Miami, 1981

Murders. The Mariel boatlift. A petty crime wave that touched nearly everyone. Wounds, left by the riots in Overtown and Liberty City, barely scabbed over. TIME Magazine’s infamous cover of Nov. 23, 1981, showed a flashy collage of guns, cash, cocaine and busts under the question: PARADISE LOST?

South Beach’s Art Deco District – despite being named only a few earlier as the nation’s first 20th-century historic district – had been dubbed God’s Waiting Room because of its senior population. Decorator’s Row – the Design District – was an interior design center, mostly for the trade. Coconut Grove was the bustling epicenter for tourists and locals, who packed restaurants and cafes and glamorous nightclubs.

And toiling in the heat, amid the sea of French and Italian restaurants that largely defined South Florida’s unremarkable culinary scene in the early 1980s, were a handful of individuals laying the foundation for what we eat today.

In Turnberry Isle, chef Allen Susser was serving well-heeled guests mamey he collected on his trips to the Redland. In Coconut Grove, restaurateur Monty Trainer was making sure the Caesar salad served at The Village Inn, met customer expectations. In Key West, chef Norman Van Aken was plating stuffed veal chop with Marsala, waiting for the next “The Good Cook” installment from Time-Life Books to arrive.

“It was a different Miami, on the verge of a Renaissance,” recalls Susan Brustman, now semi-retired from Brustman Carrino, the public relations firm she founded in 1985. But any culinary rebirth was still far away when Brustman first went to work for Hank Meyer to learn the PR business in the early ‘80s. “I used to go back to New York just to eat.”

Working in the neighborhood of Biscayne Boulevard between 20th and 30th streets, Brustman ate at Arthur’s Eating House and the S&S Diner, still mostly unchanged over the decades. “You’d line up at the counter for big plates of turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce.” She remembers Gibby’s in Fort Lauderdale and their rack of lamb; Cafe Chauveron, The Forge and Joe’s for special occasions; Marcella’s for garlic rolls; and classic Jewish restaurants Pumpernik’s, Rascal House and The Famous Restaurant, on Washington between 6th and 7th streets. The owners of The Famous closed it in 1981, citing crime and the decline of South Beach, but fittingly, it gained renown when its new owners created The Strand, bringing artsy New York chic to the SoBe scene in its infancy.

On the other side of South Beach on Alton Road, Epicure Market was doing a booming catering business in 1981, says executive chef Hector Morales, who started with the family-owned grocery and catering business in 1966 and remains there today. “We were doing luaus, sweet and sour meatballs, Polynesian chicken and pork loins, canapes and tea sandwiches, salmon and caviar,” says Morales. “People liked potatoes – steak fries, potatoes Anna – and lots of roasts and prime meats.” They sold chocolate blackout cake and lots of cookie platters, both still popular today. Lincoln Road, today a nonstop stream of tourists and locals, was quiet in 1981, he says. “You could park anywhere you want.”

GO TO THE GROVE

In South Florida in 1981, it was Coconut Grove that was the sparkling hub of shopping, dining and culture, anchored by the Playhouse, says longtime restaurateur and Coconut Grove Arts Festival president Monty Trainer. “There were big spotlights, limos, really a social happening, cast parties and celebrities like Bea Arthur and Tony Randall,” he recalls. “This was the end of the hippie era of the 60s and 70s ... it got too expensive.” The Grove of the early 80s catered to affluent South American and New York tourists, UM students and locals at places like the Taurus and The Village Inn, Cafe Europa, Kaleidoscope and Horatio’s at the Coconut Grove Hotel. Mayfair in the Grove, the lush, upscale shopping center that opened in 1979, brought in high rollers of all stripes for shopping and nightlife. “There was more of a club scene: Regine’s, Faces in the Grove, the Mutiny,” says Trainer.

Caterer Bill Hansen remembers Coconut Grove in 1981. He’d been looking for an event venue and found it in Villa Woodbine, the Walter de Garmo-designed mansion on South Bayshore Drive. “It had been a party house, a hangout for the Village People, Mary Wilson from the Supremes,” he says. While Hansen worked to get the 1931 property in shape for functions, he was busy operating the Miami Club, one of six downtown city clubs that served as dining and drinking enclaves for businessmen – women were not allowed until 1982. “By the 1980s, it was the end of the three-martini lunch,” he says. “We served Irish lamb stew, meat loaf and what was on the rolling cart – leg of lamb, prime rib, corned beef and cabbage, tenderloin, brisket.” Catering his first party at Vizcaya in 1981, Hansen says the menu included sliced tenderloin, Caesar salad, honey coconut shrimp, crab and lobster fritters, skewered chicken and key lime tart. “No sushi yet,” he said. “Simple wines like Merlot – people weren’t into fine wines. No cosmos or craft beer, just Heineken, Amstel, Miller Lite, Bud.”

Hansen was busy at the Miami Club, one of six downtown city clubs that served as dining and drinking enclaves for businessmen – women were not allowed until 1982.

Social clubs were another place to find good meals in the early 80s. “The Jockey Club, the Cricket Club, the Mutiny were where people could go to socialize, for food and drink,” recalls Allen Susser, who was at Turnberry Isle Yacht & Country Club in 1981 after spending time in the kitchens of Le Cirque in New York and Le Bristol Hotel in Paris. “Turnberry wanted to have the best food in the South,” he says. Susser was serving red snapper with caramelized bananas, a warm salad of mushrooms, local grouper and snapper fresh from the boats.

His pioneering restaurant, Chef Allen’s, would not open until 1986. But the winds of culinary change were blowing from the west in California. “The world started to turn, and with it cuisine that didn’t have to be French or Italian,” Susser says. He visited Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck to see firsthand what they were doing in their restaurants. “I asked them about California cuisine,” he says. “‘What’s that?’ they asked.” Showcasing fresh produce grown by local farmers just made sense. California wines, cheese and butter and other products were getting attention as part of the new American cuisine that James Beard and Julia Child were writing about. “Times were changing,” Susser says. For him, the early 80s were spent tracking down produce from small farms in Homestead and the Redland at Robert is Here and Brooks Tropicals. “You had to go find it,” he recalls. “I would ask them to set aside ripe mamey and tropical fruits to use.” When Allen did open Chef Allen’s, he launched his “bring us your backyard fruit” campaign, asking home growers to trade their mangos in return for dinner for two – an inventive way to bring about farm-to-table awareness, to say nothing of making sure there were plenty of tasty mango dishes on the menu.