Truluck’s holds reign as the premiere place for seafood
by JP Faber
One of the great mysteries of Miami is why there are not more seafood restaurants in a city that rests on the mouth of a river feeding into Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. If you dine at Truluck’s – one of the oldest restaurants in the high-rise maze of Miami’s Brickell financial district – it really doesn’t matter. You need to look no further for stunningly fresh food from the ocean. Chef Odel Arencibia, who cut his teeth as a chef for Sol Melia hotels in Cuba, followed by stints at Capital Grille, Addison Reserve, and the Mondrian on Miami Beach, is modest about his contribution to the mantra of fresh seafood. “We go for the best ingredients, the best fish, the best crabs, from anywhere in the world – including the best down here, like black grouper and stone crabs,” he says. “If there is an angle for us to improve or enhance, we will, but we fight for the prime seafood, fresh out of the water.”
That translates into lobster tails from South Africa, colossal king crab legs from Alaska, branzino from the Mediterranean waters off Spain and Greece, sea scallops from the New England coast, giant prawns from Nigeria, and so on, often prepared with as little intervention as possible. “We don’t do much to our sea scallops, for example,” says Chef Odel, beyond grilling and serving them with an Italian piccata sauce enhanced with a subtle flavor base of popcorn. “We try to dress them just a bit, but they are premium on their own.”
Having said that, some of Chef Odel’s enhancements bring out the best. His sea bass, from the Pacific waters off Chile, is marinated in miso and then glazed with a miso reduction that provides a hint of sweet and sour without overpowering the flaky, flavorful fish. It’s served on a bed of fried rice with crab meat and fresh veggies, topped with cucumber slaw and a drizzle of ‘Hawaiian’ sauce (Japanese mirin, fresh jalapeño, and soy). Another dish of complex tastes is Chef Odel’s crab and shrimp Napoleon – “one of those dishes you can share,” he says – a layered cake of crab meat, shrimp meat, and diced mangoes and tomatoes, stacked on a slice of beefsteak tomato in a pool of smoked tomato vinaigrette.
The result is an unusual, refreshing combination of tastes. In some dishes, Chef Odel’s intervention is minor, just enough to heighten the flavor. His delightful tuna crudo is made from sushi-grade ahi, folded together with avocado, lime, and sea salt. Other fruits of the sea are presented as is, in all their glorious freshness, simply accompanied by a dipping sauce – plump shrimp from the Indian Ocean served with a chili-based cocktail sauce, or jumbo stone crabs served with a mustard-based sauce. There are plenty of sides to accompany the main dishes, like lyonnaise potatoes with a truffle drizzle or garlic mashed cauliflower.
There is also a quartet of steaks on the menu and a fine iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese and warm bacon. But seafood is king here. The setting for Truluck’s is as elegant as its food and service. Occupying the ground floor of the Truist high rise, the entrance is skirted by a circular driveway that wraps around a large black olive tree, an easy entrance for valet parking. Inside, the seating is either at red-leather banquettes or free-standing tables, all white tablecloth adorned with fresh red roses. The lighting and background music are both muted so as not to upstage the cuisine. Truluck’s is a national chain, with six locations in Texas, two in Florida, one in Illinois, and one in Washington DC, so they take pains to provide consistency in service and product, albeit with variation for local seafood options. The waitstaff performs impeccably, providing a reliably sophisticated restaurant experience. “Ours is a tradition of good food and good drink, with an elegance that doesn’t feel stuffy,” says Kim Vazquez, Truluck’s Brickell managing partner. “Plus, the seafood is transcendent.”
