Could this intimate South Miami spot be the best restaurant you haven’t tried yet?

The best restaurant you haven’t been to yet sits on a street in South Miami, a block or so off U.S. 1, across the street from the boisterous Fox’s Lounge. It is small, charming and welcoming and named Recoveco, which means “nook” in Spanish.

“Nook” is an appropriate description for Recoveco, which seats 32 and has a tiny but impressive menu. What the restaurant doesn’t have is a specific concept, which makes it a little tricky to tell your friends about.

Husband-and-wife owners and chefs Nicolas Martinez and Maria Teresa Gallina — or Nico and Tere, if you prefer — know that not having an easy shorthand to describe their first restaurant can be confusing.

“It’s kind of a volatile decision not to have a concept,” Gallina admits. “Even the landlord was asking: ‘So what’s the menu?’ ”

Martinez says the concept, which has been open a little more than a month and relies on seasonal availability, is in the process of being defined. But it will never be ultra specific.

“We want to work with as many local products as we can and have a menu that has something for everybody,” he says, adding that they’ll be displaying “influences from places we worked in the past.”

This is promising news for students of Miami culinary history (and anyone with a functioning palate). Gallina and Martinez met in 2017 while working as sous chefs at Chef Brad Kilgore’s legendary Alter, one of the original restaurants to lure foodies to Wynwood.

When Alter closed in 2020, Gallina and Martinez eventually moved on to Itamae, the highly-praised Japanese-Peruvian fusion spot from chefs Nando and Val Chang, who recently won Miami’s first James Beard Award for Best Chef: South in 14 years. The restaurant began as a counter in the MIA Market food hall (then St Roch Market), eventually moved into its own space across the Design District’s Palm Court and closed in 2023.

Kilgore posted a glowing recommendation on his Instagram account when Recoveco opened, praising Gallina and Martinez and writing that the restaurant “would fit in any dining scene in the country.”

“I have been very excited for their growth over the past several years and now they have built (quite literally) their own place,” he wrote. “They are both technicians and cook very precisely (Nico has the sharpest knives of anyone I know). You can see that in their style here but it’s not too pretentious in the best way. Delicious, fun, new, and still their own style.”

Recoveco shares Alter’s attention to flavor, in the crisp freshness of the celery and lovage salad with apriums (a fruit that’s sort of a cross between a plum and an apricot), pepitas and parmigiano reggiano; in the snapper crudo with savory horchata, fermented long hots (peppers) and hazelnut oil; in the grouper with sherry sabayon, agretti and grains of selim, which is served with a sauce so flavorful it is not unheard of for diners to drink it once the fish is gone.

Gallina and Martinez planned the menu by considering the number of cooks they would use (four) and deciding to highlight around 12 items, maybe a few more. The menu will change with the seasons, but diner favorites will play a role in that decision as well.

“Oftentimes when you cook in a restaurant you don’t want to cook the same thing all the time,” Gallina says. “But there are things the guests love so much, and you get famous for them.”

At the moment, the biggest hit — deservedly so — is the grassfed beef tongue, sliced thin and served with whipped sesame, chimichurri and homemade crackers, although it has taken a little convincing to persuade some diners to try it. Gallina has lured the wary into trying it by sending samples to tables that don’t order it.

“If one table gets it, I can tell the next table wants to get it, too, so we send over a couple of bites,” she says. “Once you get people to cross that barrier, they’re coming back and ordering it.”

The Pennsylvania golden chicken, served with green mango sauce and hoja santa (a Mexican herb), also has the potential to elicit comments: It’s served with one of the feet still attached. Gallina says that occasionally, diners will request it served without the foot. But there is a point to the presentation.

“It’s not that common to see,” Martinez acknowledges. “For us, it was so important to find a product we could get whole and see the quality.” That foot is a testament to its freshness, he says. “It’s unique. But I think it’s working so far.”

The chefs also work closely with sommelier Shannon Gable, formerly the manager of Niu Wine in downtown Miami, with whom they worked at Itamae. Gable, who also helps manage the front of house and “does a little bit of everything,” said that attention to detail is a big part of what makes Recoveco special.

“They really appreciate the ingredients in every dish,” she says. “They pay a lot of attention to what it is they’re working with.”

They work together well, too. Martinez, for example, had an idea to use sherry sabayon, a light sauce made with eggs, sugar and wine, in the grouper dish and noticed Gable had an Oloroso sherry on the menu as an aperitif. He now uses it in the dish to incorporate its rich, almost nutty flavor. If you order it, listen to Gable’s pairing suggestion, and you’ll see how well they harmonize.

Gallina and Martinez, of course, designed more than the menu: They designed the space, originally zoned as an office. A change in the building code offered them a chance to create the restaurant of their dreams, one with an open kitchen and located away from the restaurant-heavy neighborhoods of Wynwood and the Design District.

Martinez, who is originally from Uruguay, assembled the furniture and created the graphic design for the business cards. The Venezuelan-born Gallina, who came to Miami at 15 and attended Lourdes Academy and the University of Miami, made aprons, and her sister created the art on the walls. With Gable, who grew up in Kendall and attended Killian High and Florida International University, they have created a small locals’ paradise.

“People say they understand that it’s fine dining,” Gallina says. “But inside, it’s cozy and inviting. Anybody can come here and eat. It’s like all the restaurants we like to go to. They all make you feel at home.”

Recoveco

Where: 6000 SW 74th St., Suite 1, South Miami

Hours: 5:30-10 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

More information and reservations: recovecorestaurant.com or 305-204-1811