Smoked croquetas, Cuban coffee brisket: Find Miami flavors in this new Kendall barbecue
Miami responded so well to a restaurant specializing in empanadas from all over Latin America that owner Harry Coleman thought he could do the same with barbecue.
So the co-founder of the successful Empanada Harry’s in west Kendall, a restaurant he owns with his wife, Michelle, has opened Smoke & Dough next door. There he applies Latin American and Caribbean barbecue, grilling and smoking styles, along with Latin American flavors, to create an only-in-Miami barbecue menu.
Picture a Texas-style brisket with a Cuban espresso coffee rub. Mexican barbacoa style beef cheek empanadas. A “timba” sausage (named after the cheese-and-guava paste two-bite snack) made with savory guava. A pan con tomate with Catalan salbitxada sauce. And even a smoked fish dip spiced with Peruvian aji amarillo peppers.
“We’re trying to take the flavors of Miami and put them in barbecue,” Coleman said.
Coleman, who learned the art of empanadas from his father, Philip, owner of Moises Bakery in Miami Beach, had been studying barbecue as a hobby for five years. It took a more serious turn, he said, when he and his spouse took intensive lessons with Kansas City and Texas pitmasters before the start of the pandemic.
This led to weekly Sunday barbecue pop-ups at Empanada Harry’s, where he experimented with everything from smoked flan to pastrami — which he will stuff inside Venezuelan tequeños and white-corn arepa sandwiches.
Smoke & Dough is a full menu of those experiments.
A tapas section ranges from smoked ham and gouda croquetas and arepitas with lechon to more elegant smoked Chilean salmon toast, duck charcuterie and smoked Bell & Evans chicken liver pate with toast.
“That’s how my wife and I like to eat. We like to taste a lot of things with a glass of wine,” said Coleman, 37, who was born in Venezuela.
The meats section of barbecue includes a 15-hour smoked prime brisket, 12-hour smoked pork butt, salt-and-pepper Domino smoked baby back ribs, and a smoked chicken drizzled in that Catalan salbitxada sauce. Sides include baked beans with peach and onions, wild-honey cornbread and the truffle mac and cheese that first made an appearance inside his beloved empanadas.
And sandwiches include the reina pepiada arepa made with smoked chicken, pulled pork and even a Ruben with pastrami, Swiss cheese and homemade sauerkraut and pickled mustard seeds.
The highlight of Smoke & Dough’s wine list includes a very Miami tip of the hat: retired Heat guard Dwyane Wade’s wine label.
“What’s more Miami than our own barbecue with D-Wade wine?” Coleman said.
Smoke & Dough
Address: 4013 SW 152nd Ave., west Kendall
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday and Saturday. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday
More info: Instagram.com/harryssmokeanddough
