Does this Little Havana spot offer Miami’s most unique twist on Cuban cuisine?

If you live in Miami, you are probably familiar with Cuban cuisine. Most likely you’ve had it dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, depending on your age and your affinity for lechón.

But chances are you have not had anything quite like what you’ll find at Tin Tin.

The new restaurant on Eighth Street in Miami, which opened at the end of December in the former space of Social 27, does not claim to be a Cuban restaurant. The creation of co-owners and chefs Sachi Statz and Victor Santos, veterans of the Michelin Bib Gourmand breakfast-and-lunch restaurant Tinta y Cafe, Tin Tin revels in the blending of Cuban flavors and Italian cuisine, sometimes with a stroke of French influence. It’s something wholly — and confidently — its own.

This is the sort of description many restaurants are fond of touting without any real backup. But Statz, whose family opened Miami’s first Tinta y Cafe 20 years ago on Eighth Street, eventually relocating it to Coral Gables and opening a Miami Shores location in 2021, says that the goal is to showcase Miami culture and cuisine.

“There are a lot of places that come to Miami from New York or California, and when too many do, the identity of what Miami culture is goes away,” she says. “If we’re able to bring that up and show you that it’s just as good if not better than what’s coming down from other places, why not?”

The philosophy for Tin Tin, which Statz calls “the big sister” to Tinta, is simple: “We think, ‘How can we make this dish taste like something we know?’ ”

The delicious results include unique starters like the Cuban Panzanella (an Italian salad) with heirloom tomatoes, toasted bread, crispy pork belly, pickled red onion and mojo vinaigrette. There’s also a papaya and jamon Serrano salad, a refreshing twist on the usual Italian melon and prosciutto, and a wahoo crudo that Saltz refers to as “deconstructed ceviche,” with thick slices of fish, coconut leche de tigre and crunchy sweet potato fragments and toasted corn kernels reminiscent of what is usually served with ceviche.

Texture is also key in the most surprising and spectacular appetizer, the “Cuban sandwich” wagyu carpaccio. Play close attention to those quotation marks. This isn’t a sandwich in any real sense. It’s wagyu beef carpaccio imitating the flavors of a Cuban sandwich, topped with crunchy bread crumbs and drops of what you may think is a mustardy sauce but is really lechón tonnato.

Yes. It’s emulsified pork.

“The roasted pork you get at Tinta, we take that and turn it into a mayo-like emulsion,” Santos explains, much in the same way Italian cuisine often does with tuna or veal.

The chefs’ creativity is also apparent in two of the starters, a ropa vieja raviolo, one giant ravioli stuffed with perfectly seasoned meat, and the malanga cacio e pepe, served with shafts of speck (dry-cured ham). Made with 80 percent malanga and 20 percent potato, the gnocchi is shockingly airy, with a sauce made lighter because it’s shot from a canister, which aerates it and turns it into a sort of foam, a la whipped cream.

Santos admits the dish is far from traditional — but he doesn’t intend it to be.

“We’re the first ones to tell you, ‘Look, if you want the real thing, there are plenty of Italian restaurants around town that do it the way it’s supposed to be done,’ ” Santos says. “We’re doing our interpretation. Malanga is engraved in the Cuban community’s heart.”

Both Statz and Santos will continue to be part of the team at Tinta y Cafe, which was originally opened by siblings Neli and Rafael Santamarina. When Rafael died less than a year later, his son Carlos and Neli’s daughters Sachi and Malu Statz, COO and co-owner of Tin Tin, jumped in to help out with Santos joining the team later.

For the near future, Statz and Santos are focusing on Tin Tin, a plan made easier by the Tinta team, Statz says.

“We’re really fortunate to have a team at the Tinta locations that we can really confide in,” she says. “We know they can carry the torch without us being there every day. Obviously it’s been a lot of work, and I’ve taken a back seat at Tinta, but once things are a little more smooth here, I can hop back and forth.”

The pair feel confident that this was the right time to open the new restaurant. The owner of the space approached them and offered a good deal, Santos says, and the Eighth Street location fit with their idea of a Miami-forward restaurant.

And then there’s the history: the family’s first Tinta opened on Calle Ocho, Statz says, so coming back to the other end of the street for Tin Tin feels like serendipity.

“As a family, as a unit, we believe things happen for a reason,” Statz says. “My mom especially. She said, ‘How funny is it now, at the 20-year juncture, we’re offered a space at the other end of Calle Ocho?’ Everything has come full circle.”

Tin Tin

Where: 2555 SW Eighth St., Suite 101, Miami

Hours: 4-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Reservations: OpenTable

More information: www.tintinmiami.co or 786-637-2883