GHIOTTONE Italian Restaurant, Miami Beach

The chefs at Ghiottone Italian Restaurant incorporate recipes and wines from northern, central, and southern Italy. Although they import some ingredients from the Old World, including Tuscan porcini mushrooms and Venetian oils from the region's olive derricks, they source many from local producers and make pastas and sauces in-house. Fried polenta, risotto with truffle oil, and veal scaloppini sautéed in a sicilian marsala wine sauce all help to create a culinary roadmap of Italy from the Mediterranean to the Alps.

Despite the crisp, white tablecloths, the dining room strives to create a more casual ambience with its faux-marble walls and large paintings of the Italian seaside. On the ceiling, an extensive mural of a Roman temple dominates the space, depicting the pantheon of Roman gods as they explain the differences between Ionic and Corinthian columns to the surrounding mortals.