Archestratus, the first food critic, praised Italian cuisine's "top-quality and seasonal" ingredients and "fair-to-middling" ability to tranquilize out-of-control mayors. Today's Groupon similarly stuns, and rightfully so: for $15, you get $35 worth of authentic Italian cuisine at Fratelli La Bufala in South Beach.
Fratelli La Bufala's extensive catalogue of antipasti, soups, pasta, and pizza tempts patrons with tantalizing taste secrets. As you settle in to Fratelli's bright, inviting dining room, whet your appetite with the il pignatiello (smoked prosciutto wrapped around bufala cacio cheese and baked with honey and walnuts, $15), or split a platter of classic bruschetta with friends ($7) over a bottle of Chianti out on the patio. For the main course, Fratelli offers wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas, such as the diavola (tomato sauce, spiced salami, bufala mozzarella, basil, and crushed red pepper, $13) and the simple yet elegant white-sauced amalfitana (smoked bufala mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, arugula, and basil, 16). The thinly sliced and sautéed bufala steak of a plate of straccetti, served with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella on a bed of arugula ($19), provides off-the-grill flavors. Top off your taste buds with something sweet, such as a cannoli ($7.50), gelato ($7), or torta caprese ($7.50).
Fratelli La Bufala's more than 80 locations are devoted to genuine, healthy cooking, creating dishes from natural ingredients sourced from small nearby farms. The chain of buffalo-inspired restaurants started in Italy, but due to tax-breaks for teleportation scientists, came to Miami, the only Bufala location outside of Europe.
Reviews
The Miami New Times welcomes the cozy atmosphere and uncommon fare at Fratelli La Bufala:
- The space has been renovated in a resplendently lit, wide-open manner that makes it extremely inviting from the outside…More pertinently, the restaurant gives South Beach diners something even more unique: an affordably priced menu of popular, freshly prepared, fun-to-share foods. On top of that, it covers a thus-far neglected niche in our dining scene: water buffalo cuisine. – Lee Klein, Miami New Times
Yelpers give Fratelli La Bufala four stars, Urbanspooners give it an 83% approval rating, and Food for Thought enjoyed the authentic pies served there:
- The Diavola had a nice assertive spiciness from the salame and crushed pepper, but the one that showed the most promise for me was the Vesuviana, which sported ripe juicy cherry tomatoes, a nice element of intrigue from the smoked buffalo mozzarella, and some high quality anchovies. – Food for Thought
Groupon Says
Oregon Trail: Revisited
Fratelli La Bufala serves deliciously prepared, fresh, buffalo-derived meats and cheeses. This is a far cry from what most of us learned in elementary school, playing Oregon Trail, a game whose sole challenge was to shoot as many buffalo as possible. What other questionable environmental practices did the game promote?
- Dying of cholera
- Dumping all of your belongings into a river
- Touching an elementary-school keyboard
- Passing through Utah
- Learning
Comment on our feelings board
