Kendall favorite Chef Adrianne’s is closing but a new location is opening soon
Chef Adrianne’s was west Kendall’s little secret.
The 40-seat restaurant Adrianne Calvo opened as a 23-year-old just graduated from Johnson & Wales in a strip mall next to a tire shop became a local’s favorite. It brought culinary touches usually reserved for trendy South Beach to the suburbs and with it a loyal following.
After 13 years, Calvo is letting a few more in on the secret. The chef is moving her restaurant to the more-easterly Town & Country mall, where it will be three times the size — essential at a time when social distancing limits the number of diners.
It will open July 9, Calvo said, in the former Devon Seafood & Steak spot at 11715 Sherri Lane. The original restaurant’s last day will be June 18, and all reservations are already booked.
“For you to grow, you have to change,” said Calvo, 36. “There are memories I will keep with me, but this is part of the story.”
The new restaurant’s 8,000 square feet will include an outdoor patio, two private dining rooms, a 45-foot bar, an open kitchen and an audio-video system where Calvo will invite vineyards to launch new wines in Miami.
It will retain the rustic vineyard décor, with wine barrel cutaways and black-and-white photos that diners were accustomed to at the original spot.
Rather than feeling mixed emotions at leaving the site where she fulfilled a culinary dream by owning a restaurant, Calvo said she is ready to write new history for South Florida dining.
Last year, she signed on to be the new chef at Red Fish, the latest incarnation of the original bay-side restaurant inside Matheson Hammocks Park. Coral Gables’ only waterfront restaurant, Red Fish was badly damaged by 2017’s Hurricane Irma, but is set to reopen June 23 after millions of dollars in renovations.
Her other restaurant, Cracked, focused on fried chicken and chicken sandwiches, was such a hit inside South Miami’s Yumbrella food hall that Calvo broke it off into nearby standalone.
Chef Adrianne’s Vineyard Restaurant and Wine Bar
11715 Sherri Ln., Kendall, inside the Town & Country mall
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
