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.
In 2021, The New York Times wrote about Felice crossing the park and opening a new location on the Upper West Side with a big bar and a lot of windows. But like the original, it was built around the same premise. Culinary director Iacopo Falai promised: “It’s hospitality for the neighborhood.” That translated to a Tuscan menu with negronis treated like a specialty, plate-sized thin-crust pizzas, even cured herring with jardinière. It wasn’t another copycat Italian trattoria.
Now Felice has opened in Brickell, with a vibe that is very much Miami, glossy and pretty, parked right in the middle of Brickell, a neighborhood that treats dinner as both a night out and a fashion show. And I’m happy to say the spirit that made the New York versions so popular have traveled well.
Gamberi in salsa rosa
Felice is part of the SA Hospitality Group universe, the same company behind Park Avenue’s Casa Lever and Sant Ambroeus, also now in Miami. Felice Brickell is meant to follow a Roman rhythm: lunch, aperitivo, and dinner, set to a schedule where nobody minds if a meal stretches from one time slot to the other.
Inside Felice Brickell, nearly every inch of it is golden hued with cabernet trim. The main part of the dining room opens up to a high ceiling, with a balcony second story looking down from above. The night I went, the room was full of Spanish-speaking families, which gave it the warm hum of the excellent Italian restaurants in Buenos Aires. Brass-tinted chandeliers throw a soft shine over mirrors and vases, and the whole thing lands as expensive without feeling stiff.
We started with eggplant parm, something of a signature here, cut into a neat square and somehow staying ultra-crisp even under a blanket of red sauce and a second pink sauce striped over the top. Crunchy edges, a soft middle, and sauce that does not drown the thing it is supposed to support—a fairly perfect rendition of one of my favorite dishes.
Eggplant parmigiana
A tuna panzanella followed, built around large, tender hunks of lightly seared tuna, with bread, tomatoes, and basil doing what they are supposed to do when the kitchen treats them with respect. It was the kind of dish I would eat every day if credit card bills were not a thing. I felt the same way about the Argentinian shrimp in a sweet-tangy cocktail sauce, avocado and jalapeno giving it a depth.
Tuna panzanella
Paccheri con frutti di mare
Then the pastas started arriving. A rigatoni cacio e pepe showed up lightly dressed, a dish maybe I’d skin next time, perhaps because I’ve gotten used to the cheesier versions mixed tableside in a cheese wheel. The paccheri con frutti di mare had a seafood ragù that managed to be luscious without feeling heavy, clams and mussels in the mix, plus fish folded in so the whole thing tasted like the sea.
Branzino al cartoccio
As the Italians do, we did a fish course next, a Branzino that arrived in paper, folded back to reveal the fleshy, tender fish, sitting among herbs and Yukon golds and cherry tomatoes, capers and olives for punch, charred lemon for brightness. It’s a downright perfect fish dish.
Dessert was a small parade of nostalgia. Vanilla gelato came with toasted pistachios and strawberry compote on the side, meant to be scattered and dolloped over the top so each spoonful had crunch and sweet depth. A slice of pistachio pie doubled down on the theme. Then the tiramisu arrived and got doled out tableside, a simple dish that in no way reinvents or rethinks, which is maybe exactly how most of us want it.
Vanilla gelato
Miami has no shortage of great Italian restaurants, and most weeks another one opens with a lighting concept and a DJ and a promise to “redefine” something that never needed redefining. What I like about Felice is the underlying premise: a Tuscan menu with enough range to keep a neighborhood coming back. It’s not performative, just steady, in a dining room just glamorous enough for Brickell.
Tiramisu
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