Locally made and small-scale food purveyors have sprung up across South Florida, with some having turned their passion into major businesses that go beyond the neighborhood farmers market or word-of-mouth sales.
Along with this movement have come men and women who started as home food makers and are, through a multitude of paths, making an impact into the culinary world as professionals. Many are self-taught — from cheesemakers to butchers to bakers — and have taken their hands-on knowledge from cramped apartments to popular food halls or modest brick and mortar locations. But one thing is clear — they all started their careers by bringing a level of obsessiveness — and professionalism — to the food-making process typically reserved for larger companies with big budgets — and have shown that, on any given day, these businesses provide residents the opportunity to stock their kitchens with something unique and local while also feeling fulfilled by knowing they have supported local businesses.
Fookem’s Fabulous
It doesn’t get any more quintessential South Florida than Key lime pie and one plucky entrepreneur has found success with his version of this tart-yet-sweet citrus dessert. Started by former reality show producer Joshua Abril, who lost his job during the pandemic and decided to start making and selling the pies from his Coconut Grove home, a slice of Key lime from Fookem’s quickly grew in reputation and gained media attention.
“I began selling slices in front of my house to help make ends meet after getting furloughed in 2020, but I’d had the recipe for some time,” explains Abril, 42. “Many people ask how long I’ve had a passion for baking. In truth, my passion is for travel, and in terms of dishes that capture a sense of place, I would argue that none do so better than Key lime pie for South Florida. When you think about that in comparison to all the other heritage foods out there — paella to Valencia, Philly cheesesteak to Philadelphia, etc. — we should feel very lucky for that, especially considering how quickly the face of South Florida is changing. It’s almost like a culinary anchor for our culture down here, and as a wanderlust, that inspired me to make the best version that I could.”
Abril began by riding around the Grove selling pies from a pink cargo bike and eventually set up a stand in front of his house where he sold the beloved sweet treat. Soon thereafter, he started supplying pies to several Grove restaurants, including Barracuda Taphouse & Grill, Sandbar Sports Grill, Shore to Door Fish Market and Botanico Gin & Cookhouse.
He now has a Key lime pie vending machine at Julia & Henry’s, a flashy new food hall in Downtown Miami. “That was an amazing stroke of luck,” says Abril of the vending machine. “At one point, I bought an ice cream tricycle to pedal my pies around Coconut Grove, and a project manager for the food hall thought it would be a great way to fill a space that couldn’t accommodate a food-prep unit. I explained that while the pie mobile is fun, its functionality makes it more of a mobile billboard than anything. A very long story short, a friend had sent me a video of a cupcake vending machine, I suggested it, and the pie hole was greenlit.”
There are plans to open a stand-alone shop in Coconut Grove, which is currently in the permitting process. Through it all Abril remains grateful for the neighborhood support that allowed him to grow so quickly. “Coconut Grove was, until recently, more like the northernmost Florida key than a City of Miami neighborhood, making Key lime pie very apropos; that and Coconut Grove’s street-vendor history quickly endeared me with neighbor clients, and I focused very much on being a community-oriented business.”
Proper Sausages
This couple knows how the sausage gets made — literally — and they take pride in using only the best ingredients and heritage organic grass-fed meats. Started by husband-and-wife team Freddy Kaufmann, who graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan and London-born Daniella, 42, the brand began as an offering at local farmers markets in 2011. Word quickly spread in the food and chef community of the couple’s exceptional products. The hand-stuffed sausages are made of prime cuts that are ground, instead of the traditional fat-heavy butcher’s scraps that were the province of cured meats of yore.
“If people are going to buy food from us, we believe that it is our responsibility to provide them with the highest quality ingredients,” says Freddy, 45. “Everything else flows from that. We have a couple of strong feelings about food, and we stick to that.”
That same year, the duo opened their own shop in Miami Shores and it has been a fixture in the culinary scene ever since then, providing, not just sausages, but also prepared foods, butcher cuts of meat and a grab-and-go sandwich menu with a cult following for items like “The Reubenish” made with Wagyu corned beef, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut and “The Pulled Pork” made with slow-roasted Duroc pork shoulder on a Portuguese muffin.
Sweet Melody
Sweet Melody began when its owner, Mike Romeu, bought a $50 lime green ice cream maker at BrandsMart USA in 2014. It sat untouched for a year and a half, at first in a storage unit while he was moving homes, and then in the corner of the garage, still in its box. After losing his job, as if by serendipity, the ice cream maker found its way back into his life.
“Rinsing off that ice cream maker and turning it on changed my life forever,” says Romeu, CEO and owner of Sweet Melody. “Since then, I have strived to make the best ice cream you will ever try. I named the shop after the person I love most in this world, my daughter, Melody. This way, I know we will always make our ice cream the best it can possibly be.”
In 2019, after lots of experimentation and trial and error, Romeu, 45, opened his ice cream factory and dairy plant in West Kendall, but because of strict health code rules he couldn’t open a scoop shop or retail outlet onsite. Then he got an idea: Why not make a window where he could serve customers without them having to set foot inside the shop?
“The window was born out of necessity,” Romeu says.
Miami’s first ice cream ventanita was a hit, allowing customers to buy scoops and take-away pints from the walk-up window. The Ventanita, which translates to “little window” is modeled on the Cuban coffee windows prevalent in the Little Havana neighborhood and offers customers a quick way to buy a pint or scoop. He opened a scoop shop in Palmetto Bay in 2020 but had to shutter it after a year in 2021. Then in 2022 ice cream lovers were elated when Sweet Melody opened a new location in Coral Gables, offering their artisanal flavors that incorporate Miami influences like the guava and cream cheese and “Abuela’s Flan” inspired by Romeu’s grandmother’s dessert. A tropical mamey flavor is unique to the Coral Gables location, which also features limited-edition monthly flavors like “Apple of my Pie” (offered at The Ventanita as well) made with fresh apple ice cream accented by a hint of Grand Marnier.
Mimmo’s Mozzarella
The gourmet market-bistro combination is an utterly charming and highly functional dining experience (think New York’s Eataly but on a smaller scale) that is sorely lacking in Miami. There are far too few truly authentic culinary markets and too few of those offer substantial eat-in opportunities in which to enjoy all the gourmet bounty contained on their shelves. But it’s exactly this magical hybrid of market and cafe where Mimmo’s Mozzarella Italian Market succeeds in being a community favorite for over ten years. Owner Bruno Ponce is a burrata cheese whisperer of sorts, able to coax creamy deliciousness from humble curds. An Argentine whose grandfather emigrated from Bari, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, to Buenos Aires, Ponce, 46, began peddling his homemade spheres of fresh burrata filled with creamy stracciatella in 2010 and quickly began supplying fresh product to Miami chefs and restaurants seeking a superb product that didn’t need to be shipped from Italy. The market and cafe soon followed, offering patrons the opportunity to try Ponce’s other cheese varieties like scamorza (a smoked, aged mozzarella), fresh ricotta and mozzarella sfoglia (rolled with prosciutto di Parma, arugula and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese). Recently, Ponce has started offering 2-hour cheese classes on a monthly basis where aspiring cheese makers can learn to make fresh mozzarella and burrata and then enjoy a cheese tasting with wine, charcuterie and dessert.
“Our cheese class is a great way to spend an evening with friends and learn a new craft. The best part is that you get to take your cheese home and show how you are now ‘the master of cheese,’” says Ponce.