Red Rooster is drawing diners to Overtown. These are the dishes you have to order
Marcus Samuelsson stood facing his busy kitchen at Red Rooster Overtown, his back turned to the buzzing dining room as he focused on the dishes coming out of his six-week old restaurant.
Behind him, men in ties and women in high heels filled every socially distant table and seat at the bar on a recent Thursday night. Incandescent globe lights warmed a tropical blue-and-gold dining room, while a DJ spun a bumping mix. (Come on the right night, and you might find Dwyane Wade in the dining room and Jarobi White, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest, on the turntable and mic.)
Red Rooster’s carnival lights outside cast a glow on Clarence Pittman Junior Way, where trees still wrapped in Christmas lights made the streets feel alive and festive, and parked cars lined every street for blocks and filled the valet and overflow lots.
The restaurant that aimed to bring life to this southeast corner of Overtown is fulfilling its promise.
“We’ve been on this journey for a long time,” Samuelsson said as I picked up a takeout order I’d quietly placed through a friend.
More than four years have passed since Samuelsson and partners bought this spot, the former Clyde Killens Pool Hall. The country’s biggest Black artists, such as Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, performed here for Black audiences after playing in Miami Beach, where they could not sleep in the days of Jim Crow segregation laws.
Samuelsson hoped his new restaurant, based on his Red Rooster Harlem, would draw a renewed interest in Miami’s historically Black neighborhood. Just the announcement years ago helped bring in several new spots, from a Black-owned bed and breakfast to the nearby Lil Greenhouse Grill, which Oprah visited.
He hired another star, head chef Tristen Epps, a 2017 “Chopped” champion, to bring in Miami flavors.
Samuelsson opened in early December 2020, during a coronavirus spike in the pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped locals from seeking out his new spot. The restaurant added a takeout menu for those not ready to eat inside a restaurant, pared down from its in-house offerings to the dishes the staff felt could stand up to a short drive.
Whether by design or not, the scent of rich seasonings emanating from inside Red Rooster to-go boxes can make a 13-minute drive home feel twice as long.
Samuelsson’s long-awaited Miami cuisine — four years, eight months and a short drive inside brown paper bag — proves his food rewards patience.
Start with: CCC fritters
Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia but raised in Sweden to adoptive parents, isn’t afraid to cross cultures. Often he amplifies traditional cuisine, particularly from the Black community, while adding his own particular vision — as he does here by dusting these conch, corn and crab fritters with green togarashi, a Japanese spice blend on a Southern and Caribbean dish. And it works.
Anyone who has ever left fried food inside a closed container too long has felt the disappointment of biting into soggy coating. That doesn’t happen with Samuelsson’s food.
The fritters crisp through a meaty bite and pull apart with a balanced doughiness. The spice blend, made in-house from dehydrated collard greens and herbs, Epps said in a phone call later, make them perfect on their own. But don’t miss the opportunity to dip them in an aioli based on chadon beni, a sauce Epps grew up with in Trinidad.
On to: Fried Yard Bird
Similarly, Red Rooster’s Fried Yard Bird chicken skin crunches in a seasoned delight, with a flavor that dives down into the brined meat below.
Careful to use every bit of its ingredients, Red Rooster takes the byproduct of the grits from the shrimp and grits dish and adds it to the flour mixture to help it retain its crunch. If anything, the chicken might be too aggressively salted, but that’s better than the alternative.
The dish is designed with takeout in mind. I tried reheating it in an oven and microwave, and it kept its satisfying crunch each time.
The dish is served with a side of baked beans you will want to order no matter what main you choose. Rather than use white or navy beans, this version uses gandules, pigeon peas from the nearby Green Haven community garden project, spiced with porcini, tomatoes and vinegar to bring a satisfying sweet and sour.
Don’t miss: Pork ribs
Samuelsson wants to embrace the communities he cooks in, not simply overwrite them.
So he drew inspiration from the flavors and techniques in Haitian griot, fried pork chunks, for these ribs. They are marinated in sour orange, bay leaf and Scotch bonnet, before they are cooked until they fall off the bone.
The restaurant smartly flash fries the ribs to add color and texture before serving them with pickled kumquots and sprinkling them with puffed wild rice for added texture and crunch. Using the Caribbean marinade cooked down as a glaze is a kiss that takes them over the top.
For the veg crowd
You cannot be afraid of bold flavors here. The proof is in the cauliflower “burnt ends,” a big, satisfying dish meant to be an entree for the vegetarian crowd.
The whole head of cauliflower is marinated in gochujang, a Korean chili paste, before being smoked like the traditional brisket beef tips and finished in a wood oven. The dish is meant to be cut up and tossed together with a miso glaze and accompanying capers and apple slivers, which add a much-needed cool freshness to a spicy, powerful dish.
The Mac and cheese test
Mac and cheese is problematic.
Put a creamy dish in front of someone used to a casserole, and you may not get invited back to the cookout. Put a casserole square in front of someone who likes their macaroni in a pot like a Cardi B song, and you’ll get a pout.
Epps grew up on the mac and cheese brick and hated it. So he went with his favorite in this Samuelsson-approved dish: a creamy mac inspired by cacio e pepe, luscious in Pecorino cheese and aggressively peppery. In the restaurant, they finish it with a crispy top. For delivery, they leave off the crunch so it reheats better.
It won’t settle any arguments — but leave all preconceived notions at the door, and you cannot be disappointed.
Sides: Go for the greens
You’re going to order the cornbread, that’s not in dispute. With Samuelsson’s honey butter, it’s prefect for sopping up all the drippings on your plate.
I’m here to implore you to order the greens.
There aren’t Grandma’s greens — they might be better. Made with unholy amounts of pork, brown sugar, a fermented spiced butter Samuelsson’s Ethiopian wife, model Maya Haile, taught Epps, they also include “some other things we don’t really say,” Epps said. That’s the right way to make a recipe people come back for.
It’s true of the greens and true of Sameulsson’s new Overtown restaurant: It makes you want to return.
Miami Herald critics dine unannounced and at the newspaper’s expense.
Editor’s note: Miami Herald dining reviews will no longer include star ratings. We believe a restaurant should be judged on its merits and the nuance of the dining experience, not simply on a grade. — Carlos Frías, Miami Herald food editor
Address: 920 NW Second Ave., Overtown
Info: 305-640-9880; https://redroosterovertown.com
Hours: 5-11 p.m., Sunday-Thursday. Open until midnight Friday and Saturday
Price range: Starters $9-$15, entrees $17-31, sides $9.
FYI: Metered street parking and valet parking. Reservations strongly encouraged. Takeout menu available at the website.
His adoptive mom believed in him. It was the key ingredient to Marcus Samuelsson’s rise
