MIAMI
Chef Raheem Sealey Brings an Asian Smokehouse to Miami with Shiso
239 NW 28th St | Website | Instagram
By Eric Barton | March 29, 2025
Raheem Sealey, the chef best known for his tenure at KYU and his underground BBQ spot Drinking Pig, has made a name by playing with flame—smoking, grilling, charring, and coaxing impossibly deep flavors from whatever dares to meet his fire. Now, Sealey is running the kitchen at Shiso, an “Asian Smokehouse” that dropped this week in Wynwood.
A collaboration with Forward Hospitality Group, Shiso is less a straightforward restaurant and more a fully immersive experiment in heat, flavor, and technique, blending Sealey’s Caribbean roots with the precision of Japanese cuisine and the soul of wood-fired barbecue. “Shiso means a lot to me,” Sealey says. “It’s the right opportunity at the right time, and it reflects the journey I’ve taken in my career—every chef I’ve worked with, every place I’ve cooked. This is me.”
And Sealey’s “me” involves an unapologetic commitment to bold flavors and techniques. The menu includes: Shiso Chicken Please, a Cornish hen prepared two ways—half smoked, half fried—served with a white BBQ sauce that sounds almost criminally indulgent; and Oxtail Gunkan, where smoked BBQ oxtail meets pickle relish and nori-wrapped sushi rice in a single bite that promises to be unreasonably good. The food is designed to be shared, though whether you’ll actually want to share remains to be seen.
But Shiso is as much about spectacle as it is about substance. The design, led by Lambrini Palmieri-Schwartz of House of L, is part industrial rawness and part polished edge. Think exposed concrete beams with street art, glossy stone bars, and neon-lit corridors. Upstairs, a 6,500-square-foot rooftop—yes, that’s larger than some entire restaurants—boasts a 35-seat racetrack-shaped bar, semi-private cabanas, and a retractable roof for those fleeting Miami moments when the sky remembers it’s not supposed to rain every 30 minutes. A Harajuku-inspired bathroom, anime murals, and an origami-style entrance round out the restaurant’s commitment to “yes, this is a whole experience.”
Inside, an open-kitchen dining room serves as both a luxury restaurant and a stage for culinary theater. There’s a 15-seat chef’s counter, and the bar program is led by James MacInnes. Expect a dimly lit, music-filled space that feels like a party you’ll actually want to be invited to.
With cooking from Sealey and just enough Miami extravagance to keep things interesting, Shiso is one of the city’s most anticipated new restaurants. Reservations are open now on Resy.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
