This Miami chef’s tacos were named best in America. Now he has a new upscale restaurant

It all started, as things sometimes do, with a burger.

Not just any burger. A two-patty monster on a homemade bun, slathered in a special sauce and piled high with the sorts of things the right-minded want, no, crave on grilled meat.

This was the burger that Chef Nuno Grullon made for his team — his wife and partner Crystal Paez and partner Akira van Egmond — on the days their Mimo neighborhood taqueria Uptown 66 was closed and they were catching up on paperwork.

“I’d be sending them to Publix to get the ingredients, but they were always excited to do so because they knew I was going to do something from scratch,” says Grullon, who with his partners opened the taco spot as a pop-up in 2020. “I’d start making the bun from scratch. They were like, ‘Oh, man, we should open up only on Mondays to sell burgers here!’ But I said ‘No, people will kill us if we don’t have the burritos and the tacos and all the usual stuff they expect.”

Now, though, the famous burger finally has a spot on the menu at Grullon’s new restaurant Grand Central, located in a small strip of shops on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami’s Mimo neighborhood.

The new restaurant, near the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 79th Street, is completely different from the laid-back, all-outdoor Uptown 66, which recently won the national “United States of Taco” competition hosted by “Good Morning America” for its popular birria taco. Small but sleek, reminiscent of the narrow but charming New York restaurants — fitting considering its name — Grand Central marks a return to Grullon’s roots as a French-trained chef.

Grullon, who grew up in New York, thinks of the space and the menu as “executed with more refinement.” Though he had delved into the intricacies of making Mexican food to open Uptown 66, he found himself looking back for inspiration and landing on New American cuisine.

“To me, New American cuisine is a melting pot of dishes that have been popular here in the U.S., mostly from Europe,” he says. “We have dishes that are European inspired that have become American classics.”

In addition to that truffle chicken pot pie, the menu includes lobster ravioli, prawns with saffron risotto, eggplant with seasonal mushrooms, fennel and zucchini and sea bream with celery root, carrots and potatoes.

You can also expect such starters as crab cakes, baby artichokes, salmon crudo, beef tartare and baked clams.

Grullon hopes Grand Central is the jumping-off place for he and his partners to form a restaurant group. He’d like to expand Uptown 66 into a larger space (“it’s very small, even though we’re super busy”).

Grullon hopes Grand Central is the jumping-off place for he and his partners to form a restaurant group. He’d like to expand Uptown 66 into a larger space (“it’s very small, even though we’re super busy”).

And he’s positive about the direction of Miami’s restaurant future, citing pioneers like Brad Kilgore, who helped revolutionized Wynwood for fine dining with his restaurant Alter (and is there now with Mary Gold’s), and Luciana Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, the chefs at the Michelin-starred Boia De in Little Haiti.

“I remember when the action was always in South Beach,” he says. “Real chefs are in all parts of town now. They’re doing a lot of good things.

“I definitely see people thinking outside the box now. It used to be the difference between New York City and Miami, and Miami and other cities I’ve been to like New Orleans. In other places, there’s always a little restaurant on the corner, wherever you are. You see restaurants in places you wouldn’t have imagined in Miami. But now everyone is starting to venture out around the city. These concepts are all chef driven, and Grand Central wants to be one of those restaurants. “

Grand Central

Where: 7919 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

Hours: 5-11 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday

Parking: Diners can use the small lot south of the restaurant after 5 p.m.; street parking available on 80th Street on the west side of Biscayne Boulevard

Reservations: Resy.com

More information: 305-456-3088

These two chefs just opened an intimate bistro in Miami Shores starring Florida’s harvest