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.
The dish that explains Double Knot is, oddly enough, the tamago. It shows up first on the tasting menu, before the rolls and skewers, and at first it seems like a sequencing error. Then you take a bite and realize the kitchen knows exactly what it’s doing.
Instead of the usual neat rectangle of omelet, this is a thick, cloudlike block of egg, as fluffy as a dessert soufflé. The top is bronzed, almost caramelized, with just enough bitterness to make the sweetness interesting. Through the middle runs a seam of sushi rice, a little vein of chew and tang.
It is a bite that makes the rest of the room come into focus: the hazy gold glow from the long bar, the dark wood and tufted banquettes, the chandeliers and sconces that make everyone look better than they did in the Uber. Wynwood has plenty of restaurants where the room is the point. The tamago is your early proof that Double Knot did not come here just to be photographed.
Tamago
This is the Miami outpost of chef Michael Schulson’s Philadelphia izakaya, a Japanese-inspired playground that sits just off Wynwood Walls. The concept sounds like something dreamed up in a branding meeting: small plates, robata skewers, sushi, and cocktails with names like The Double Knot and The Alpine Knot. But the way to experience it feels almost old-fashioned. Sit down, order the $68 chef’s select tasting menu, and trust the kitchen to send 10 courses that tell you what the place can do.
“Chef’s select” is a bit of a misnomer, because there’s still choices to make from each section, setting your own path through cold dishes, vegetables, sushi, robata and larger plates. It is a lot of food. Somewhere around course seven, I start calculating what this would all cost à la carte and come to realize this tasting menu is one of the better deals in Miami right now.
Scallop skewers
Our path wound straight into the robata section. Scallops arrive just firm enough to hold a skewer, with the smoke clinging to the outside while the center stays tender. Japanese sausages, sliced so they splay open here and there, come off the grill with crisp edges and a juicy snap. Wagyu skewers are seasoned almost ascetically, more about fat and fire than any cheffy flourish. The sauces could have more ambition; the standard sweet eel sauce and spicy mayo tasted exactly like every other version in town, even as the skewers themselves felt carefully considered.
Japanese sausage
Cheesesteak bao buns
The one dish I would not order again is the one that seems destined for every table: the cheesesteak bao. It’s a clever nod to Schulson’s hometown, a mashup of Philly and izakaya, and it sounds great when a server describes it. In practice, ours are pleasant but flat, the filling crying out for more cheese, more tang, more something. A simple red sauce on the side pushes the dish in the direction of tomato when what it needs is molten whiz and onions. Nobody in Philadelphia is dunking their cheesesteak in marinara.
Beef tenderloin
From the entrée section, the tenderloin with Japanese sweet potato redeems things. The beef is pre-sliced and butter-tender, the purée playing sweet against savory, and the plate looks every bit the special-occasion main course the room suggests. The black cod fried rice, a signature here, is subtle, a miso caramel adding a depth that made it hard to stop eating it.
Beef tenderloin
Dessert continues this upswing on the meal. The tasting menu closes with soft serve in coconut, chocolate or miso caramel. The move is to order a swirl of chocolate and miso together, letting the salt and umami of the miso cut through the nostalgia of the chocolate. What could have been a throwaway course for people who “don’t really do dessert” becomes a small, clever finale that feels in line with that first tamago: familiar form, better than it has to be.
Which is what Double Knot seems to do best: the quiet technique behind that egg, the simple confidence of those skewers, the oddball elegance of miso soft serve. In those moments the restaurant feels genuinely exciting. In a neighborhood that often prizes spectacle over substance, it is awfully nice to find a restaurant where the glow from the bar is matched by what lands on the plate.
