RESTAURANT NEWS | MIAMI
PASTA Closes in Wynwood, and Miami Loses a Favorite
The tiny handmade-pasta restaurant from Janice Buraschi and Juan Manuel Umbert served a menu that felt personal, like a couple cooking what they liked to eat.
By Eric Barton
12:09 p.m. ET, Nov. 10, 2026
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.
PASTA, one of Miami’s best restaurants from the day it opened in October 2024, announced it’s closing, marking the end of a place that existed to display the talents of the two chefs who owned it in an era of big, corporate restaurants.
“Sadly, our time in Miami has come to an end,” they announced on Instagram today.
PASTA was the opposite of most places opening around it. These days, most Wynwood restaurants are clones from elsewhere, fueled by venture capital money and the energy of the DJ booth. At PASTA, it was a modern, simple interior with a tiny menu, almost entirely pasta, made by hand in a small space on a side street. You could tell it was a couple back there cooking what they liked to eat. It felt more like a house party than a corporate restaurant.
Janice Buraschi and Juan Manuel Umbert
The couple was Janice Buraschi, the pastry chef and co-owner, and her husband, Juan Manuel Umbert. Buraschi was born in Lima and trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, staging at Michelin-starred restaurants and running a top-rated Italian spot in Peru before the two came to Miami. They had opened the original PASTA in Lima when Buraschi was 22; the Miami one took two and a half years of construction and permits.
In an interview a few months back, Buraschi told me she likes it that way. “We’re literally together all the time, and I know for many people that sounds tough because they need their own space. But honestly, I think it’s great to share those moments with him and get to accomplish so much together.”
The menu stayed small and personal: agnolotti, cappellacci, cacio e pepe, mortadella meatballs with pistachio pesto, a torta di pistachio di Bronte, and a panna cotta al caffe. What she took from Italy, she told me when I profiled her for The Adventurist, was respect for every step of the process, and an appreciation for simplicity. “Great food doesn’t have to be flashy when you let the ingredients, flavors, and textures speak for themselves,” she said. “That’s when the magic happens!”
I live a short walk from PASTA, and for the last two years, I’d pass it regularly, glancing in to see how full it was. Most nights, I hoped it was fuller than the last time I’d looked.
The last time I went in September, the couple weren’t behind the counter. They’ve been working on a Medellín opening, which their website lists as coming very soon. The place felt different without them. The magic was missing, I think, and I took PASTA off our list of the best restaurants in Miami.
The couple in Lima
Maybe the side street hurt it. Maybe the tiny menu did, or a menu built on carbs in a city obsessed with its image. Miami has no shortage of restaurants with money behind them, and very few places where two people cook what they like to eat.
The announcement ended the way the restaurant ran, with a thank-you: to everyone who walked through the doors, shared a meal, and became friends. I was one of them.
