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.
After a $100 million renovation, The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne is trying to turn all that fresh marble and oceanfront shine into something more useful: a restaurant that gives Miami diners a reason to come over the bridge.
That restaurant is Luma, the hotel’s new 310-seat Italian spot with handmade pastas, a Josper oven, and chef Patrizio La Gioia running the kitchen. For the Ritz, this is not some side project tucked off the lobby. It is part of the main pitch.
Beef carpaccio
La Gioia gives the whole thing a little more weight. He was born in Paris, raised in Puglia, and his training includes Per Se in New York, I Portici in Bologna, and Nobu. That is a serious run through exacting kitchens, and it helps explain why Luma is promising coastal Italian cooking with enough precision to feel polished without going stiff. The idea here is Italian tradition, some global influence, and a live-fire program built around seafood, meats, and vegetables cooked over binchotan and oak coals.
The menu is full of familiar crowd-pleasers you'd expect at a Florida resort (lobster tagliatelle, roasted red snapper, a Josper-grilled strip steak) but there’s also plenty that veers toward the creative, like the white miso added to spaghetti with truffles and a celery root steak entree.
Baby beet salad
Pastas are housemade, including spaghetti alle vongole with Manila clams, garlic, pinot grigio, parsley, and herb breadcrumbs, plus corn agnolotti with corn, onion, Parmigiano Reggiano, cultured butter, and truffle. The Josper side of the menu includes branzino oreganata with citrus, Sicilian oregano, and pistachio, and a 40-ounce bistecca Fiorentina for two with rosemary, fennel pollen, and lemon. There is also sea bass puttanesca and a Kurobuta pork chop with mascarpone polenta and peperonata.
Spaghetti alle vongole
Sea bass puttanesca
Luma serves breakfast and dinner daily, then switches on weekend mornings to the "La Dolce Vita Brunch Experience," an a la carte menu that adds egg dishes like an eggs bene and lemon-ricotta pancakes. The bar program follows the same coastal Italian line with wines, spritzes, negronis, highballs, and house cocktails, plus a gelato and granita cart brought out tableside. The broader point is pretty clear: the Ritz did not spend all that money to reopen quietly, and Luma is one of the most obvious ways it plans to get people talking.
Chef Patrizio La Gioia
The whole idea is pretty obvious, and probably smart: after spending $100 million on the property, the Ritz needs more than fresh rooms and polished public spaces to get Miami’s attention. It needs a restaurant that makes the drive over the causeway feel like a great idea.
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