This new Little Haiti restaurant has a 10-day wait. Here’s why diners are buzzing
The foodie blogosphere can’t stop buzzing about Boia De.
The 27-seat Little Haiti strip mall surprise opened last summer and has drawn such a loyal local following that there’s a 10-day wait for a decent reservation time.
The stylish restaurant’s name is derived from co-owner Luciana Giangrandi’s many childhood visits from Miami to the Tuscan city of Livorno, where Boia De is slang for “Oh, my!”
That exclamation point is the lone neon sign distinguishing Boia De from other storefronts in the sprawling strip mall at Northeast Second Avenue and 54th Street. Alex Meyer, the other co-owner and Giangrandi’s life partner, likes to point out it is “a 60 second drive from the Design District.”
Its proximity to Gucci, Dior, Prada and Fendi notwithstanding, Boia De is as humble as essential Italian cooking itself, which relies on just a few ingredients, but insists they are of the utmost quality.
If these guys follow the Italian playbook, they sure call a lot of audibles. Their food is full of joy and whimsy, challenging the palate from every direction and demanding you try everything once. No wonder the foodies are so atwitter.
Choose either a bottle from the carefully chosen, upscale wine list or moderately priced by-the-glass options and get ready for an adventure.
Two chefs, a unified whole
Start with crispy polenta, which Meyer says is the best-selling dish (Giangrandi reminisces about having fried polenta instead of bread to start the meal in Tuscany, and yes, they like to finish each other’s sentences). They share authorship of the dishes, and here Meyer is responsible for the deliciously puckery eggplant marinade, loaded with raw garlic, red wine vinegar and oregano. It’s a great foil of tartness against the polenta, which is flecked on the finish with ricotta salata cheese.
Baked clams, six to the order, are covered with a puree of nduja (a spicy Calabrian pork spread) and bread crumbs, ample butter, garlic and parsley with lemon juice. Our clams were tender and served piping hot (Boia De’s aggressive air-conditioning unit can cool things off fast), and the nduja great, spicy and on-point salty.
At home, Giangrandi likes to make big chopped salads “out of whatever’s in the fridge,” and Luci’s Chopped Salad is the menu tribute to that.
Perhaps the largest plate on the shareable, tapas-style menu, the salad fills large leaves of radicchio and other lettuces with goat cheese, super-sweet roasted cherry tomatoes tossed in olive oil, garlic and thyme. Cannellini beans are marinated in olive oil and oregano, basil chiffonade, chive and pepperoncini. And no, you don’t want to have the outstanding dressing, a roasted garlic puree and shallot vinaigrette, on the side.
Stalks of broccolini are blanched then grilled on the pickup and served with grilled radicchio, drizzled generously with homemade ranch dressing. The surprise — and the Italian connection here — is grated bottarga, cured mullet roe, sprinkled on top. The bitter vegetables, creamy-salty dressing and the pleasant seafood background provided by the bottarga exemplify one of the trademarks of the cooking here: Ingredients you might not imagine working well together creating a unified whole.
Pasta, barbecue surprises
That’s also true of the Tagliolini al Nero, one of the half-dozen pastas on the menu. Black squid-ink noodles are studded with flecks of briny, meaty king crab and whirled in a lemon-truffle sauce. Intense, pungent Vin Jaune provides a little nuttiness. Served cold, the dish is garnished with scallions and the standard Boia De mix of fresh herbs.
Seared grouper is speared in the Florida Keys, its dense meat rich yet flaky and juicy. It’s bathed in a Meyer lemon beurre blanc. Shaved baby artichokes are fried to order and sprinkled about the dish, which is drizzled with a charred lemon vinaigrette complete with bits of lemon.
Another winning composition is ricotta gnocchi with winter squash. The pillowy puffs are built not of potato but ricotta, goat cheese and a little flour and egg (Meyer calls this a “technique” dish, and you can imagine why). The rich sage brown butter sauce gets relief from lime zest and pepper. Toasted pumpkin seeds and crispy sage leaves add texture.
A dish simply called Cannellini Beans features an array of excellent ingredients, although they don’t coalesce into anything memorable. Squares of pasta float in a lush Parmesan-pork cheek broth alongside cannellini beans and tender Middleneck clams.
One of the most popular choices is tortellini en brodo, a celebration of all things duck. A homemade duck broth makes a loving home for soft and rich housemade tortellini stuffed with duck confit, foie gras and duck prosciutto.
Meyer is an experienced barbecue guy, and his lamb ribs are delicious evidence. They’re dusted with a homemade fra diavolo tomato powder rub, dry roasted four-to-five hours, then grilled and slathered with an aggressively spicy fra diavolo barbecue sauce. Garlicky yogurt sauce cools the palate, and homemade cucumber-onion-chile pickles lend an authentic barbecue touch.
“We’re not pastry chefs, and we know that,” the chefs will tell you. But their “crispy” tiramisu, which is made to order and features crunchy Pavesini ladyfingers instead of the traditional mushier approach, is spot on. Carrot cake, served with ginger ice cream, is less interesting. You can’t say that, though, about much of what’s here in this Little Haiti gem.
Miami Herald critics dine unannounced and at the newspaper’s expense.
Editor’s note: Miami Herald dining reviews no longer include star ratings. We believe a restaurant should be judged on its merits and the nuance of the dining experience, not simply on a grade. — Carlos Frías, Miami Herald food editor
Boia De
Address: 5205 NE Second Ave.
Info: boiaderestaurant.com; 305-967-8866
Hours: 5:30-10:30 Sunday-Thurdsay; till 11:30 Friday-Saturday.
Price range: Shareable small plates $8-$24; desserts $9.
FYI: Extensive wine list. Ample free parking.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 6:00 AM.