Floribbean cuisine to highlight the month of May at MLH

Florida plus Caribbean equals spicy fusion cuisine, to quote the Rob Report, “At its best, New Floribbean cuisine is bright, colourful, and tantalising. It’s a marriage of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The complexity of the spices and soft fruit and citrus flavours can be a bit daunting at first, but then again, no great dish was loved on the first taste.”

What on earth is Floribbean food? The answer ties back into the wonderful melting pot of cultures found in the city of Miami. Floribbean is generally a mingling of culinary influences from Caribbean islands like the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti and Jamaica. These island cooking styles have mixed with Miami’s proximity cities including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and creation style unlike anything else in the world.

New Floribbean cuisine is the evolution of nouvelle cuisine and fusion cuisine based on indigenous ingredients. Nouvelle cuisine focuses on fresh local ingredients, smaller portions, with local fruits and vegetables, all presented with flair.

A number of herbs, fruit, vegetable garnishes and fresh greens are used to give the dish a healthy, straight from the kitchen feel. MLH General Manager Anura Dewapura stated, “It’s a dynamic mixing of flavours: elaborate pairings of powerful spices, slowly melts away into softer flavours. A wide variety of fruits and fruit juices are used to augment the flavours of the spices.”

Menus utilising mangos, papaya, avocados, plantains, various hot peppers and other island specialties mixed with abundant seafood are now the norm in Floribbean cuisine. It also blends hot, spicy Caribbean flavours with softer accents of cinnamon, honey and allspice in addition to oregano, cumin and cilantro. When Floribbean dishes combine elements from all these traditions, you will definitely see heat from peppers balanced by sweetness from fruit. Other elements such as coconut and rum are common, too.

New techniques and flavours will be added on keeping the evolving Floribbean cuisine deliciously exciting.

Floribbean Cuisine with South beach cocktails will take place from 14 to 19 May, at the Governor’s Terrace.