This restaurant earned a Michelin star in Spain. Now a sister spot is opening in Miami

Carolina Sanchez, the first chef from Ecuador to earn a Michelin star, wrote her first recipe book when she was seven.

The recipes leaned mostly toward pastry back then, because listen, she was seven: What child doesn’t love dessert? Her maternal grandmother was always making cakes and cookies, and Sanchez couldn’t get enough.

Once she pursued her dream of becoming a chef at the University of Cuenca and Le Cordon Bleu in Lima, though, she turned her attention to a more rounded culinary education. Now, she and her husband and fellow chef Iñaki Murua, with whom she opened the acclaimed Michelin-starred restaurant Ikaro in Spain, are opening a new restaurant in Miami.

Opening an upscale restaurant in the Magic City at a time when everybody seems to be doing the same thing could be daunting. But Sanchez and Murua, who’s from Spain and worked at such Michelin-starred restaurants as Martin Berasategui, Azurmendi and Els Casals, believe Miami presents the best opportunity to introduce themselves to the United States.

“I think Miami is a city that everybody wants to go to,” Sanchez explains via Zoom from Spain. “What we have seen is that people there want to try different things. There’s the food that is always there — Italian food or Mexican food. But what we see is that everybody’s trying to bring new concepts there. It’s a city that is always trying to find new things, and that’s why we want to be there, too.”

Momento by Ikaro, located a few blocks west of the Adrienne Arsht Center, is the first international outpost of Ikaro, which is located in La Rioja in northern Spain and was awarded a Michelin star in 2018. The menu combines Basque and Ecuadorian cuisine and is a draw for travelers following the Camino de Santiago. The Michelin Guide praised Ikaro for its “attractive yet humble cuisine” made with a “high level of technique.”

The new restaurant, designed by CM Design Studio, features an outdoor dining terrace, an open kitchen and a speakeasy-style cocktail lounge.

As far as the menu goes, diners can expect some similarities between Momento by Ikaro and Ikaro itself. The flavors of Latin America and Spain will be at the forefront, as you might expect from a collaboration between an Ecuadorian and Spanish chef. There’s also attention paid to artistic presentation and sophisticated cooking techniques.

But Momento will be more informal in its ambiance and menu than the original, Sanchez says.

The Spanish Ikaro focuses on a tasting menu, small plates that don’t encourage sharing. Momento by Ikaro takes a different path, serving portions designed to share. It will also make use of its wood-fired oven.

“What we want to bring here is to share things, to share moments and to have food that is more like comfort food,” Sanchez says. “But of course, for us, it’s very important that the flavors are there, too.”

Some of the menu highlights include wood-fired branzino with sweet and sour escabeche, a recipe from Sanchez’s grandmother; wood-fired Basque-style turbot to share; glazed bone-in short rib slow-cooked in that same wood-fired oven with tamarillo barbecue sauce; and neapia-marinated cauliflower with brown butter sauce (neapia is a traditional Amazonian condiment made from manioc, starch and chilis). There’s also an Amazonian tiradito, hamachi with the restaurant’s creamy neapia sauce.

Dessert includes a Basque-style cheesecake made with Biscoff cookies and Ikaro’s famous Espuma de Abatonca, or tonka bean foam, with salted caramel ice cream, Ecuadorian chocolate crisps and agave.

One of Sanchez’s menu favorites should have special resonance in Miami: green plantain empanadas filled with crab spiced with beer, fresh herbs and cumin.

“For this menu, we’ve tried to think of the things that we love to eat,” Sanchez says. “So for Iñaki and me, we love these plantains in empanadas. The plantains are very typical in Ecuador. We’ve done it in Europe and for people that we know from other countries, and it’s a thing that they get surprised by, and they like it a lot.”

Sanchez hopes Miami’s growing sophistication as a dining destination brings the curious to Momento by Ikaro.

“Miami was always like a place to go a party, and now it’s a place to go have dinner,” Sanchez says. “That’s a good opportunity for a shift — and for us.”

Momento by Ikaro

Where: 1306 N. Miami Ave., Miami

Opening: Aug. 16

Hours: 6-11 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

Reservations: OpenTable

More information: www.momentomiami.com or 786-909-5144