Sometimes, to find what you are looking for, you may have to search in an unlikely place. You have to shed your preconceptions and be open to bliss, even if prior experience says you are setting yourself up for disappointment. This ethos applies to any vegetarian gourmand traveling to Miami. Because, if you are looking for delicious, satisfying, and interesting vegetarian food in a restaurant that is unique to SoBe, you might just have to go to Yardbird.
Yardbird is a Southern-style restaurant that opened last October, joining a modest number of local establishments that have opened recently in the vein of uplifting Miami’s culinary reputation. These new restaurants are offering interesting and high-quality food and providing some much needed competition to the vast number of outpost restaurants that especially overrun South Beach. Most of these new eateries are skim on the vegetarian and vegan provisions. But surprisingly, Yardbird offers some tempting vegetarian varieties alongside the chicken biscuits and barbeque ribs. As for vegans? Well, vegans may want to move onto the next review.
For the lacto-ovo vegetarian, there’s a lot of goodness to be had, starting with the pimento cheese jar. Fire-roasted pimento peppers are blended into soft cheese along with other aromatics and served in a mini jar with celery sticks, heirloom carrots and house-made crackers. Don’t be fooled by the size of the jar…there’s a lot of cheese in there. And if you’re not careful, you can keep munching until you’ve cleaned it out entirely.
Among the starters, there are a few more options open to vegetarians. The “melons & cheese” is a popular item that pairs two slices of watermelon with grilled hunks of farmer’s cheese, celery, and Meyer lemon Texas olive oil. The butter lettuce and grilled mango salad is also a crowd pleaser topped with smoked pecans and beniseed (sesame seed) vinaigrette. Southern “edamame” consists of steamed peas pods topped with Atlantic Sea salt and spicy chili butter.
Among the entrees, there is really only one option: a creamy vegetable pot pie filled with wild mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and teeny and tiny potatoes and topped with clouds of buttermilk biscuits. While the dish is earthy, satisfying and easily one of the healthiest on the menu, you won’t be writing home about it. Instead, indulge in an array of “fixins”. Adluh, SC stone ground cheesy grits won’t disappoint – fluffly, salty corn goodness just like grits should be and made without any animal broth. Everyone has a favorite mac and cheese, and this might just be yours. Open spirals of torchio pasta are covered with golden, nutty Grayson, VA cheese that has a stretchy quality making this pasta fun to eat and free of any animal broth. Herbed breadcrumbs finish off the small but deep cast-iron pot. For something to cut through the richness, try oven-roasted squash slices caramelized in the oven and served with Greek-style yogurt and smoked pecans. And the list wouldn’t be complete without mashed potatoes, biscuits and corn (the last of which arrives in three iterations – grilled sweet corn, fried hominy, and crispy cornbread crumbles).
For a restaurant that claims, “there are two types of people in the world. Those that love fried chicken and communists,” there is quite a spread of vegetarian options. Though many are hidden among the starters and “fixins,” in my opinion, those are the best parts. If you’re in Miami Beach soon and looking for good local food, pause the calorie-counting and dig in at Yardbird.
Yardbird
1600 Lenox Avenue at 16th Street
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305-538-5220
Currently based out of Boston, Jesal is a blogger, freelance writer, yoga enthusiast and lifelong vegetarian who spent four years eating her way through New York City and various other cities around the globe. After answering hundreds of emails and phone calls answering the question, "Where's a cool place I can take my vegetarian friend out to eat" she started Veggiewala to efficiently share her knowledge of the vegetarian food scene with curious carnivores, flexitarians and other vegetarians.