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.
A stone staircase leads up from the sidewalk to Ava MediterrAegean, with big leafy plants on both sides blocking the view of what’s inside. That’s intentional, this slow reveal, because there are lots of moments at this new Coconut Grove restaurant where the point is to dazzle you. And let’s be honest, it would be hard not to be impressed by this place.
Beyond the check-in, Ava opens up into a big covered outdoor space, tables and booths separated by more of those leafy plants, a bar in the back, all looking stunning, beautiful—pick your adjective. Just this single space would’ve seemed enough, but the hostess led us back behind the bar into an entirely second outdoor space. As she sat us, she encouraged that we make our way inside at some point, because there’s more glamorous adjectives waiting inside.
All of this matters because Ava is not a one-off restaurant project. It is the next move from Riviera Dining Group, the same team behind Mila, Casa Neos, and Claudie, among the most successful restaurants in Miami right now. Mila alone is the country’s highest-grossing restaurant, making $51 million a year from more than a quarter-million covers. Ava reads like an attempt to do it again, this time in the hot-at-the-moment neighborhood of Coconut Grove.
Like the other RDG restaurants, chef Michaël Michaelidis is responsible for the menu, Greek-inspired and covering a lot of ground, from pizzas to an Australian wagyu tomahawk for $265 After we sat down at a table in the outdoor space in the back, the food began with a small loaf of fresh bread, warm and crackly and split into four hunks. A server clipped fresh herbs tableside and dropped them into a small bowl of olive oil. It is a controlled gesture in a restaurant that could easily rely on scale alone. It also sets the tone for the meal: Ava likes tableside performance.
The dip trio followed: beetroot hummus, baba ganoush, and spicy pepper feta, served with crispy lavash. The lavash broke like thin crackers but was still firm enough to handle the dips. The beetroot hummus tasted earthy and sweet, the baba ganoush had real smoke, and the spicy pepper feta delivered heat and depth.
Keftedes meatballs arrived next, flavorful and dense with fresh herbs, served with harissa-infused aïoli. The tuna ceviche, which looked more like carpaccio, had a tangy punch from calamansi vinegar but stayed in one lane of textures, soft and in need of a crunch. A salad of aged feta, tomato, Persian cucumber, red onion, oregano, and Kalamata olive landed as a classic done with care; the feta tasted aged and briny, the tomatoes as fresh as the ones in summer, and the oregano served as an ingredient rather than a garnish.
The branzino is where Ava leaned into spectacle, arriving under a blanket of salt. That’s when the server lit a small cup of liquid on fire and slowly poured it over top, the whole fish is sending up flames. No, that fire wasn’t cooking the fish, but you can bet every single person, including me, films that flaming presentation. After the salt is removed and it’s filleted tableside, the branzino was flaky and perfectly cooked, straightforward and clean. Romesco sauce and an artichoke salad provided the lift: sweetness, bitterness, and texture.
Truffle cream spaghetti did exactly what the name promises, with earthy depth from a hefty shaving of truffle and the Greek cheese kefalograviera added tang and a slightly assertive saltiness. On the side, sweet roasted carrots brought a caramelized sweetness, and potatoes arrived outrageously crisp, the kind that crackle under a fork.
Dessert was a chocolate mousse soufflé presented as a large round with the restaurant’s logo in the center, for the ‘gram no doubt. Inside, a Dubai pistachio praline. The dessert was built for drama, but the flavors held: underlying dark chocolate, the praline brought salt and crunch, and the ice cream on the side provided a richness.
After the dessert, I headed inside for the first time, through a dramatic doorway of stone and a massive wooden beam above, looking transported from a Greek estate. It’s hard to describe all that you see inside: the textured plaster wall, the stone floors, the back-lit fish market where you can pick your fresh catch. You could dine at this restaurant weekly and still discover some new, lovely little alcove.
Ava’s beauty is not incidental. It’s the point, and it’s the strategy. In this massive, stunning restaurant, the group has built a restaurant that looks like it expects to win before the first plate hits the table, and does. Miami has plenty of new restaurants. Ava arrives as a reminder that in Miami, even the prettiest places can still deliver excellent food.
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