Congratulations are in order. You’ve been promoted to that office with a view you’ve coveted since back in the lowly junior associate days. From here, it’s private jets to private golf courses where you’ll have private conversations about how to suck the souls of junior associates. It’s time to celebrate your new corporate lordship, and there are few better choices in town than the stately, lavish confines of Fiola, wherein you will celebrate like a true captain of industry.
Located in Coral Gables, it’s a sister restaurant to the Fiola in D.C. and Venice (the one in Italy, not the Florida one where grandma used to collect shark’s teeth). Like its other locations, Fiola is designed to wow, with ultra-attentive service, ornately plated dishes, and the final bill—all appearing like the point is to be a bit more than you could get anywhere else.
The interior here seems designed to feel like the hangout for corner office types, wooden floors and cabinets looking, as Ron Burgundy would say, like rich mahogany. Pleated armchairs are the color and feel of French butter, and the glass-enclosed cases in the cellar room are as tidy as a priest’s communion wine cabinet. The outdoor seating feels no less important, tables in stark white linen below a veranda’s tray ceilings, leafy plants keeping the riff-raff away from your Kaluga caviar-topped yellowfin tartare. All this pomp isn’t to say Fiola is stuffy; instead, the dining room buzzes with servers who seem to be scurrying to something important at all times, and the conversation level of battle-tested CEOs is set to 11.
Bred along Italy’s Adriatic coast, chef/owner Fabio Trabocchi earned a Michelin star for his D.C. restaurant. In Coral Gables, he brought in Miami native Danny Ganem, whose gorgeous plates look like they require a whole team of tweezer-wielding sous chefs (seriously: you should follow him on the ‘gram). But he also puts out dishes that are memorably good. Early in his tenure, he introduced a rich and savory lasagna like no other anywhere, with pasta noodles rolled up around eel and wagyu short rib, standing upright and handsome, dotted with flowers and greens. The menu encourages eating as the Italians do, so expect small-ish servings of pasta in delicate sauces to proceed to a protein, like a spiny lobster with chanterelles and lobster mushrooms, adorned with enough flowers to make you think the dish is also a garden.
Because you’re now a C-suite big deal who shouldn’t worry about padding the expense report, perhaps you can ignore the prices—which are quite high, even by the standards of the Manhattan office of your firm. We’re talking $35 for a three-drink old-fashioned flight, $85 for spaghetti chitarra with black truffles, and $82 for the Dover sole. A $125 six-course pasta omakase that arrived in summer 2022 is for the executives unafraid of carbs. For the CFOs out there who like to keep things tight, there’s an aperitivo hour from 4pm to 7 p.m Tuesday to Friday with $10 cocktails along with reasonably pried bites like a $12 cacio e pepe. There’s also a three-course lunch special for $42.
Throughout a meal at Fiola, there will be servers and food runners and somebody just to top off the waters, all attentive and ready to answer the deepest question about the menu’s secrets. Champagne will be encouraged at the start, truffles will be shaved, and the final course will be drawn out into desserts and dessert drinks and maybe just one more before the night ends. After all, you’re a big deal, or at least pretending like it for one night, and shouldn’t you have a place like Fiola to remind you?