MIAMI
Chasing Stars: How Logan McNeil Plans to Shape Miami’s Tambourine Room
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By Eric Barton | Aug. 19, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
At the Michelin ceremony in Orlando two years ago, Logan McNeil could feel the air tighten.
He was seated at a banquet table with his wife, Rachel, and his boss at the time, Jeremy Ford. Ford had sunk himself into building a farm to feed his restaurant, Stubborn Seed, and McNeil, then chef de cuisine, had been right there in the dirt beside him.
Michelin planned to announce Florida’s first Green Star awards that year, which recognize restaurants doing more for sustainability. Stubborn Seed already had a Michelin Star, and now, as McNeil sat there, figuratively and quite literally, on the edge of his seat, they announced another. All that work he’d done. A Green Star.
McNeil shot out of his chair with a shout, hugging Rachel first and then Ford, who was glowing like a man whose gamble had just paid off. McNeil calls it a once-in-a-lifetime moment. He also admits he wants more.
Which is how he now finds himself at Tambourine Room by Tristan Brandt, a Michelin-starred dining room at the Carillon on Miami Beach. McNeil has taken the role of chef de cuisine, charged with evolving a tasting menu that has Brandt’s French-Asian DNA but will now filter through McNeil’s own instincts and his obsession with sustainability. If it works, he’ll get that ceremony rush again—the lights, the call of the name, the jolt of knowing the kitchen you ran just entered the canon.
Tambourine Room offers a seven-course tasting menu for $285-plus per person
Finding His Way
McNeil’s education started like most—hands down at his side, eyes open, absorbing everything. At Sirenetta in upstate New York, under Jan T. Christi, he picked up the rhythms of Italian cooking: respect the product, let it speak.
It wasn’t until Miami and Stubborn Seed that he discovered what kind of chef he wanted to be. Under Ford, the only rule was no rules. “Having the ability to roam freely in the land of creativity, while maintaining focus on developing layers of flavor, allowed me to grow exponentially,” McNeil told me.
Stubborn Seed also pulled him into sustainability. Ford built a farm, and McNeil helped maintain it. He learned the real labor behind sourcing ethically, supporting growers, and cutting waste—work that eventually helped the restaurant earn not just a Michelin star but also the Green Star. That, McNeil says, changed him as much as any plate of food.
Living with Pressure
McNeil doesn’t hide from the pressure of Michelin; he seems to thrive on it. He still remembers the first star for Stubborn Seed. He was a sous then, manning the line while off-duty staff crammed the bar, livestreaming the ceremony. The moment the announcement came, the dining room erupted. The kitchen knew without looking.
Later, as chef de cuisine, the weight shifted: keep the star, chase the next. That kind of pressure, he says, hardwires you. “Consistency is a choice,” he told me. “The level of difficulty in being consistent is never the same two days in a row. The sooner you’re at peace with that, the better.”
Logan McNeil
Off the Line
Away from the pass, McNeil is fiercely protective of his Sundays. He and Rachel spend them serving at their church. It’s his version of rest—a reset that has nothing to do with mise en place. On other weekends, they eat their way around Miami. The Coral Gables bakery Cecile’s is a favorite for brunch, and Celia’s, a no-frills smash burger joint in Wynwood, is the spot he half-jokingly warns me not to write about because he doesn’t want the line to get longer.
The Next Shot
At Tambourine, McNeil works alongside Brandt, who built the restaurant’s frame. McNeil is now filling it in with his own choices: Florida’s produce, compost and glass recycling programs, no seed oils, suppliers who care about what they grow. He’s blunt about it—sustainability and luxury aren’t opposites. Done right, they amplify each other.
That’s the goal. Build menus that satisfy the French-Asian blueprint, but with his own instincts running the show. Keep the star, maybe even add another. And then, one night down the road, suit up, take his seat in another ballroom, and wait for the name to be called.
