Timó is the third worthy upscale restaurant (Joseph's Wine Brasserie, Blue) to station a beachhead in Sunny Isles Beach in anticipation of luxury condo owners moving in where small hotels once stood. And Timó, open two months, is clearly the best. Andriola has put together an interesting but easily accessible menu, both to palate and pocketbook. All entrees cost $20 or less, save one, and if you're satisfied with pasta or pizza, you're looking at a check resembling what you'd get at Red Lobster.
Tim Andriola had control of the kitchen in one of Miami's best restaurants, Mark's South Beach, but he wanted more. The quest for his own restaurant took more than a year, and it landed him in his own backyard, Sunny Isles Beach, where he'd lived for more than a decade. His restaurant, Timó -- Italian for ''thyme'' -- is in on the ground floor of what should be the rapid upscaling of this former sleepy beach resort turned Condo Canyon II.
Timó is the third worthy upscale restaurant (Joseph's Wine Brasserie, Blue) to station a beachhead here in anticipation of luxury condo owners moving in where small hotels once stood. And Timó, open two months, is clearly the best. Andriola has put together an interesting but easily accessible menu, both to palate and pocketbook. All entrees cost $20 or less, save one, and if you're satisfied with pasta or pizza, you're looking at a check resembling what you'd get at Red Lobster.
Chef and partner took over digs occupied by the red-checkered-tablecloth Italian cafe Positano. New decor is all about wood: There is a handsome wood bar, wood-fired pizza oven, wood-burning grill, exposed wood beams, wood floors. The effect is warm and inviting, not South Beach sleek: You don't need to sit in the lush leather bar stools to feel comfortable here. Staff is attentive and well-schooled, and Andriola is apt to visit your table to see how things are going.
His menu has a little bit of everything, from sweetbreads and octopus and roasted beets at the precious end to roasted chicken, skirt steak and veal scaloppini on the sturdy one. All dishes, though, ring with a simplicity that hides the meticulous effort that goes into creating them.
First starter was a soup, brodetto of shellfish with orange and tomato ($7). This fragrant soup has elements of bouillabaisse -- shrimp, mussels, clams, fresh tomato -- but the feel is lighter and cleaner, with essence of celery, carrot and onion in the fish broth instead of chunks, and an aggressive touch of orange peel and orange juice that combines with basil and white wine to add a welcome sweet finish.
Andriola spent a summer working in an Italian seaport where he learned the technique for shaved octopus salad with preserved lemon and Greek olives ($11). For those of you who've never shaved an octopus, here goes: The octopus is poached an hour in court bouillon, rolled in cheese cloth, pressed in the freezer to harden, and shaved paper-thin on the slicing machine. The result is cooked octopus ''carpaccio,'' and the thinness of the slices takes advantage of the chewy texture of octopus in a way no other preparation can. The slices are doused with preserved lemon oil, produced from lemons cured in salt for three months (even before Timó opened), then tossed with frisee, fennel, tomato and a green olive vinaigrette.
Andriola seems as much a fan of pork fat as Emeril Lagasse, but unlike the TV ham, he celebrates it in subtle ways. His fried oyster salad ($10) starts with a smoked pancetta vinaigrette with smoked onion, smoked bacon, pancetta, balsamic and a bit of olive oil; the pork is there but it's not, giving this dish supportive richness. More pork fun in the cooking of white beans in prosciutto rinds and rosemary; the soft, luscious oysters themselves are floured with crunchy panko bread crumbs, fried and tossed with the pancetta vinaigrette, along with frisee lettuce and a tomato concasse.
Chicken liver crostini ($8) starts with seared chicken livers, onion and garlic, Marsala wine and whole butter, pureed and spread like Creamy Jif on Wonder Bread onto little ciabatta toasts. Go-alongs include hard-cooked egg and warm asparagus brushed with homemade Marsala vinegar, plus mixed greens with Marsala vinaigrette. Think paté with more zip, brightened by the zesty asparagus.
Among five pizzas, one bearing ricotta and fontina with wild mushrooms, roasted chicken and white truffle oil ($12) must be saluted. It's a virtual flavor dance between the smoky, thin wood-burned crust, the dusky creminis, oysters and portabellos, the pungent fontina and truffle oil, the mildly sweet ricotta, and a zesty tomato concasse. Brilliant.
On to chicken ''oysters,'' and get your mind out of the gutter: Each chicken has two compact nuggets of meat at the intersection of the thigh and backbone, and Andriola roasts them with garlic and olive oil and tosses them with roasted tomato, fresh tomato and a flat, dense Venetian noodle called tagliardi ($13). Maybe a dozen oysters per order, and the dark-meat depth of flavor plays nicely with the light and fruity sauce.
The French once considered artichokes peasant food, and Andriola salutes this with a fish dish, black grouper with artichoke barigoule and artichoke ravioli ($18). Barigoule, a light stew of artichokes with fish broth, vegetables, thyme and bay leaf, provides the base for the plate, and the cooked artichokes are blended with ricotta to stuff the delicate ravioli, three big ones to a serving. Fish was perfectly sautéed.
Roasted pork tenderloin ($17) is marinated three days in orange juice, herbs and Dijon, then grilled over Australian pine, which gives a mesquite-like smoky background. Chick peas are cooked in garlic and pork fat; in go dark poultry stock, roasted peppers and fresh clams. When the clams open, the dish is done. This dish is noisier than most here, but the pork shines through.
If you were to classify Timó, you'd call it Mediterranean-Italian, and a key Italian staple is veal scaloppini ($18). Here, they kick it up with dried porcinis and veal sweetbreads, all sautéed together in Marsala wine, a classic with a twist. It all starts with wonderfully tender veal.
Dessert for the already-full: Granitta ($7) of double espresso with sambuca froth and biscotti is an upscale Sno-Cone in a parfait glass, biscotti on the bottom soaking up the flavors and getting happily soggy; the licorice-y froth on top adding creaminess, the slushy coffee in between. Great stuff. Chocolate cake with roasted banana ice cream ($7) reveals another interesting technique: Cans of sweetened condensed milk are boiled for hours unopened, revealing dulce de leche, which is drizzled over the molten, oozy cake and homemade roasted banana ice cream.
