This famous Chicago steakhouse is finally opening its largest restaurant in Miami

One of Chicago’s most famous steakhouses is ready to make its Miami debut.

Maple & Ash, which opened in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood in 2015, is opening March 13 at Miami Worldcenter, the $6 billion, 27-acre mixed-use development of retail and residential units in downtown Miami. Maple & Ash has become one of the top grossing independently owned restaurants in the country, according to Restaurant Business, grossing over $30 million in 2022.

The two-story, 22,000-square-foot restaurant is the largest location for the brand, which also has a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. It will join such restaurants as Michael Beltran’s Brasserie Laurel and the Texas wine bar Sixty Vines at the Worldcenter, which is also home to Lucky Strike bowling, the Museum of Ice Cream and a new Apple store, the first in downtown Miami.

The huge space is divided up into different areas — The Dining Room, The Bar Lounge, The Salon, The Atrium, which features “Upside Palm,” an upside-down palm tree made of more than 10,000 crystal beads and a view of the open kitchen. The idea is that you can go more than once and never have quite the same experience.

Danny Grant, chef and partner for Maple & Ash, said that the restaurant’s playful side meshes well with the Miami aesthetic.

“I think as we come to Miami and are embracing the the environment down here and embracing this celebratory nature of Miami, it’s a perfect pairing for Maple,” says Grant, who was the youngest U.S. chef to earn two Michelin stars in 2011 and 2012 while at Ria, the now-closed restaurant in Chicago. “I walk into a Maple & Ash, and I’m like, ‘All right, this is awesome. I’m ready to go. Let’s eat, let’s drink. Let’s have fun. Let’s let our hair down, and let’s enjoy the moment and embrace it.’ And I think Miami as a community does that better than any other city in the country.”

Maple & Ash is best known as a steakhouse, but Grant says that while steaks are a highlight at the restaurant, they’re not the only reason to make a reservation.

“We’re just a really beautiful wood fired restaurant at heart, and and our goals are to create really delicious, amazing food. And that’s not just steak,” he says. “I think a steak is just such a small part of what we do.”

Grant admits he didn’t eat at steakhouses much before he came to Maple & Ash — “I was like, ‘I could do this better at home,’ he says — but he has come to understand the passion diners have for a perfectly cooked piece of meat.

“The one thing we can’t do when making a steakhouse is you can’t change it so much that people don’t understand it,” he says. “But you can evolve it. . . . selecting the right piece of meat, preparing it the right way, seasoning it the right way, and all that kind of stuff, that makes something special. And that’s true for, I guess, all cooking.”

Meat is of course at the heart of the menu, which offers filet mignon, ribeye, New York strip, lamb chops and other prime cuts of meet, plus a wagyu experience ($225) built around Kobe beef purchased at Japanese auctions. But there are other highlights as well, including the Fire Roasted Seafood Tower ($120-$280), with hearth-roasted shellfish finished off with garlic butter and chili oil, as well as Pillows of Love, which is ricotta agnolotti and winter truffles ($36). The popular Sundae Service ice cream dessert service is offered here, too.

The menu will also feature a few only-in-Miami items, like hamachi crudo served with winter citrus, golden beets and habanero ponzu, Dover sole and a dessert named Orange Dreamsicle, with orange mousse, yuzu puree and mint basil granita.

In a nod to Maple & Ash’s determination to not be your grandfather’s steakhouse, the restaurant also offers its famous “I Don’t Give a F*@k” tasting menu, a chef’s choice menu that costs $225 per person and includes fire-roasted shellfish, boutique farm wagyu, seafood and other seasonal choices. What’s on the menu is adjustable, Grant says.

“If you’re getting a little full, we’ll shrink the menu,” he says. “If you’re still a little hungry, we’ll grow the menu. We’ll evolve and adjust throughout the meal.”

The restaurant opening comes amid an ongoing lawsuit between the former parent company of the brand and with a few former Maple & Ash investors, who say the company misappropriated funds, including federal pandemic relief funds. The suit claims the brand spent $2 million on a private jet in 2021. The defendants deny those claims.

Chicago’s National Public Radio station WBEZ reported that the Chicago and Scottsdale, Ariz., locations of Maple & Ash received about $7.6 million in PPP funds from the U.S. Small Business Administration for payroll costs. Those loans have been forgiven, WBEZ said.

Amid the lawsuit with investors, Maple & Ash founders James Lasky and David Pisor had their own legal drama over ownership of the multiple concepts in Maple & Ash’s original parent company, What If Syndicate. Their dispute was eventually resolved when they divided the brands between the two, according to Restaurant Business. Lasky, along with Grant, retained ownership of Maple & Ash, plus Monarch and Kessaku brands. Lasky’s new group, Maple Hospitality Group also includes Eight Bar and The Studio.

Grant declined to comment on the lawsuit, preferring to focus on the new restaurant and its place in a swiftly changing Miami, one that’s grown into — dare we say it? — a real food city.

“I’m loving it,” said Grant, who has been living in the Edgewater neighborhood. “Where should I go tonight? I don’t know — there are 9,000 awesome options to choose from. So many great chefs, so many great restaurants, and it can be anything from really high end, to just a casual, cool neighborhood spot that you kind of bump into. So I’m loving it as a diner.”

Like many new restaurateurs heading into the market, Grant isn’t worried about the high volume of new restaurants opening in the city.

“Being able to play in that market is exciting for us,” he says. “Is there competition when you have more and more and more going on? Absolutely, but I think for me and our company, we’ve always looked at it as we want more great restaurants around us, because it’ll bring more great people to come out to dinner.”

Maple & Ash

Where: 699 NE First Ave., Miami

Opening: March 13

Hours: 5-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 5 p.m.-midnight Friday-Saturday

Reservations and more information: www.mapleandash.com or 305-901-8885

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