This South Miami restaurant feels like an old local favorite — because it sort of is

When he left South Miami’s popular Town Kitchen & Bar in 2020 after 13 years, just as the pandemic was preparing to take a sledgehammer to the restaurant industry, Chef Michael Altman knew he’d have to find a way to work through the shutdown, however long it took.

Leaving his job as executive chef and managing partner at the restaurant, he ended up in Belize as a consultant. When he returned to a changing Miami a few years later, a strange thing happened: He ended up right where he’d been, on Southwest 57th Court. Same address, same city, only this time as executive chef and owner of a new restaurant, Kitchen 57, that hopes to repeat what made Town Kitchen & Bar a beloved and affordable gathering spot for the neighborhood.

In other words, at Kitchen 57, dinner isn’t going to cost $200 a person — something that happens a lot more in Miami that it used to — unless you’re really trying to spend money.

Being a South Miami hangout is “the driving force of this restaurant,” says Altman, a Long Island native who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked in Manhattan restaurants before moving to Miami in 2005. “I know how difficult it can be for people to eat out. The local community needs to be able to do that, after soccer practices or baseball games or theater nights, or even when they don’t want to cook at home.”

South Miami, he said, was where he wanted to be. That his former restaurant space was available — the spot that took over for Town, the Italian restaurant Verace, had closed — was a special kind of serendipity.

“I knew that South Miami needed a restaurant like what Town was,” Altman says. “I knew I wanted to do something like that but have my own new legacy. And with all the new development happening, I know that it was a place I had to be.”

The menu leans toward modern American fare, with grilled items like steaks and salmon; a variety of salads, burgers and sandwiches, even pizzas. Altman kept a couple of Town favorites as an homage (and also because customers loved them). The crispy Brussels sprouts have returned, as has the cioppino, a seafood soup made with fish, clams, mussels and shrimp in a citrus-scented lobster broth.

The “Garbage Salad,” so named for its kitchen sink approach to ingredients, is back, too, with a few tweaks, like the addition of Italian salami.

“This is the third version of that salad,” Altman says. “We dialed it back. It’s not garbagey, but the name kind of stuck.”

Altman’s mindset is different this time, too.

“I just looked at everything in a modern light, how dishes should be plated, thinking about cooking clean food,” Altman explains, adding that he’s slowly joining the trend of getting to know local purveyors and plans to begin using some local products.

The newly elevated cocktail program has had a drastic overhaul, probably the biggest change for the restaurant. There’s a mixologist now creating and crafting drinks, which Town never had.

Kitchen 57 has also resurrected its brunch with new cocktails and special menu items, like short rib hash and popovers with homemade berry jam — and of course those necessities, bottomless mimosas and two-for-one Bloody Marys and Micheladas.

The restaurant, which opened at the end of 2024, is slowly luring its regulars back, Altman says. Many mention their relief at seeing a familiar face.

“In the past the people who come here would say, ‘I’m so happy I don’t have to go to the Grove for dinner,’ ” he says. “That’s part of the format here. People know what they’re getting before they walk in the door.”

Kitchen 57

Where: 7301 SW 57th Ct., Suite 100, South Miami

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-midnight Friday; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday

Reservations and more information: www.kitchen57miami.com or 786-238-7179