. And Diego Muñoz become one of the world’s Peruvian cuisine pioneers.
Mr. & Mrs. Buns shines with dishes like the crispy fried softshell crab sandwich, a weekend-special chupe de camarones and appetizers that operate more like a chef’s tasting menu: bacon-wrapped tamal, short rib dumplings, spaghetti-pesto rolls which are beautifully composed bites of fried pasta.
“Quality is what we’re built on,” Rivera said.
In the States, Accinelli worked in Coral Gables mainstays Tarpon Bend and Hillstone (Rivera at Macaroni Grill), where he learned under Matt Kuscher, who went from sous chef to open a string of successful Miami restaurants (Lokal, Kush, Spillover, Stephen’s Deli). The biggest lesson they’ve learned is that they need to open a location east, where they can expose more diners to their thoughtful Peruvian-inspired cuisine.
East siders will soon discover the gift of their house-made breads, the ciabatta-style sandwich buns, flaky, buttery croissants they use for their chicken-salad sandwich and the butter bread they use for the traditional Peruvian triple egg salad, tomato and avocado sandwich. (Any leftover bread goes into a daily bread pudding.)
Their shop has been featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” and soon they will compete on “Beat Bobby Flay” as a couple. And they are plotting to open a third, small restaurant with a tasting menu that Accinelli hopes will make them the talk of Miami.
The couple, which has one child together and are expecting a second, still haven’t pulled the trigger on a wedding. (“I don’t have a ring but I have two babies and two restaurants,” Rivera joked.)
Consider Bun their married name.
Mr. & Mrs. Bun
Details: 15572 Sunset Dr., west Kendall. Coming in February to 8975 SW 72nd Pl., Downtown Dadeland
